Tomorrow is Good Friday so I thought I’d post a day earlier than usual. Both Friday and Sunday are public holidays here, but we get the Monday off too. To complicate things more, next Friday is a public holiday too (ANZAC Day) which makes for an extra short week. ANZAC Day signals the start of the cool weather here in Australia’s capital but, as of this writing, summer is still in full swing.
In other news, last week I have secured another new distributor, House of Prose. HoP provides a space for writers to showcase their work. There, you can uncover unique voices and stories that might have otherwise remained hidden in the shadows. HoP believe every author deserves a chance to shine, and every reader deserves the opportunity to explore new horizons. By supporting independently published authors HoP, you’re not just buying a book; you’re nurturing creativity and fostering the growth of independent voices; especially mine.
First-time customers receive a 10% discount on their first purchase. So if, for example, you bought all my books you would save so much money that a piece of a Bitcoin and that is like having a money tree in your backyard.
Don’t forget that hard copies of my books are also available from Booxies and POP Canberra.
The Doctor Recommends – Prisoners of Geography
Did you know that there is no road that connects North and South America? Or that there is no bridge that crosses the Amazon river. Or that a mountain range hugs much of Brazil’s coastline making development almost impossible for hundreds of kilometres inland?
I didn’t until I read Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography. I pride myself on knowing many things, but the facts that Marshall revelled in his 2016 book were alien to me. Why do people live where they do? Why can’t they expand easily? And which countries are blessed by geography and which are cursed?
This is a fantastic read if you wish to understand the nature of global powers. Why is Russia so aggressive with Ukraine? Why is China expanding so rapidly? This book offers an analysis of each world player, including what that want, what lines they can’t allow to be crossed, and what they may do next. Make sure to get the most up-to-date version. I feel this book will be very relevant in the chaotic times to come.
Tampa Gold
As a segway from Prisoners and what we in Australia call the “tyranny of distance”, I thought this week I’d share an excerpt from 2024’s Tampa Gold. In this chapter, Christian Holland has crossed the continent by car to take possession of, what he hopes to be, a small fortune. Unwilling to part with it or drive all the way back to the East Coast, he struggles to think of a way to get back home. At the last minute, he is presented with a solution which will place him unwittingly on a collision course with history.
Perth – 19 August 2001
Upon taking their first overseas trip, many Australians quickly come to realise they live at the end of the Earth. It simply takes forever to get anywhere. As far away on the planet as we could be from the nation that spawned our culture-Britain-and cut off by the world’s largest ocean from the nation that we increasingly identified with-USA-Australians are used to long trips to get anywhere.
A flight to the UK will take the better part of 24 hours, not including the trip to the airport and all that involves. Los Angeles is better, at under fourteen hours, but that is non-stop. The saving grace of a trip to London is that it is so far that the plane has to land halfway and refuel to get to its destination. Foolishly, most passengers don’t take this opportunity to have a rest in their port of call. They wonder about the airport in a daze for as long as they must, then climb back on board the same plane for another twelve hours of discomfort.
And I say overseas deliberately. Many other peoples may refer to foreign travel as “international”, “the continent”, or even “across the border” but Australians always say “overseas.”
“I’m going overseas,” they say. And with good reason. Because everywhere else in the world from Australia is literally on the other side of an ocean or a sea.
There are only two ways to travel over a sea in my experience; aeroplane or ship. I didn’t need to go overseas to get home. I was still in Australia. But I had already ruled out driving and train. The train would have been easier, but it would take just as long. The car was out because I was never getting back behind the wheel of anything and driving that far again if I could help it.
I ruled out flying for one reason. The contents of my checked luggage would be worth more than a year’s salary for any airport worker. At some point, I would be out of sight of my luggage for hours and my paranoia that I would lose it all gave me apoplexy.
That left one option, ship. And it was only when I was walking along Cottesloe Beach toward Fremantle and saw the freighters waiting off the port that the thought of taking a ship to get anywhere even occurred to me. I don’t think that I would be alone either in that regard. As I pointed out earlier, Australia is a long way from anywhere Australians like to visit. And a ship wouldn’t get you there fast enough, so why bother?
Ironically, people had been deliberately coming to Australia by ship since 1788. There were a few earlier missed steps and accidents which some have argued would have had us speaking Dutch or French, but Britain was ever the only real chance of settling Australia when it did. It began in 1788 in Sydney Cove with a bunch of convicts on the First Fleet. Convict transportation ended in 1868 from where I would depart twenty-four hours later; Fremantle.
In June 1829, Fremantle, originally known as “The Swan River Colony,” was founded and established as a “free settlement” with the arrival of approximately four hundred civilian and military settlers on the HMS Sulphur and Parmelia.
People who migrated by choice originally populated Fremantle, which made its beginning different from other penal colonies established in New South Wales.
It was a military and civilian settlement, not a settlement for convicts; at least not yet. The settlers had a challenging time entering Cockburn Sound, both ships sustaining damage from rocks, and Parmelia was run aground, but did arrive safely. Cockburn is pronounced Co-burn by West Australians but anyone not from Perth still laughs when they visit.
During those first thirty years, life was very hard for those new settlers. The issue was one of fertility. The Swan River simply winds through a sandy flat. Not only was the vegetation hard to clear, but once it was cleared, it wasn’t “good earth”, just lots of sand.
The reports received back in England were not good. So, of course, people migrated elsewhere, which caused even more problems. The colony needed manpower to build the vital communications, transport, and administrative framework for the colony to succeed.
There was a depression in 1843 which almost ended the colony forever, however at the suggestion of the York Agricultural Society in 1847, “That it is the opinion of this meeting that, because the present land regulations have entirely destroyed our labour fund, we conceive that the Home Government are bound in justice to supply us with some kind of labour, and after mature deliberations we have come to the determination of petitioning the Secretary of State for the Colonies for a gang of forty convicts to be only employed in public work.”
The settlers were not happy about the proposition of turning the colony into a penal colony. Regardless of the public opinion or previous promises, the decision was made, and in November 1849 they officially announced that The Swan River Colony had been ‘constituted a penal settlement’ to speed up the economic growth. As the colony grew, so did the mining and agriculture that it allowed, and ultimately, so did Western Australia.
Anyone visiting Fremantle today would be impressed with its well-preserved colonial architecture and its nightlife while simultaneously sniggering at its famously useless football team the Dockers. I believe that someone should give the men who decided that their uniform should be green and purple a knighthood for providing the rest of the nation with so much good material for a laugh. And 2001 was a particularly bad year for the Dockers. When I visited they had lost seventeen games in a row and would end up dead last by season’s end.
But none of that mattered to me in August 2001. I needed to find a ship that would take me home, and Fremantle was my point of departure. I spent much of the next day walking from travel agent to travel agent, only to be disappointed. None of them had any ships in their books that were travelling from Fremantle to Sydney, the closest port to Canberra. Or Fremantle to anywhere east. I was told that cruises simply didn’t go across to the east coast. They went north to places like Broome and Darwin. And if you ever want a cure for happiness, visit Darwin!
It didn’t help that it also wasn’t the season for cruises. Winters in Australia are mild compared to most places in the world, but everything is relative. Just ask any English tourist who have lain on Bondi Beach without sunscreen for an hour.
So it was with a resigned acceptance that I would have to drive five days home again when I entered that last travel agent I could find. Why I went in there when I knew there were no cruise liners leaving Perth until March? I don’t know. Pig headedness I guess. And I suppose I was only half listening as the agent again told me there was no hope. If only I would consider the other option she said. What was that I asked, expecting to be told about trains, planes and cars for the millionth time that day?
“Cargo ship cruises!”
“Cargo ship what?” I replied, not understanding.
“Cargo ship cruises. You get on a cargo ship and you go where it is going!”
“You mean I have to work on a cargo ship?” I asked. The idea of learning how to tie knots and scrub decks while paying for the privilege seemed ludicrous.
“No. You get a room and just sleep, I suppose. Or read a book. Oh, you can work. You don’t get paid, but some people enjoy learning new skills and pretending that they are part of the crew. All part of the fun, I suppose.”
“And how often do these ships depart?” I asked, suddenly getting interested.
“Oh, just about every second day. You should pop down to Freo and see how many ships there are coming and going.”
“Any heading to Sydney? Or Melbourne?” Even Hobart seemed reasonable at that point, and it was on an island just north of Antarctica!
“No, not there. Most ships continue on to Asia. Singapore or Hong Kong. Or you could take a bulk goods ship. They go everywhere carrying grain and ore. But not to the east coast. They have their own resources.”
“So why suggest it?” I asked. That seemed to take me even further away from my home.
“Well, if you get to Singapore, say, you could easily hop onto another ship coming back down to the east coast. That would be the easiest thing ever.”
“Okay,” I said. “Anything leaving soon?”
The agent checked a few books and registers. Pre-internet, you see. “There is one going tomorrow, if you are lucky. Norwegian ship heading to Singapore if the schedule is correct.”
“Great,” I said, suddenly feeling reinvigorated. “Let’s do it!”
“Okay. Come back in an hour and I’ll have the paperwork done.”
I was about to step out and head to the shops when the travel agent suddenly called me back.
“Oh, by the way,” she said.
“Yes?” I replied absently.
“The ship is called the ‘Tampa.’”
Other reads for you this week
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