THE BLACK BARNACLE-ENCRUSTED wedge as the tide rises and falls, a sand shadow below protruding from the white sand at Carnot Bay on Western Australia’s Kimberley coast is being swallowed by time. It disappears daily diamond ripples of water. Few would know this remnant of one of Australia’s great legends is even there – the corroded wing tip of an aeroplane that held great treasure and tragedy.
Carnot Bay’s Smirnoff Beach is far from anywhere, along a rough four-wheel-drive track north of Broome on a potholed and washed-out road. There are no signposts to direct you through the dense and overgrown bush. If you make it there, you’ll find a memorial to the victims of a plane crash standing sentinel over the beach and silhouetted against the sheer translucent blue of the Kimberley sky.
Its cross has bowed and a rusted propeller has fallen off the stone plinth. A plaque bearing the names of those who died here 80 years ago, in 1942 – Maria Van Tuyn, Johannes Van Tuyn, ‘Joop’ Blaauw and Dann Hendriksz –
