Lobsters, lost treasure and a cruel history

Who would think that just kilometres beyond this peaceful stretch of ocean a string of disasters, deaths and brutality have occurred in the past four centuries.

On a clear day like this, in Port Denison on Western Australia's coastline several hundred kilometres north of Perth, storms and shipwrecks seem almost out of the question. Yet when we climb to the Fishermans Memorial and Lookout at the southern end of the beach we find a different story. 

Here the information board clearly points out the spot where, in 1853 the 173-ton Leander hit a reef sixteen kilometres offshore.

Of the Leander's  twenty-two Malay crew, eleven died, the remainder were abandoned with no wages or passage home. This was before there was even a settlement here. The wreck has never been located.

To commemorate the many ships lost, a stretch of the beachfront has been designated as Shipwreck Walk. Although Port Irwin was considered a safe harbour, 22  ships went down in the area in the next century. In the 19th century there were so many mishaps that shipping companies refused to insure the vessels plying their trade in the vicinity. 

This western coastline of Australia is littered with wrecks, it seems. Some of them were momentous, with historical impact, as we are about to discover in the next few days that we spend exploring the region. During that time, we uncover tales of immense wealth, intrigue, unbelievable cruelty, but also selfless bravery.

But first we visit Dongara, Port Denison's twin town six kilometres away. It's a sleepy coastal community, with a pub, a fish and chip shop, cafes, and some grand old buildings in the town centre, dating from the 1860s. Most eyecatching are the many huge Moreton Bay fig trees, planted to flank the main street in 1906. Over a hundred years on, their gnarled and twisted trunks are like natural sculptures, and their dense shade is more than welcome on the town's hotter days.

We were interested to see this rotunda in the Town Park. While it may seem ordinary, the paved base is approximately the site and size of the local school's first vegetable garden. While these are becoming important again to modern schools, the teacher here in the late 19th-century was well ahead of his time. Produce was sent to Perth for exhibition and competition in the Royal Show. At harvest time, he taught maths to the children - many of whom were farmer's kids – by getting them to calculate the yields and 'bags to the acre' of the various grains and vegetables they had grown.

Wheat was an important crop in the early days and this flour mill was built in 1894 and powered by huge steam engines. In its time, the mill could process six tons of flour a day which was shipped from the port. It has had a varied life, but now it is a gracious private home.

The Indian Ocean has always been important to this area, but now crayfishing, catching rock lobsters (more correctly western rock lobsters) as they are called here, has become a highly lucrative fishing activity. 

The main processing plant is in Geraldton, 66 kilometres north, but Port Denison has a very busy centre which packs the lobsters for transport to the plant.

Lobsters crop up everywhere, from this street sign to holiday units in Port Denison....

....to this massive creature at the entrance to Dongara.

One morning we pass this sign at the entrance to the Port Denison marina, and follow the locals to see what it is all about.

We find the freshest fish, caught overnight, now being weighed and sold to the first savvy locals to arrive.

These large fish come from kilometres offshore where they were hauled in and packed in ice for the trip back to port.

Yet, apart from these quite hearty options, there is a bit or a cafe scene happening in this small country town. Near Town Beach, on the Dongara side of the Irwin River, the Sea Spray Cafe served up this delicious shareable treat: smashed avocado on toast with cherry tomatoes, baby spinach, crumbled fetta and poached eggs. Eat you heart our inner-city cafes!

The Irwin river creates a boundary between Dongara and Port Denison and makes an L-shaped turn before it finally reaches the Indian Ocean. The waters fan out at there and this area has been beautifully preserved as a wetland and bird sanctuary. 

With boardwalks extending along the waterfront and into the  lagoon, it is a tranquil beautiful place to walk or cycle, or simply exercise, then stand and watch the many species of waterfowl which come here.

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In Western Australia, the initials of the town or shire are often used on the local numberplates. It's a fun thing to know as you can be anywhere in the state and see one that begins BU or BSN or KO (and many more) and you instantly know where the drivers have come from. (See below for the answers!)

In the case of the one above, IR stands for Irwin, as you can see it is the Shire of Irwin. Interestingly this one also proudly announces that Dongara is Gateway to the Batavia Coast.

So who or what was Batavia? We decide to find out, and one day hop into a small plane that overflies Geraldton then tracks for an extended scenic overfly of the three main groups of the Pelseart, Easter and Wallabi group of the Abrolhos Islands (or more correctly Houtman Abrolhos) an archipelago of 122 islands, and associated coral reefs about eighty kilometres off the coast.

It's a relatively short flight - about twenty minutes - and apart from sightseers like us, the air link is vital to the life of these islands now. The home of crayfishermen who live and work from these tiny coral cays catching the huge rock lobsters which have brought such wealth to the area.

My biggest surprise was the colour and beauty of these islands which I had somehow imagined as being grey and muddy. Despite being sub-tropical, the colours rival those you would see in many places further north in Australia.

They are also mysterious and have a malevolent past. It goes like this: almost four centuries ago, in 1629 the Dutch trading ship Batavia, so-named because it was part of the Dutch East India Company fleet that travelled to Java (via the Cape of Good Hope) for frequent cargoes of rare and expensive spices, struck a reef and foundered near these islands.

What happened next was a period of mayhem and mutiny, murder and marooning on these barren and inhospitable islands. To get a little idea of it, imagine a place with no fresh water, little food, searing sun and biting winds, and no shade or shelter.  As if this was not enough it was complicated by villainous men intent on destruction.

To read more about this see Peter Fitzsimon's epic book Batavia. Not for the faint-hearted, it is a no-holds-barred depiction of Australia's most villainous massacre in which almost 300 people died.

We land on a dirt airstrip on East Wallabi island which today is benign and tranquil with no hint of the bloodshed in its past. WE take a short walk to Turtle Bay where the sand is the crystalline white of crushed coral and we prowl along the shore discovering shells of every colour, cuttlefish and seaworm casts.

Part of the half-day tour we have booked includes morning tea and cake at this eco-shelter and then lunch later on - bread rolls and cold meats, cheese and salad. Perfect and simple for this stretch of coast.

Despite its apparent bareness, this island is home to small Tammar wallabies, and we saw one or two huddled under bushes as we walked. For a while there were cats and rats, which had been introduced here, but these have beens eradicated.

There were also small spiny lizards, like a gecko, and skinks too. Circling high above were ospreys, white breasted sea eagles and petrels. This now-abandoned osprey nest looks tidy enough, but off-camera at its base was the bird's treasure collection of blue plastic pieces, bits and pieces of other things, including a rubber flip-flop! 

As you can see the terrain is rough and the only growing things are saltbush and succulents and those dead thorny plants make walking both hazardous and painful, and impede your progress as they catch at your legs and clothes.

Lashed by an eternity of waves and winds, the edges of the rocky cliffs are terrifyingly undercut and could crumble without warning, so you need approach with care - as we did!

Despite their history and the still-harsh conditions, there is an awesome beauty to the Houtman Abrolhos. En-route our pilot points out the pearl farms, the historic church on Basile Island, the brightly coloured fishermen's camps, marine life including sharks, manta rays, dolphins and migratory whales and Webbie Hayes' Fort, the oldest European building in Australia.

Remote and for a while abandoned, this area is finally coming alive again, welcoming day-trippers, divers and - who knows? - maybe, finally the answer to the riddle of exactly where the wreck of the Batavia now lies, and what treasures and secrets it still holds.

Our trip over, we took time to browse in Geraldton's museum on the waterfront, piecing together more of the story from evocative displays of the region's Big Three of shipwrecks - Batavia, Zeewyjk and HMAS Sydney II. 

The waterfront itself is worth exploring too, with its cafes and restaurants and tourist information centre as well as the museum. There are markets on Saturdays and, if you are here on Sunday, there are tours of the harbour on a Batavia longboat replica.

And here is that name yet again, this time on the southern approach to Geraldton where the tiny historic settlement of Greenough has a particularly quirky drawcard.

If you think this is a one-off, you are wrong. While this may be the most sensational leaning tree in these parts, there are many others nearby, each bowing to the heavy westerly winds that sweep across the paddocks in coastal areas locally.

Nearby the historic National Trust village of Greenough has 11 stone buildings built by the district's 19th-century pioneers, which are open to the public for self-guided tours.

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In present day terms, the most poignant memorial in Geraldton, to commemorate the sinking of HMAS Sydney II and immense loss of life in 1941, was only relatively recently erected, in 2001. There are guided tours, daily, or you may quietly experience this the very moving place, set on a hill overlooking the city.

The stunning sculptured  Dome of Souls has been created from 645 steel seagulls, one for every sailor who perished on HMAS Sydney II...

... making lacy shadows on the inlaid marble below.

The Waiting Woman, a bronze statue of a woman stands searching the waters for those who will never return. It is especially apt because at the time the statue was erected the site of the HMAS Sydney II's final resting place in the ocean was not known. When it was finally discovered in 2008 the amazing result was that this woman is facing the exact point where the wreck lies!

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Yet life goes on, as it must, and today's Geraldton is thriving with a population of around 36,000, city-status since 1988, and a bustling port that welcomes cruise liners as well as the endless fishing trawlers bringing in fish and crayfish for processing and packing - a modern-day treasure still being brought from the sea.

The Batavia Coast has seen tragedy and triumph, but today's visitors today discover beauty where they least expect it and a genuine welcome from the locals. 

More information.........

{Answers to the numberplate quiz: BU - Bunbury, BSN - Busselton, KO - Kojonup}

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Text & Photographs: ©Sally Hammond

Video: ©Gordon Hammond