23 minute read
Torres Strait Islands
Tales of
thesea
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The remote islands of Australia’s Torres Strait lie in one of the most hazardous stretches of water in the world, but those who make it there will find stories and wildlife well worth the effort
Words Lizzie Pook
ake a look. Go on. What do you think “Tthat island is made of?” asked my guide Dirk Laifoo, handing me a pair of binoculars and gesturing northward. I took them and squinted at a jagged mass of dark brown bobbing on the open sea. My mouth fell open. “It’s… metal,” I said slowly, then peered closer. “Are they baskets or something?” This small island, scorched by the sun and cast adrift in one of the most remote stretches of water in northern Australia, looked like something left behind from a Mad Max film.
I looked through the binoculars again and saw that bright corals clung to the darkest baskets at the bottom. Moving my eyes upwards, I spied tiny terns with fierce beaks perched atop the pile. It would not be the last occasion during my time in the Torres Strait Islands that my jaw was left hanging.
This clutch of some 274 tropical isles languishes between the northern tip of Australia’s Cape York and Papua New
Guinea, and just 17 of them are inhabited. Across these you’ll find distinct cultures, languages and histories, yet the area is little explored by tourists, who only tend to venture as far north as Queensland’s glitzy Great Barrier Reef or the lush Daintree rainforest. The Strait is a more rugged prospect. It is a place where seawater pumps through the veins of islanders and the practices of navigating by the stars, reading the tides or fishing for trochus shells and bêche-de-mer (sea cucumber) still thrive.
Many locals have links to the sea. Dirk’s great grandfather came over from China to set up in Queensland’s Palmer River
Goldfields, but he ended up buying a small fleet of pearling luggers to try his hand at diving for the Strait’s coveted
Pinctada maxima – the largest pearl oyster in the world.
In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, huge quantities of mother-of-pearl shell were exported from northern Australia. It was a lucrative but perilous industry. Men walked the seabeds in heavy copper helmets, facing off with crocodiles, sharks and sea snakes. When the shallows were picked clean, pearlers were forced to dive off the continental shelf, a legendary place known as the ‘Darnley Deep’. It is an area so cavernous that many succumbed to the bends just trying to resurface, or simply drowned.
At the cemetery on Thursday Island (Waiben), the biggest hub on the Torres Strait, I came across a memorial dedicated to over 700 divers who died while fishing for pearls in the region. The archipelago is riddled with these hidden histories, little known to outsiders. As I explored, I began to find myself as captivated by these as the islands’ mangroves and wildlife.
CULTURE CAPITAL
The Strait’s main township sprawls across Thursday Island (TI), which is home to some 3,500 people. Many are government employees. The archipelago’s position – just a dinghy ride from Papua New Guinea – has long had strategic importance: firstly to the trade ships of the 1800s, and now for Australian defence and biosecurity. But it was clear from the moment I arrived that this was more than just an administrative hub. ⊲
Water worlds (clockwise from left) Children splash in the sea of low-lying Saibai, one of many islands in the Torres Strait at risk from rising sea levels; the European lust for pearls saw divers scour the seabed in copper diving helmets, a profession that was fraught with danger; you can explore the island’s history at the Torres Strait Heritage Museum; (previous spread) gaze out across the Strait from the ‘Tip’ on Cape York, the northernmost point of the Australian mainland
From the wharf a sliver of beach on the mainland was still – mingle and people sing loudly and proudly here about their visible across the Strait. An old guy in a straw hat and chinos heritage. As I strolled around I saw the names of ancestral was taking pictures of seagulls while a small child hopped about villages written on pastel-painted front doors. Statues dediin the shallows waving a snorkel next to a yellow sign that read: cated to ancestors were lovingly presented in front gardens ‘Warning, Achtung, Crocodiles Inhabit This Area’. It was hot and garlanded with flowers and gleaming pearl shells. and humid. The slow putter of engines purred in the air and The fusion of cultures was most audible in the collision of a man in a red tin boat leant over his hull to tug on a single Creole and English that drifted from busy street-side tables. fishing line draped in the water. The message was loud and Even the community notices, pinned here and there, revealed clear: life here is slow; there is no need to rush. Japanese art galleries, Christian bookshops and communi-
Further into town, a few minutes’ walk from the wharf, ty-centre events focused on healthcare for Torres Strait Islandthe island remained green and tropical. ers. Yet, for all the islands feel like their Hairy coconuts speckled the middle of own world, they are far from cut off. an empty road and red dragonflies, like “The fusion of When I visited, Australia’s general flying poppies, motored through the air outside the small minimarket, their cultures was most election was in full swing and many locals wore T-shirts bearing political presence signalling the shift from the audible in the slogans or carted billboards onto rickwet season to the dry. collision of Creole ety, sun-bleached ferries. It was also
The sun was beating down hard, yet the 30th anniversary of the landmark the island’s 10km looping trail proved and English that ‘Mabo decision’, when a local Meriam irresistible. I made it far enough around drifted from busy man from Murray (Mer) island, Eddie to spy witchy mangrove forests and black flying foxes roosting in the shadowy tree- street-side tables“ Koiki Mabo, successfully fought at the High Cour t for Aboriginal and tops overhead before the heat got too Torres Strait Islander land rights to intense. The laid-back island atmos- be acknowledged. He is something of phere was clearly contagious and I turned back towards town. a hero in the Strait, and flags and posters everywhere recalled Besides, something else had caught my eye instead. the moment with pride.
I made my way to Australia’s northernmost pub, the slightly battered Torres Hotel. This is one of the most isolated places on STAYING AFLOAT the planet to have a pint, but the locals I spoke to had other ideas. One constituency that doesn’t care much for politics are the
“It’s too built up,” they agreed, saying that people from the crocodiles that shelter in the island’s creeks, their armoured outlying islands considered a trip to TI to be “going into town”. tails stretched idly across the sun-baked mud flats. The same
Busy or not, the islands are a rich meeting point for goes for the deadly box and irukandji jellyfish that are known languages, cultures and opinions. This is where two First to hang still beneath the surface of the seas. As Dirk and Nations communities – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander I made our boat trip around the islands, I kept my eyes ⊲
peeled warily for both. Along the way, turtles upped their periscope heads to observe us and huge jabiru storks moved on spindly legs through the shallows as showers of fish leapt from the water in silvery arches of tossed glitter.
Dirk told me how, long ago, his father had brought horses over from the Australian mainland, swimming them through shark-infested waters: first to Friday Island, then to the larger Prince of Wales Island (Muralag). I asked him how his father had kept them from getting eaten. He raised two fingers in tandem, like a pistol, and pointed them down to the water.
As we motored onwards, a boat sped quickly past. Two men in vests smiled and raised their hands in greeting.
“They’ve been hunting for dugong,” Dirk smiled, explaining that only Torres Strait Islander people are allowed to catch dugong and turtle here. I asked him how the meat tasted.
As the sun began to dip, I started to notice the bones of old shipwrecks on some of the beaches. We pulled in closer to one that was tipped on its side. Its rusting beams protruded like the ribs of a huge whale skeleton. These had been intentionally sunk to provide nursing grounds for new coral and marine life. We peered into the water to see long pipefish nibbling the spoils and oysters clinging to the hulls like giant sequins.
But not every shipwreck here is intentional. For seafaring vessels, the Torres Strait remains one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world. “Even I don’t know where all the sandbars are,” admitted Dirk. “I have to feel my way through. I’m always learning.”
Many of the islands here – Prince of Wales, Thursday, Badu, Mabuiag and Dauan – are remnants of the Great Dividing Range, a 3,500km-long string of mountains. The waters around them churn and froth with powerful, unpredictable currents and whirlpools. Some islands are even being slowly submerged as sea levels rise, with many communities banding together to build important sea walls to protect low-lying mangrove islands from disappearing entirely.
Occasionally, as we circumnavigated these, I’d spot a lighthouse jutting out from the dense forest. They were dotted all around the archipelago to help ships navigate the reefs, sandbars and spits. Locals traditionally crossed these waters in light outrigger canoes; now heavy commercial ships must be piloted through by expert sailors who know every obstacle that lurks beneath the surface.
“The engine of my boat cut out once, and within seconds I was pulled metres down the channel,” Dirk told me as our hull was nibbled at by the teeth of a whirlpool. He then offered up a piece of advice: “If you fall in or wreck, just let the current take you and slowly swim with it, if you can, towards land.”
This was the nightmare that passengers faced during one of Australia’s worst maritime tragedies, which occurred not far from Thursday Island’s shores. On a moonlit night on the last day of February 1890, the mail steamer RMS Quetta, bound for London, struck an uncharted rock and sank within minutes. Of the 292 people on board, 134 lost their lives. A moving memorial to those who died is found in the Anglican church precinct in town. Another reminder that life here isn’t always so quiet. THE SOUND OF BOMBS Back in the 1940s, war came to the Strait. Even before that, conflict had been rife for generations in the form of tribal rivalries and European ambition. The imposing Green Hill Fort on Thursday Island is one relic of those days, built in 1893 to defend local shipping lanes from the Russians after the outbreak of the Crimean War. But it was during the Second World War that combat arrived with the biggest bang. H o r n I s l a n d ( N g a r u p a i ) , j u s t a short ferry ride from TI, was home
“By the end to Australia’s most sophisticated operof 1942, there ational airbase during the war. By the end of 1942, there were 5,000 troops were 5,000 troops stationed on the island, many of them stationed on local Torres Strait Islanders. Horn Island, many “Horn is like a time capsule for the Second World War,” explained local of them local guide Vanessa Seekee as she drove me
Torres Strait around the island. “Everything’s still out there in the bush: trenches, gunner
Islanders“ placements, planes, underg round rooms, artillery sites, bullets and shells.” Looking around today, it was bizarre to think that during this period the Torres Strait was the second most bombed area in Australia, after the port city of Darwin. I spent a whole morning with Seekee uncovering discarded fuel drums, signal stations and aircraft wreckage, following roads and tracks built by hard-toiling troops. It was a fitting end to a visit that had been filled with unexpected finds. Before I left, I thought back to the conversations I’d had before travelling here. Many of those I’d spoken to knew little about the Torres Strait; much less how to get there, what it looked like or even how to point to it on a map. But I had found so much here. This is a place of rugged beauty, filled with Indigenous, colonial and maritime histories. Every shore and untouched tangle of forest and mangrove seemed to tell a story; to hear them, all I’d had to do was listen. ⊲
Vital statistics
Regional capital: Thursday Island Regional population: 4,514 Languages: English. Various Indigenous languages, including Kala Lagaw Ya, which is the traditional language of the people of the Western and Central Torres Strait Islands; Meriam Mir, which is spoken in the Eastern Islands; and Torres Strait Creole. Time: GMT+10 International dialling code: +61 Visas: UK nationals require an e-visa to visit Australia (usually a Subclass 651 eVisitor visa) for up to 90 days. This is easily obtained online for free at immi.homeaffairs.gov.au. Money: Australian dollar (A$), currently A$1.81 to the UK£. Card payments are fairly widespread (even on the ferries) and ATMs can be found in most supermarkets and larger minimarkets.
When to go
Tropical North Queensland has warm weather year-round, with temperatures rarely dipping below 17ºC, even in winter. The wet season begins around November and ends by May, during which temperatures hover around 30ºC. September–October: Known by Torres Strait Islanders as ‘the hot time’, this is when the wind eases and the seas become calm. Beautiful red skies linger longer at sunset. November–April: The gusts arrive from the south-west and blow throughout the afternoons between November and January. Storm season arrives proper in December and sees a build-up of toadstool clouds together with lightning in the far north-west. When it hits, it brings with it heavy rain and squalls with hot, humid weather. May–September: This is the best time to travel in order to avoid the jellyfish and the rain. It’s generally pleasant, with some light winds and hot temperatures thrown in.
Health & safety
For up-to-date travel advice, consult the relevant page of the UK’s FCDO website (gov.uk/foreign-traveladvice/Australia). At the time of writing, entry did not require proof of vaccination status or any COVID-19 pre-flight tests, but this can change quickly, so check ahead.
Getting there
Various airlines, including Qantas (qantas.com), British Airways (ba.com) and Emirates (emirates.com), fly from London Heathrow to Brisbane via Singapore, Dubai and Perth. Flights cost from around £1,229 return and take between 23 and 28 hours. Qantas operate connecting flights to Cairns, then onwards to Horn Island. A ferry service (tiferry.com. au) runs regularly between Horn Island and Thursday Island, with a combined bus and ferry transfer from the airport taking about 30 to 40 minutes and costing from £15.
Getting around
You can easily walk or cycle around Horn and Thursday islands, and there is little traffic. But as temperatures can soar, hiring a car can be a wise decision. TI Rent a Car
(rfselfservicestore.com) or TI Car Hire (ticarhire.com.au) are both reliable options.
Cost of travel
Costs in the Torres Strait are similar to those on the Australian mainland, which tend to be the same – if not slightly more expensive – than those in the UK. A budget room in a mid-range hotel will cost between £65 and £100 a night, including breakfast. Main meals in restaurants range from £12 to £24.
Accommodation
The Grand Hotel (grandhotel.com. au) on Thursday Island might lack fancy décor but it more than makes up for it with friendly service. The hotel is a short stroll from the Engineer’s Wharf and its 31 rooms come with tea- and coffee-making facilities and free wifi. Some rooms even have mountain views, but the best offer resplendent panoramas overlooking the ocean. There is also a decent cooked and continental buffet included in the room rate; doubles from around £65 per night.
Hilltop Hideaway (rosiewaredesigns.com/ accommodation) has beautiful 360-degree views overlooking Thursday Island harbour and the surrounding islands. This beachy, restful, pristinely finished hideaway is owned by local textiles artist Rosie Ware. There’s everything you need for a blissfully selfcontained stay, including a barbecue in the tropical-plant-filled garden and a kitchen; self-catering stays from £190 per night.
Prince of Wales Island Eco House (torresstraitecoadventures.com.au/ accommodation) is set right on the beach of Prince of Wales Island and is surrounded by jungle-style vegetation and the orchestral trill of birdsong. This modern, two storey eco-escape offers the best in get-awayfrom-it-all seclusion. Rooms are bright and airy, everything is solar powered, and there’s a private water supply and expansive al fresco area for dining or simply watching the syrupy sunset paint the sky orange overhead; stays from £193 per night.
Food & drink
There are many dishes local to the Torres Strait that are representative of the heady mix of cultures found in the archipelago: black pudding, remoulade, seafood, and coconutbased curries. But most of the hotels and restaurants serve up decidedly Western fare, including pizzas, pies, pastas and salads. Fish is also plentiful, and you’ll find barramundi, salmon and reef fish on many menus. Thursday Island’s Ma:Kai café on Victoria Parade offers fresh juices and coffee in the morning, while Uncle Frankie’s Café (+61 7 4069 2288) is a local favourite.
Cultural considerations
Only a handful of islands in the Torres Strait actually accept visitors; you’ll need permission from an island Elder or a permit in order to visit any of the outlying islands. While there are no particular cultural restrictions or expectations on the inner islands (such as how to dress, etc), you may be expected to respect certain guidelines on others. There are sacred sites on many of the islands – including burial grounds, ceremony sites and protected rock art – which cannot be visited.
Further reading & information
Welcome to Country: A Travel Guide to Indigenous Australia (£22, Hardie Grant Explore) by Marcia Langton – a cultural introduction to the islands and beyond Australia.com – Australia’s tourism site Queensland.com – regional tourism board Tropicalnorthqueensland.org.au – North Queensland tourism site
HIGHLIGHTS
1Torres Strait Eco Adventures
Owner Dirk Laifoo takes guests on bespoke adventures to Thursday Island (Waiben), Prince of Wales Island (Muralag), Horn Island (Ngarupai) and other areas. Trips can include swimming off some of Australia’s most secluded beaches and visits to remote lighthouses. torresstraitecoadventures.com.au
2Kazu Pearl Farm This working pearl farm (+61 74 069 1268) on Friday Island offers tours led by former pearl diver Kazuyoshi Takami. You will learn about oyster seeding, cultivation and be treated to a fresh sushi-style lunch where you can get a taste of pearl meat.
3Peddells Thursday Island Tours
Led by Christine, these bus tours are a good first activity for getting your bearings on Thursday Island. Stops include the Green Hill Fort and a visit to its subterranean museum. peddellsferry.com.au/tours
4Rosie Ware Designs Rosie’s studio is a haven of calm, perched high on a hilltop and surrounded by riotous plants and flowers. Her screen prints, which use emblematic motifs from the Torres Strait, can be picked up at the on-site shop. rosiewaredesigns.com
5In Their Steps Vanessa Seekee and her husband, Liberty, run small group tours (+61 42 790 3333) exploring Second World War sites on Horn Island, visiting slit trenches, gun emplacements and airstrips, all fleshed out with fascinating veterans’ stories.
WANDERLUST
RECOMMENDS
The State Library of Queensland (https://vimeo.com/statelibraryqld) has amazing documentary footage of the islands from the early 20th century.
FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF FILM STARS IN THE GREAT AMERICAN WEST
Lights, camera, action! Relive legendary scenes from the silver screen on a cinematic journey through the states of Idaho, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming
With its big-sky landscapes, epic mountain ranges and off-the-beatentrack towns, the Great American West has long been a magnet for directors and movie stars. From Clint Eastwood roaming the prairies on the big screen to recent small-screen hits such as Yellowstone, the region has played a leading role in filmmaking history. Here are some places to visit...
IDAHO
The drama of Idaho’s topography, with its lava-sculpted landscapes and white-water rivers, often makes it feel like a movie set, and its rural roads and nostalgic small towns have provided a backdrop to countless films. Fans of western movies can go behind the scenes of original filming locations. The Sawtooth National Recreation Area in central Idaho, for instance, makes a perfect jumping-off point. It was here that Clint Eastwood’s 1985 classic Pale Rider was shot among the 1,120km of trails and 40 peaks, some soaring to over 3,000m. Stay overnight in a rustic cabin, then rise early to explore Camas Prairie Railroad. This disused track played a role in Will Smith’s Wild Wild West adventure flick and is now a rails-to-trails route best explored on two wheels. Don’t miss nearby Sun Valley, a showstopping location used in the movie Bus Stop.
The real wild west
(this page; top–bottom) Hiking the Kane Lane Trail into the Pioneer Mountains, near Sun Valley, offers some unbeatable views; the Gallatin River is a wild ride for rafters
MONTANA
Montana is enjoying its well-deserved moment in the spotlight, thanks in part to the modern-day TV show Yellowstone – one of the most popular US TV shows in recent history. The series is filmed on location at the Chief Joseph Ranch in Darby. Here, visitors can step into the cowboy boots of lead character John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner. This working cattle ranch and homestead now rents two of its pioneer cabins for overnight stays.
From the ranch, it’s around an hour’s drive through lush green landscapes to Missoula in western Montana. The city and its surroundings took centre stage in the book A River Runs Through It, which was adapted by Robert Redford into a hit film starring Brad Pitt that was nominated for three Oscars. Missoula is also a playground for outdoor enthusiasts, having become an epicentre for river surfing, an exhilarating way to experience the cascading waterways at this star turn of a setting.
NORTH DAKOTA
Keep the cameras rolling by visiting the original filming locations used in Fargo, the 1996 noir thriller created by the Coen brothers and considered one of the greatest American movies of all time. Start in the retro downtown of the city of Fargo, where a visit to the Fargo-Moorhead Visitors Centers offers a glimpse of the comic thriller’s script alongside the original woodchipper used in the movie. Don’t miss the iconic Fargo Theatre, within an easy stroll of the city’s hip eateries and independent boutiques.
It’s well worth making the journey across state to the North Dakota Badlands, where rugged rock formations offer a blockbuster setting for fossil hunters. It’s no surprise that the 2017 thriller Valley of Bones, starring Autumn Reeser as a disgraced palaeontologist on the hunt for a ground-breaking dig, was set in this fossil-rich region – where bison now lazily graze the wildflower prairies.
SOUTH DAKOTA
Film buffs are in for a treat in this state that is justly known as the ‘Land of Infinite Variety’. The 1998 blockbuster Armageddon used Badlands National Park for its asteroid surface scenes, while Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves, a box-office smash that scooped up seven Oscars, was set almost exclusively in the wilds of South Dakota. And cruise the Badlands Loop State Scenic Byway to see the landscapes from 2020 film Nomadland. Next, visit Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which took centre stage in the finale of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller North by Northwest. On the back of the film’s climactic chase scene, where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are chased down the monument, the area received a huge tourism boost. It has since featured in Superman II, Mars Attacks! and the 2013 film Nebraska. Stay on script with a visit to Historic Deadwood, a city which is brought to life by 2019 western film Deadwood: The Movie.
WYOMING
Saddle up for an adventure in ‘The Cowboy State’, a land of big history, big culture and some seriously huge landscapes. With show-stealing scenery featuring the towering alpine peaks and pristine lakes of Grand Teton NP and Yellowstone NP, and peppered with old cowboy towns offering an authentic dose of the Old West, Wyoming has enticed some of Tinseltown’s greatest.
Director Steven Spielberg chose Devils Tower National Monument, one of the finest crack-climbing areas in North America, as the setting for his sci-fi epic Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Quentin Tarantino also fell for Wyoming and filmed several movies in the state, including shooting the hit revisionist western Django Unchained on location around Jackson Hole. Buckaroos in training should head to Jackson’s Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, a fabled watering hole with saddles for barstools and the twang of live country music filling the air. It’s the perfect finale.
Set the scene
(this page; clockwise from top left) Every year, downtown Fargo hosts hundreds of vendors and thousands of visitors during its Street Fair, with plenty of crafts and food on sale; experience a day in the life of a cowboy in Wyoming; Badlands National Park offers 244,000 acres of grass prairie, which provides a sanctuary for wildlife including bison and bighorn sheep
MAKE IT HAPPEN
Trailfinders (trailfinders.com) have selfguided road-trip itineraries exploring the Great American West states. These include Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and Big Sky Country Montana (Cowboy Country by motorhome; 14 nights), as well as the gem state of Idaho (Glaciers to Geysers; 15 nights), and the national parks of Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt as well as iconic Mount Rushmore (Mount Rushmore & Dakota Badlands; 7 nights). All itineraries include flights, accommodation & car hire/motorhome.
