The Crow Eaters Read online

  I drive to Jack Point in the Coorong, past old fishing shacks on the shore and past hundreds of small white birds floating on the still water. They negotiate past the big pelicans that sit anchored on the surface as if they are cruise ships docked on Sydney Harbour. It smells slightly ‘off ’ here. The odour of stagnant pools wafts along the edges of sand dunes so white and soft they look like peaked egg whites that would crumble to the touch. I feel like I have been here before because of Thiele’s writing, it is the same sensation and sense of place I got from Paul Theroux’s The Happy Isles of Oceania while I was gliding through the islands of Tonga in a kayak, of Tim Winton’s Dirt Music and the red dirt and small towns of coastal Western Australia, and the descriptions of burning books and ripe pineapples from my first writing teacher, Francesca Rendle-Short, and the visceral way she relayed Queensland to her readers in Bite Your Tongue.

  At Jack Point I startle two big emus crossing the path. They get so close that I can see the blue feathers behind their ears before they lope off into the trees. I walk further down to the ‘twitching’ shelter to watch the birds. There is nothing for company here but the smell of salt over the dunes, the sound of the water rushing past at the neck of the lagoon and the sight of pelicans gliding on a cloudless day to the islands offshore and out of reach. I can barely see any birds apart from the pelicans, I’m no bird watcher, though the sound of them echoes everywhere through the low bush. I hear the original ‘twitter’ of singing, hunting, hiding and mating birds fill the dunes and bounce off the walls of the shelter.

  Further along the Coorong, I stop at another deserted patch of scrub marked with a tiny turnoff sign and the story of Chinese gold miners here. At the not particularly PC ‘Chinaman’s Wells’, I follow a trail into the bush behind the dunes where scores of Chinese miners stopped en route from Port Adelaide to the Victorian goldfields in 1856.

  Across the sea in China there was a political rebellion beginning in the mid 19th century (which would eventually result in the deaths of more than 20 million people) and the second opium war with Britain and France was about to commence over the distribution of illegally imported opium. A combination of civil unrest at home, colonial politics and commercial enterprise prompted desperate Chinese to enlist their male relatives to travel to the south of Australia and between 1854 and 1859, 30 000 Chinese people left Hong Kong Harbour for the promise of a fortune in Australia during the gold rush. Incredibly, of this number only three Chinese women were recorded in Victoria in 1857. Many of the travelling men aimed to send money back to their families. Many also intended to return to China and the southern province of Guangdong, where most travellers were from, once the gold rush had ended.

  The Chinese travellers enlisted a ‘headman’ to arrange the fare to Australia and then the cost of clothing and mining equipment was added to their tab. In addition to this, many had to provide their own beds and rations for the journey down through Asia to the south of Australia. The clippers would load up to 1000 men on board at a time for the voyage. The Chinese travellers were ‘required to sleep on deck or head to toe in bunks that were little better than narrow shelves in the hold of the ship. Often the Chinese were confined below decks because the uneducated crews were terrified of these strange people’, Fiona Ritchie writes.

  The sudden influx of new miners created tension on the goldfields and many Europeans were cited for assaults on the Chinese arrivals. The subsequent complaints to the Victorian government about the influx of Chinese using opium and gambling prompted the introduction of the £10 poll tax on each Chinese person arriving in Victoria.

  To avoid this new tax, many of the ships laden with Chinese arrivals simply sailed on to South Australia. The conditions for the travellers didn’t improve and the number of deaths was so scandalous that ‘the British Consul of Amoy recorded that on one ship the lack of supply of good food and water had led to the loss of 70 Chinese in a few days’, writes Ritchie.

  In 1856, 3550 Chinese miners travelled to Port Adelaide – which meant there was still an arduous journey of more than 600 kilometres from the port through the South Australian scrub in front of them in order to reach the goldfields of Victoria.

  ‘Chinaman’s Wells’ is first marked by two large circular holes in a flat limestone quarry. There is a huge stone lid where the Chinese unsuccessfully attempted to make their first water well. It must weigh hundreds of kilos and a large crack down its centre explains why it remains on the dry saltpan still. I follow the trail further into the bush. Some Chinese travelled along this route by coach, others had their gear carried by bullocks, though most slung their gear into baskets and balanced them on their backs between bamboo poles. The trail passes by the old stone cuttings of a stock watering hole they built, before it circles around to a perfectly formed stone well. Apparently the Ngarrindjeri people helped the Chinese travellers locate water here and they created a cylindrical limestone well with perfectly formed blocks carved from the nearby quarry which, even after 170 odd years, still looks better than many of the modern landscape garden water features you’d find in Adelaide.

  The Chinese story did not finish by a cool limestone well in the bush, though. Before I arrive in Robe, where most of the Chinese arrived in South Australia before continuing on to the goldfields, I stop to stretch my back in the town of Kingston SE – the beginning of the Limestone Coast.

  Kingston SE is a southern rock lobster port and this fact is marked on the approaching highway by the presence of Larry, a 17 metre, and 4000 kilogram, lobster. This gigantic orange eyesore harks back to the 1980s, when much of Australia’s kitsch tourism centred around travel between ‘big things’, where tourists stopped in front of the big merino in Goulburn, the big banana in Coffs Harbour or the big orange in Berri to get a family photo and continue on to a distant relative’s house to play backyard cricket, eat sausage sandwiches and play hide and seek until dark. It reminds me of the sort of family vacations of my childhood and the Chevy Chase film National Lampoon’s Vacation and the Griswolds’ cross-country trip to Wally World and tacky travel, roadside motels and carsickness.

  Further along the Limestone Coast is the protected coastal town of Robe. This well-heeled town is akin to Noosa for Queenslanders or The Hamptons for New Yorkers. Victoria Street is full of boutiques, wood-fired pizza restaurants, local providores and wine makers, antique stores and tourists with lemon-coloured sweaters draped over their shoulders. The Caledonian pub, with an open fire in the corner of the bar, is beautiful, though I’m interested in the Chinese story here. There are now two Chinese restaurants in town, though these are new arrivals and have no relation to the 16 500 Chinese migrants who landed here during the gold rush.

  They sailed here from China and walked to the Victorian goldfields. During the gold rush Melbourne’s population boomed from around 23 000 to 500 000, and Robe, the formerly sleepy seaside town of 200 people, became a key shipping port as a result. With the Victorian poll tax dissuading sailors from arriving in Melbourne, and the distance from Port Adelaide too great, Robe was identified as the most logical place to land and still avoid the tax. By 1856 Robe was South Australia’s second major colonial wool export port. A second, much improved, jetty was constructed in 1854 and a 40 foot (12 metre) shipping marker, the Obelisk, was erected in 1855, to guide ships through the limestone reefs into the port.

  The first ship to sail directly from Hong Kong to Robe arrived on 17 January 1857. The British clipper Land o’ Cakes disembarked 264 passengers who avoided the tax, with the captain promising that many more were on the way. The rush before the gold then began in Robe. Another 307 people arrived 12 days later; in February there were 1129 passengers; and in April nine ships brought 4350 passengers, including the 2000 ton clipper Young America which travelled from Hong Kong in 37 days. In all there were 14 988 arrivals that year.

  The Robe locals also saw the opportunities for making money, and they would charge exorbitant prices (5 to 10 shillings) to ferry the new arrivals ashore in rowboat
s. The treatment of the Chinese by one crew was so bad that one night in March 1857, the Robe constabulary rowed out to the William Miles to arrest four sailors for their behaviour when off-loading passengers and their belongings. The charges were heard at the Robe courthouse, which is still standing in town, and the sailors were fined £5 each (about five weeks’ pay) for their ‘brutal acts of violence against these poor, unoffending creatures’.

  Once the Chinese set foot on the white sand beaches of Robe they would then enlist the help of a local guide and porters to walk with them to the goldfields – generally for another £50 per travelling party. ‘They barked rectangles, carved Chinese characters or attached coins on the trees they passed. This was to show the way for their countrymen who followed later.’

  The sight of thousands of Chinese arrivals to this tiny fishing town must have taken many by surprise, though the chaos was often viewed with fascination rather than anger, ‘in fact it was the oddest mixture of the usual peculiarities of the Australian bush and relics of the Celestial empire that a person could ever behold’ wrote local priest Father Julian Tenison Woods.

  As the clippers increased their presence in Guichen Bay, it wasn’t long before the people of Robe were far outnumbered by the Chinese. At one time during 1857, 3000 new arrivals were camped in Robe before beginning the overland trek. Unsurprisingly, Robe experienced a period of great prosperity and wealth, with an estimated £16 000 circulating throughout the town as a result of the Chinese-led boom. It led to the construction of many new limestone dwellings and commercial buildings in town. The majority of the heritage buildings are still standing in Robe today.

  With the sheer number of arrivals, many who came ashore were also sick, either from disease or accident brought from home or from the arduous voyage across. Initially, the South Australian government paid for examinations on board each ship before it docked, to control sickness, though the prohibitive cost meant that the task eventually fell to the local ladies of Robe to care for the unwell.

  The most senior ranked lady in Robe, Mrs Eleanor Mary Brewer, who was the wife of the Government Resident, Captain Charles Philip Brewer, was the leader of this humanitarian initiative, though she contracted dysentery and died in March 1857, leaving eight children behind. She was only the second person to be buried in the Robe cemetery. The many Chinese who died in Robe were buried in unmarked graves. When I arrive in town I walk across to the Robe cemetery and wander through the aisles looking for evidence of the Chinese story here, though the only notice is at the gate of the ‘old’ section of the cemetery, which proclaims that there are no known Chinese graves here – they are indeed buried in the bush along the 400 kilometre trail from Robe to the Victorian goldfields.

  Many only stayed a few days in Robe and, while they were not large consumers of alcohol, smoking opium from clay and bamboo pipes was a regular habit. This was not illegal in Australia at the time, though the South Australian government levied a 5 per cent tax on any opium brought in – still a preferable option for the Chinese than paying the Victorian poll tax. Despite the fact that there were never any serious quarrels reported, many locals requested the presence of soldiers to keep the peace and maintain order, and soon after the first Chinese arrived, 25 soldiers from the 25th Regiment arrived in town. Bowing to external pressure, the South Australian government eventually introduced their own £10 poll tax and as quickly as the Chinese arrivals had swarmed through Robe, their presence ceased nearly entirely the following year.

  There is little that remains of the Chinese influx in Robe. The two Chinese restaurants here don’t celebrate the fact and the humourless man at the tourist information desk suggests that ‘I could walk to Ballarat’ if I want to capture some of their experience. I walk across the road instead and shelter under the stand of Norfolk pines. In the water next to the marina I do find a remnant of their pilgrimage. There is an ominous wooden gate in the water with the words ‘Pei Fang’ written in red and gold across it. A large stone on the shore also recognises the Chinese arrival in Robe. It’s not much, but at least it’s something.

  Families eat fish and chips next to the monument and out in the turquoise water boats chug into the shelter of the marina as the sun begins to set. Aside from its interesting Chinese story, Robe is also a gateway to the southern rock lobster fleet further south at Port Mac-Donnell. It is an enterprise worth millions of dollars, with one lobster licence selling for a reported $3.5 million. The lobsters are caught in pots during the season, from October to May. Ninety-five per cent of the catch is then flown directly to Hong Kong for sale.

  Just like in many fish shops in Australia, I can’t find any fresh local seafood to buy when I arrive at ‘Port Mac’ that night, as it’s all flown off-shore for higher paying clientele. While I munch on my chips and calamari I think it’s kind of fitting, though, that this area which once brought so many Chinese migrants looking for gold is now a gold mine of its own, though with the produce going the other way, on a plane and to a fish market in Hong Kong.

  The next day I drive through Mount Gambier, known only as ‘The Mount’ by locals. On the surface it is like any other small city, with a collection of corner pubs and a well-appointed main street. The geological story is what makes this place so fascinating though. On the edge of town sits the iridescent Blue Lake, a 70-metre-deep artesian crater that provides the town’s drinking water. The lake is surrounded by jagged rocks and reminds me of the more active, but no less beautiful, volcanic lakes on the high plateau in Ecuador. The entire town sits on the lip of an extinct maar volcano, and the Umpherston Sinkhole demonstrates the peculiar natural features of the town. I approach at dusk – the collapsed cave now looks as if a perfect plug of earth has been removed by aliens, and in its place is a sculpted garden with lines of ferns, a curtain of falling creepers tipping over the edge and a resident population of hungry nocturnal possums.

  This bucolic former volcano zone does have a dark side, however. In the late 19th century, local man Thomas Ewens was roaming the paddocks south of Mount Gambier with his dog looking for geese to shoot. His dog caught sight of a kangaroo and chased it through the brush until it disappeared from sight in a tangle of reeds. The kangaroo had fallen into an 11-metre-deep limestone sinkhole – a passageway of three ponds and the remnants of another collapsed cave. I’m not sure what happened to the roo, though from then on the caves were known as Ewens Ponds.

  I am with local diver Jake Manser who is going to show me the ponds from below. We’re snorkelling today, though Jake is normally game for much more challenging dives. There are over 1000 underwater caves mapped in the south-east, including Piccaninnie Ponds which has a 110 metre chasm, Tank Cave which has over 11 kilometres of twisting underground passageways, Kilsby Sinkhole on a local farm and The Shaft, which Jake says is 120 metres deep and involves an abseil down into the earth before you dive into the crystal clear cavern, with more than 200 metres visibility. ‘It’s so clear you could almost mistake it for floating through air,’ Jake says as we kit up in the dirt car park next to a paddock full of cows. We stretch on full-body wetsuits, hoods and heavy-duty fins. The water sits at a constant 15°C, which takes your breath away as you plunge in for the first time. We’re snorkelling through the ponds today, as the diving, which brings thousands of people to the region, Jake says, is only for advanced divers. ‘Eleven people died in the caves around here in the late ’60s and early ’70s,’ he says of the fatalities between 1969 and 1973. Much of this was put down to the lack of regulation, though even after much stricter protocols were put in place, there have still been recent deaths, with three in 2010–11 from people pushing their limits in the subterranean cave systems. While the water is as clear as anywhere on earth, when a diver disturbs sediment on the sides of the cave it can lead to a blackout because the particles take so long to settle and disperse, leaving divers disoriented in a soup of blackness. This highlights how unknown and dangerous these caves, which are still largely unmapped, can be.

  Suit
ed up, I waddle over to the floating pontoon and follow Jake’s lead, flopping into the water. Above the surface the environment looks like any other rural swimming hole – it’s surrounded by reeds, eucalypts and a herd of cows over the fence. The water sucks my breath away, as does the view underneath. The first pond is 11 metres deep and it is the clearest water I have ever seen – it is as if a slightly blue filter has been placed over the bowl below. Spiky yellow reeds protrude from the edges and the long, thick straps from another aquatic plant float and dance along with the slight current. Ocean bream that have swum the 12 kilometres up-stream nibble for feed at the bottom of the pond and schools of tiny, translucent galaxiid fish swim past my goggles. Shafts of light beam down from above and Jake points to the bottom of the pond; among the different vegetation are green brain-like sponges, lime-coloured grasses and white patches of limestone. If you look closely it is possible to see water seeping into the pond slowly and brushing sediment along the bottom. Jake surfaces and shoots out the excess water from his snorkel, ‘The water coming in here would have travelled along the fault line all the way from Naracoorte [130 kilometres away]. It takes thousands of years for it to trickle down. I think another cave would be forming below this one slowly. So this pond might eventually collapse in a few hundred thousand years,’ he says.

  We let the current take us along the edges of the bowl. I pop my head up – we’re now drifting through a tight channel of reeds 2 and 3 metres high. It is claustrophobic and gnarled above, though below the surface the light tinkles across the plants and it looks like a Japanese garden, it is so still and symmetrical – razor straight grasses give way to a garden of reddish soft straps dancing at the entrance to the next pond, which is iridescent blue and 6.5 metres deep. My hands ache from the cold, though we continue to kick along, on the lookout for endangered Prickly Back Crayfish which live here, pygmy perch, eels or the pouched lam-preys that mostly come out at night – they are long and slender and these parasitic fish are the most prehistoric surviving fish on earth. Lampreys don’t eat for a year, all their teeth fall out, they mate and then they die. What a way to go.