Around Oz
Gibt es eine schönere Geburtstagsfeier als eine Fahrt auf einer Luxusjacht zu einem australischen Inselparadies? Unser Korrespondent freut sich auf den Sommer.
Peter Flynn writes to us from down under
In early April seven years ago, I was waiting anxiously for an operation in hospital. The surgery was successful and, within three months, I was off on a fishing holiday with family and friends to celebrate my 60th birthday on 1 July at Dundee Beach, about a three-hour drive south-west of Darwin.
This year, thankfully, I’m unaware of having any life-threatening medical conditions, but another fishing trip is scheduled, to mark my 67th birthday — this time, to the Montebello Islands, about a 12-hour boat trip from Exmouth on the northwest Pilbara Coast.
Over the past year, Exmouth has become quite the tourist destination in travel-restricted Australia — and is even being called “the new Bali”. When I visited Exmouth in winter last year, the place was full of European backpackers.
None of them seemed particularly interested in getting back home any time soon. That’s not surprising, considering there’s plenty of work available. There’s also a great local music scene and the coral Ningaloo Reef nearby.
Snorkellers love this place — not just for its colourful tropical fish, but also because it gives people the chance to swim with huge whale sharks (the world’s biggest fish). They’re pretty harmless, though there have been incidents of people being hit by their tails when the sharks come too close.
Meanwhile, one of my twin sons, Anton, met the owner of the luxury charter boat that will take us to the Montebello Islands for five days and nights at a cost of about A$ 2000 each. This archipelago of almost 180 small islands is managed by the state Department of Environment and Conservation. Wild cats and rats have long been eradicated and the surrounding waters are likely to become a marine reserve.
There has been little human habitation on these islands since rising sea levels forced indigenous Australians to leave the Montebellos around 5000 BC. In the early 1600s, the English ship Tryall was wrecked when it struck rocks to the west of the islands.
Pearl fishing and diving were common here until the start of the Second World War. The impact of the British military is felt to this day because of its atomic weapon tests here in 1952 and 1956. The last of these nuclear explosions is reported to have contaminated mainland Australia as far as 3,000 kilometres away, in Queensland.
That’s why visitors today are urged to spend no more than one hour a day on the islands — and to stay away during the cyclone season, from November to April. This is when turtles go ashore to nest and lay their eggs, followed by the hatching period — so camping is also discouraged. Our party, however, plans to sleep on the charter boat rather than stay in a radioactive nature reserve.