Right to the Edge: Sydney to Tokyo By Any Means (8 page)

Me, an icon. Hmm . . . He’d got the wrong guy, hadn’t he? But then again . . . Puffing out my chest I shot Claudio a glance that said: keep your mouth shut about the two spills I had on the way up here, while I impress this gentleman, OK? God bless him, Claudio said nothing.

 

 

The bike was brilliant. It looked like a mountain bike, only bigger . . . which I suppose is pretty much what it was. On the dirt track in the snake charmer’s field, it performed every bit as well as the bikes we’d been riding all day. You could limit the speed to 30 mph if you wanted but it would hit 60. Phil explained that it ran on a lithium-ion battery and each charge lasted around two hours. It gave out zero emissions and was easy on the eye. As with the car I’d driven, I am sure that if you’re going to put forward an alternative to conventional vehicles, it has to look like something a customer is familiar with. And this one did.

We took them for a spin, Phil tearing ahead of me, sliding the thing across the dirt like a supermotard. He caught some air at the top of the rise while in the fields next door the horses went on eating. The bike wasn’t silent, it gave out a slight clattering sound, but that was it. On normal dirt bikes those horses would have been at the other end of the field by now, frightened away by the noise. The Zero was nimble and quick, and it felt like a 125 or a 250 maybe. It offered 100 per cent torque, had no gears, no clutch and no foot controls. There was a back and front brake on the handlebars, just like on a mountain bike.

I was seriously impressed. Phil told me they made a street version, and I would happily use one of those at home in London. We made a point of sharing the dirt track with Max and David on the regular bikes and, I have to say, there was very little to choose between the levels of performance.

 

 

Jim the snake charmer came out to watch. He looked like some old drover in a beat-up cowboy hat with a sweat-stained rim.

‘G’day, Charley,’ he said when we pulled up. ‘Your mate Claudio here tells me you’d like to see some snakes.’

‘Snakes?!’ I squawked. What was he talking about? I hate snakes. Claudio knows that.

‘For the programme, Charley, for the BBC,’ said Claudio. ‘Jim told me he keeps more than thirty.’

‘Does he?’ I said. ‘Just as long as he doesn’t release them all at the same time then.’ Reluctantly I followed the farmer into a large shed where he had various glass cages, one of which was secured by a chipboard lid. It was screwed down and Jim had to undo it with his drill and screwdriver bit.

‘The fellow in this one is pretty venomous,’ he explained. ‘People get drunk in the pub next door and sometimes they wander in here. Wouldn’t want them putting their hand into the cage now, would I?’ He made a face. ‘I suppose I could put a lock on the bloody thing, but I’d only lose the key.’

In the bottom of the cage was a particularly vicious-looking snake that Jim called a speckled brown. ‘He can be pretty nasty,’ he said, giving the snake a prod. ‘When he gets pissed off he’ll flatten out . . . see there he goes now.’

The snake had lowered his head as if to strike and I was less than impressed. I really do not like snakes.

‘Yeah, you want to commit suicide? Just put your hand in there,’ Jim went on. ‘Won’t cost you nothing, he’ll do it for free.’

He also had a coastal taipan, the third most venomous snake in the world. It was a pale brown colour and could grow up to twelve feet long.

‘I’ve got a new one,’ he told Max, ‘a fear snake, caught her just the other day.’ He showed us another cabinet where a thin, black snake was lying on a patch of shingle. Opening the lid, Jim took his long-stemmed snake-catching device and went to move it. ‘Very fast striking,’ he said. ‘I’ll give her a prod, Charley, and you can touch the scales.’

I looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Absolutely not,’ I said.

‘You’ll be all right. I’ll catch her behind the head and you can see what she feels like.’

‘All right, go on then.’ It was for the show, I was telling myself. It was for the TV show.

‘There you go.’ Jerking the stick, he hoiked the snake from the glass case and tossed it right at me.

I nearly died of fright. A venomous snake hurled by a grizzled old Cape farmer, who clearly thought it was hilarious. It hit me in the chest and I leapt back, yelling out and expecting to be bitten any minute. But I wasn’t . . . the snake lay in the dirt where it had fallen, and the others were doubled up with laughter. It wasn’t real. It was rubber! They had set me up, the bastards.

 

 

The following morning, Max drove me and Claudio to a little airfield at Cooktown, where we were due to meet Graeme Normington, the guy from the Queensland Ship Surveyors. He landed at eight-thirty in a twin-engine Beechcraft Duchess.

‘There’s something about two engines,’ I said to Claudio as Graeme taxied along the runway. ‘I’m happier knowing there are two engines when you’re flying over the middle of nowhere. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I know
exactly
what you mean.’

It was a great little plane, each engine producing 180 bhp; the tail was set quite high, which made it stable and fast, and the undercarriage was retractable.

And talking of retractable undercarriages, mine had retracted pretty sharply on those cane tracks yesterday. The bruise on my stomach was almost black now and it had spread right across my middle. There was bruising on my shoulder too and I couldn’t move my left arm properly. My own stupid fault, but I was suffering, I can tell you.

Graeme flew us from Cooktown out over the Great Barrier Reef. We were on the eastern side of the Cape York Peninsula and he said we couldn’t be in the air without seeing the reef. After that we would cut across Princess Charlotte Bay and the mountains, then fly the width of the Cape to a place called Weipa on the west coast.

The land in this area is traditionally owned, by which I mean Aboriginal. Weipa is a town built around an open-cast aluminium mine - they call it the Oasis in the Wilderness, and the Barramundi Capital of Queensland. The barramundi is a sport fish that can live in both salt- and freshwater, and one of the great delights of the Weipa community is catching it.

Graeme was going to inspect three boats in the area and would be back in the morning to fly us up to the northern tip at Bamaga. His remit covers any kind of marine situation, from assessing the amount of fuel on a massive cargo ship, to litigation, insurance claims, hull inspection, you name it.

He dropped us at the airfield in Weipa, where a lady called Bianca Graham was waiting to meet us. She had organised a trip to the mine and her parents, John and Chana, had very kindly offered to put us up for the night.

Both John and Bianca worked for Rio Tinto, the aluminium mining company that for the past forty years has been skimming ore from the red dust in this part of Queensland. They mine a total area of four thousand square kilometres on two separate leases, which were negotiated with the traditional owners when the aluminium ore was discovered. They pay for the privilege, of course. The money goes into a trust fund which the tribal government distributes throughout the community.

The whole thing seemed to have been planned around conservation. When the miners finished in one area they only moved on to another after restoring the land to how it had been before. Aluminium ore is found close to the surface, so they skim the topsoil, lift the ore and put the topsoil back. Then they replant.

Lynn Olsen showed me the process. Lynn is a truck driver, and when I say ‘truck’ I mean a massive Caterpillar dumper. It is enormous - the cab is situated over the front wheel on the left, and you have to climb a fixed iron stairway to get to it. The top of the wheel rim is taller than I am and Lynn told me that when she first started driving one of these trucks seventeen years ago, it was a little daunting. Now it’s second nature. She took me up the dirt roads to the ore fields where the dust was loaded. Then we returned to the plant, drove up a ramp with a grille cut through it and the truck drained its cargo. The dust was then scooped up and taken to be washed. After that the loose ore was transported by train to storage facilities before being shipped to processing plants all over the world.

The Caterpillar itself was quite easy to operate, and although it wasn’t the case when Lynn started, now something like half the drivers are women. She reckoned they were better at it than the men. ‘The truck gets smaller,’ she told me. ‘It’s huge when you start out, of course, but over the years it just seems to get smaller and smaller.’

When the shift ended we drove out to the Grahams’ house in a quiet suburb, a stone’s throw from a gorgeous tropical beach. It was beautiful and so tranquil, flat water and white sand with palm trees that were fairly dripping with coconuts.

‘We love the view,’ Bianca told me, ‘but you can’t really use the beach. You can’t swim because there are box jellyfish and sharks, of course, and then there are the salties - crocs who like to bask on the sand.’

We spent a very relaxing evening eating a barbecue with them and John explained more about the running of the mine. His role was in community relations, so he dealt with the traditional owners. Weipa was a good, if quiet, place to live, but it was isolated. For four months of the year it rained and the only way in or out was to fly. But there was plenty of outdoor stuff to do - fishing, hunting and camping - and he and his family loved it.

 

 

In the morning we went back to the airfield, where Graeme had the plane ready. Having completed his work in Weipa, he was heading to Bamaga to look at some more boats. Sam and Robin were already there, having flown up from Cairns in order to try to sort out what was going to happen when we got to Papua New Guinea. Together again, the four of us would take a small boat, what they call a tinny, to Thursday Island across the Torres Strait.

It’s funny. For years now I’ve had this thing about flying, this romantic notion that I can get my pilot’s licence and fly off wherever I want. The reality, however, is that I get airsick. Even yesterday in the twin-engine Beechcraft, it only had to be a little bumpy and I started to feel nauseous.

It’s just one of those things, I suppose, and it’s the same with boats. I get sick on small boats. Actually I’m crap around boats altogether. Whenever I go near a boat something goes wrong. I call it the Charley Factor. In Vietnam we were on a speedboat that conked out between two massive rocks and I thought we were going to drown. Then there was an abortive sea crossing from Nikoi Island to Borneo, where an hour into the voyage the
Pinisi
started taking on water. Then there was an overloaded ferry when we island-hopped through Indonesia on the last trip that listed so badly I thought it might capsize at any time. Not to mention a three-and-a-half-day crossing to Darwin that took six and a half days because the sea was so rough. I should avoid boats, I really should. It’s a bit like KTMs - I seem to put the hex on them.

Graeme dropped us off at the airfield in Bamaga where we had arranged to hook up with a young guy called Brett, who worked on Horn Island teaching youngsters how to drive the small tinnies, and his mate Jeff, who lived in Bamaga. Tinnies were the traditional method of getting around up here, and Brett had borrowed one to ferry us on the next leg of our journey, first to Horn Island and then on to Thursday Island. But, of course, the boat was playing up - on the way over they had had a bit of engine trouble and while Brett came to pick us up, another mate was trying to fix it.

The boat wasn’t big enough to take all of us so Brett suggested he make two trips. It was only twenty minutes from Seisa Beach, where it was moored, to Horn Island and back. Now the boat was working again, we agreed that Robin and Sam would go first.

It was a beautiful day and while we waited for Brett to return, I went for a paddle in a warm sea. Winter at the top of the Cape, I could get used to it. Brett’s friend Jeff - a cool, very tall and laid-back guy with chipped front teeth and a thick, gold band in his ear - had hung around with Claudio and me to wait for the boat. As the sun got hotter we sat under a shelter made out of palm leaves where it was more comfortable.

We waited and we waited. A twenty-minute round trip, Brett had said, but an hour and twenty minutes later there was still no sign of him. Jeff tried to get hold of him on his mobile phone but could not get a connection.

‘It’s funny,’ he said. ‘He really ought to be back by now.’

‘What could’ve happened?’ I asked him.

‘I don’t know.’ He was gazing out to sea. ‘Brett reckoned it was pretty choppy coming over this morning, but look at her now. She looks as flat as, Charley, doesn’t she?’ He scratched his shaven head under his baseball cap. ‘I suppose they could’ve tipped over, hit something maybe. You have to watch it, there’re plenty of rocks under the water.’ He looked at me briefly. ‘A couple of years ago I was fishing for turtle with a few mates. Being locals we’re allowed to fish for the turtles. Anyway, we caught this big old boy and it took the four of us to haul him over the side. Trouble was we were all on the one side of the boat when a wave hit and we capsized.’

I was staring at him.

‘You don’t really want to do that out there, you don’t want to do it in any of the waters round here - you’ve got sharks and sea wasps, you bloody name it.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Anyway we lost the turtle and we were four hours in the water before we could right the boat and get her going again. By then we’d drifted for miles, could’ve been in real trouble now I come to think about it.’ He showed me the chips in his teeth. ‘No worries, though, Brett knows what he’s doing. I’m sure they’ll be just fine.’

But an hour later there was still no sign of Brett, so after a discussion with Claudio, I decided to get hold of the coastguard. The local commander arrived and we gave him the description of the boat and who was on board. He went to fetch one of the volunteers, explaining that when he got back they would go out and look for the missing boat. We stayed on the beach, watching the horizon and waiting. And of course, just as the coastguard got back, Brett came rattling into the bay.