Dorrigo, here I come

IN my piece last week on the so-called Australian adventure, I wasn’t sure if I could send to my editor anything of interest at all for this week’s column; uncertain, whether or not this part of the Australian bush would be wirelessly connected to the rest of the outside world.

As it transpired, I was wrong! Utterly wrong. One commercial carried by the local newspaper Courier-Sun proclaims that 95 per cent of Australian households are online. And that includes my hosts at Deer Vale.

On Wednesday, my daughter Sendi, playing the role of tourist guide, was showing Auntie Wendy and me the sights around Dorrigo, named after a tree with stringy bark – Dundurrigo.

Digressing now for a personal mater, for information of those at home who may wonder what happened to Auntie Di, she is in New Zealand to see her relatives and will be here after her trip to Tasmania. Wendy is on holiday from England to see her godson, David, and also my son-in-law. A retired nurse, Wendy was working at the Sarawak General Hospital from 1964 to 1967. I’m digressing. You know what I’m trying to forestall.

Walking in the clouds

A few kilometres out of Dorrigo, there is the Dorrigo Rainforest Centre from which the plank walk called the Skywalk juts out for some 50 metres from a very steep slope of a mountain ridge on which the centre is sited. And at that centre, there is available free WiFi. That’s the point I’m trying to make in terms of connectivity between this place and Sarawak.

Any visitor with a weak heart or one with a height phobia is advised not to look down that walk for a long time. It is miles and miles of treetops below in the valley before you can see the mountains beyond, the sort of view one gets from the helicopter.

The Skywalk is among the many attractions that the entire district can offer to visitors. There are many others. Come and see them for yourself some day. Very beautiful destination for visitors indeed.

Now the area and its relevance to the present narrative.

It has an interesting background that reminds the Native landowners of Sarawak the importance of preserving and protecting customary rights over land and the development of such by land for the economic progress of the owners and the state.

According to information supplied by the Dorrigo Historical Society Museum, for thousands of years the local Aborigines hunted and gathered in the Dorrigo Area at certain times of the year, mostly likely camping on the fringes of the rainforest as they travelled from the rich fishing areas of the valleys in winter to the cooler more open areas towards Armidale in Summer.

Local Bora Grounds and stones reveal that Aboriginal ceremonies took place near Gangara and Tyringham. Rights of usufruct were thus created over the area. However, way back in July 1845, one Major Edward Parke was granted a License to Depasture Crown Lands in the area. But according to the local folklore, he was “the first white squatter settler on the Plateau”.

Later, more settlers felled the jungle and developed the land for food – cattle for meat and milk, pigs and other animals, for potatoes – on land leased by the state government. However, I have yet to see or meet a farmer or a businessman from the Aboriginal community. Must talk to one before I sneak across the border back to Queensland.

For the past 150 years, the whole shire of Bellingen of which Dorrigo is part has seen developments of towns and and other facilities; all are surrounded by beautiful countryside with rich farmland. But I haven’t seen or met an Aboriginal farmer. I hope to meet someone from the indigenous community as soon as arrangement can be made to visit a settlement here or elsewhere in New South Wales or Queensland before I head for home.

Yesterday, I went fishing with my grandson, Samuel, in one of the creeks that runs through the family’s cattle farm at Deer Vale. What I caught I would tell you: all got away. Sam told me he had previously caught a rainbow trout in the same creek one of the many in this part of Deer Vale, which is supplied with fish fry from the government from time to time.

How I got to Dorrigo

After a week in sunny Brisbane, on Feb 1, I sneaked into Dorrigo through Queensland’s back door, taking six solid hours by car through two mountain ranges of the Dividing Range, up hill, down dale, the winding road looking like a highway in a third world country.

A venerable paper

Surprise, surprise! The town with a population of 1999 has been served by a newspaper called Don Dorrigo Gazette for the past 106 years! It has a small office attached to the back of a shop house. It was shut when I visited it; the editor was out for lunch.

This paper is of particular interest as it reminds me of the venerable Sarawak Gazette; the latter was established in 1870 of which I was assistant editor under Tom Harrisson in 1966.

Valuable information it does provide the locals: for example, did you now that vinegar can kill weeds? Yes, pour white distilled vinegar on the weeds growing in the cracks of your walkway and driveway. Another use of it: dab a cotton ball soaked in white vinegar on mosquito bites and insect stings. Or brush your teeth with vinegar once a week; it will prevent bad breath.

It has a column ‘Wheels Of Time’, containing information about people of the time – what’s so important about “Mr and Mrs Smith came to town from Sydney with their son John”. But it was news in those days. What’s so important about Charles Brooke’s transfer from Lundu to Kuching in 1859? But it was important because he was required to help plan the expedition against Rentap. I visited the museum yesterday. That cost me an arm and a leg in terms of Malaysian currency – equivalent of RM10. At home entry to our Sarawak museum is free.

Not much of an adventure really.

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