Matthew Flinders Rescue Mission

Matthew Flinders is one of the most celebrated explorers of Australia. He has so many things named after him plus plenty of statues in his honour dotted across the country. There are even a couple of statues of his faithful cat Trim.

Matthew Flinders

Most Australian students study his voyages with George Bass. These included his circumnavigation of Tasmania, proving it was an island and his successful mission in HMS Investigator to chart the coastline of Australia.

Less well known is a remarkable unplanned trip he made that would be much more celebrated if he hadn’t done so many other amazing things.

In 1803 Flinders was returning to England aboard HMS Porpoise with his charts and other important documents from his recent voyage. He was actually a passenger on the ship and Lieutenant John Fowler was Captain. They were accompanied by two other vessels, the Bridgewater and the Cato.

Unfortunately the three vessels were caught by a sandbank on what is today the northern end of Fraser Island and the Porpoise and the Cato were shipwrecked. Fortunately all but three people aboard were able to make it to a sandbank as the vessels broke apart. The Bridgewater managed to get through but strangely sailed on, even though they knew the other ships had foundered. They never attempted a rescue and later reported that all hands on the Porpoise and Cato were lost.

The party of 94 from the two vessels sat stranded on the sandbank for about nine days as they slowly realised they were not going to be rescued.  They had salvaged a couple of small ships cutters and began contemplating sending a group to raise the alarm. Brisbane is located about 400 kilometres from the shipwreck site, a difficult but possible journey in a small boat. The only problem was that in 1803 Brisbane didn't exist and wouldn’t for another thirty or so years.

The closest outpost of the Empire was their departure point of Sydney. This lay over 1,000 km to the south. Undaunted, Flinders and Fowler took the largest of ship's cutters, which they optimistically christened Hope, with twelve of the crew plus the intrepid Trim and set off to obtain a rescue party.

This would be some trip today but to undertake it successfully in 1803 was remarkable. It certainly helped to have one of the world’s greatest navigators aboard because this was a feat of considerable navigation as well as seamanship.

The journey to Sydney took them almost two weeks. We can only wonder what conditions aboard were like as they arrived in port but these were hardy people. Three ships were dispatched on the rescue mission which was a complete success with all those on the sandbank found safe and sound. You can imagine their faces when they finally saw the sails of the rescue vessels appear.

While the other two rescue ships returned to Sydney, Flinders took command of the Cumberland to complete his return to England but he probably shouldn’t have. Perhaps following the idea that no good deed goes unpunished, Flinders trip home would take him six and a half years. By the time he returned he was a broken man and he had also lost the wonderful Trim. But that is another story. Still his remarkable rescue mission in the cutter Hope deserves to be celebrated for the achievement it was.

Australian Animal Noises

Like most kids, when mine were younger they would do their great impressions of animal noises. They did all the standard ones like dogs, cats, cows, pigs and sheep, often with actions to accompany them.

One day while I was getting my daughter to go through her full performance the thought came to me that as Australian parents we never get our kids to mimic our own native animals like a koalas, kangaroos or ring tailed possums?

If asked I’m sure most Aussie parents would say that Australian animals don’t make noises (except of course for “Skippy’ the bush kangaroo with her clicking thing).

This probably shows the disconnection most of us have from our land as many of our native animals have a wide assortment of calls. Koalas are actually one of the noisiest animals you can imagine. From the pig like grunts of the males and the baby cries and screams of the females. Kangaroos do make clicking, clucking, coughing and growling noises (as well as banging their feet on the ground), ring tailed possums make a beautiful trilling sound, dingos howl, and emus do a bizarre drumming noise from deep in their chest. Of course brush tailed possums make that psychotic growl that makes you think there is an axe murderer outside your window (or maybe that's just me).

The thing with many of these sounds is they have never been named unlike, woof meow, moo, oink and baa. Cats do of course actually say a lot more than meow. One of mine had a vocabulary of at least twenty different sounds from chirps, mews, rows, hisses, mbop and a special double meow when it wanted to go outside. But meow is pretty good shorthand for a cats call and easy for adults to explain to a child.

I can’t help thinking it would nice if some Aussie kids knew what some Aussie animals sounded like. But I suspect it won’t be happening anytime soon.

Though I do wonder what a fat-tailed false antechinus might sound like?

A Vision of the True Australian Landscape

The 1955 John Brack painting “Collins St 5 p.m.” has had more impact on me than any other painting I have ever seen. Brack’s dark but honest vision cuts to the core of what life is really like for most Australians.

Collins St., 5p.m., John BRACK

http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/3161/

I remember the first time I saw it, shown to me by my father. Dad was no great art critic, but he understood the deep truth of this painting, having worked in Melbourne and been bound to the daily suburban commute for over 40 years. You could almost see him shudder as he looked at the painting and reflected on the understanding by the artist of the average white collar worker. I also came to understand its true meaning, working for many years in Collins Street and walking by the spot it was painted everyday. Although the fashions and shopfronts had changed, the implications were still the same.

For most Australians this is the true Australia. A landscape of brick, concrete, traffic and cancelled trains and not the far and wide horizons eulogised in verse, song and cinema. For the most part, Australian’s vision of themselves as a people inhabiting a wide brown land is at best a myth and at worst a lie. We are coastal city dwellers, the most urbanised people on the planet, bound by mortgages and other commitments to the drudgery of the daily grind.

This painting will never be ranked as Australia’s favourite painting. That honour will be reserved for a landscape like Robert’s “Shearing the Rams” or Drysdales’s “The Cricketers” that reflect an image of how we wish we were. Brack’s masterpiece shows us as how we really are, a thought bound to make us uncomfortable.
You can see the original “Collins St 5 p.m.” for yourself, for free, hanging in the Ian Potter Gallery across the road from Flinders Street Station, Melbourne Victoria.