The Hobart Chronicles XXXIX: Water is wide

"Because the water is wide
And I cannot get over
Neither have I
The wings to fly."

- traditional

What a lot of water. It’s been falling from the skies in continuous sheets every afternoon and evening. This is my first experience of a tropical monsoonal low, and I’m fascinated.

I’ve been thinking a lot about water and the Top End these last few days. Duhwin, like Slobart, is an active port city centred around a sizeable harbour. It’s an interesting point of comparison, which I decided to explore a little.

On Sunday I took the ferry to Mandorah. This takes you across the Darwin Harbour, where the water is so very different to that of the estuarine Derwent River. Darwin Harbour is a bright jade green, and like jade is opaque. There’s apparently a fair bit of sediment swirling around down there, clouding the water.

The ferry trip was recommended by a number of locals, who consider it to be a quintessential Duhwin experience. Mandorah is a considerable distance from the city, taking about an hour and a half by car; it's a mere 15 minutes across the water. While pleasant, it’s debatable as to whether the trip is worth it, as at the other end there is only the Mandorah Pub to visit. Listed on various tourist brochures and blogs as a quaint, typical “Top End Experience”, it’s scheduled for demolition shortly into the new year and now I can see why. I was expecting an oasis surrounded by miles of tropical scrub: a charming combination of ceiling fans and louvred windows, with perhaps some cane furniture and a Long Island Iced Tea option. What I actually found was, as Sister K put it upon her return to work on Monday, the sort of place you hose out at the end of the night. The clientele were also what you might expect for this sort of establishment. I ordered an obligatory beer and didn’t stay for the “famous” barra & chips – it didn’t look like a sanitary dining option.

The pier and beach were more interesting. The 200m of beach from pier to pub was a wonder of red and yellow sandstone, and the coral and shell detritus showed an interesting reef sat offshore under the murky jade water. Several of the shells I picked up housed tiny hermit crabs; it was the first time I’ve ever seen hermit crabs in their natural habitat and I was captivated. I spent so long looking at them, I was also sunburnt. There were several shiny, bloated cane toads on the boat ramp, evidently dispatched by the locals. There's no doubt their march west has reached the top end. Disturbing.

The pier itself is built to deal with a wild variance of tides – when we docked, more than 10 metres of the structure was exposed. You climb several stories to reach the pier and walk to shore. The lower levels are completely encrusted with a tiny variety of oyster, and it’s a popular fishing spot. I saw a school of garfish circling in the shallows.

My walk from the pier to the pub was the first time I’ve set foot onto a beach in the Top End, and I was the only one who did – everyone else took the concrete path. In Slobart, people don’t go to the few beaches much (except to walk the dog) because it’s often cold and windy, and the Derwent can carry pretty unpleasant e-coli levels at times. In Duhwin, people similarly avoid the many beaches, even when waking the dog, but rather because of crocodiles and box jellyfish. I took what some of the more paranoid locals would consider a calculated risk on that 200m of sand.

Last night I began New Years Eve at a low-key party populated entirely by Corporation folk and their attachments out in the burbs; it was civilised and pleasant company. However, I had to be back at work to deliver a damned weather warning at 11pm. Sister K hitched a lift back into town with me, and after duty was seen to we went looking for a good vantage point to see the midnight fireworks. Alas, the docks area was inexplicably blocked off; we counted down with the Coodabeens in transit, and about 3 minutes into 2008 we were having the first beer of the year at the Ski Club overlooking the beach. Surf was up, with ‘waves’ of about 30cm. That’s unusual here.
"Look," I said. "Waves!"
"Mmm," said Sister K. "Must be monsoon."


Happy New Year.