Wonders, Wishes and Waves Diary of an Accidental Explorer

By Antje Dun

LOFTY, a young English ship's boy, is sent far from home to work on board the ship, The Mermaid, under Captain King to map the west and northern coasts of Australia in the early 1800s – the bits that Matthew Flinders did not get to. His mother sees this as his chance to become an ‘explorer’ and escape the inevitable fate of working in the coal mines which have killed his dad and are making his brothers sick. Lofty doesn’t see it this way. He is homesick, misses his family terribly, hates all the flies and finds this new place hard to understand – there are sharks, pirates and snakes! How is he going to make it through this journey? When is he going to see home again?

Homesick and experiencing the difficulties of ship life, he is taken under the wing of Alan Cunningham, an English botanist, he calls Plant Spy. Plant Spy is fascinated by the Australian landscape, plants and animals and over time his enthusiasm makes Lofty aware of what a unique and magical place he has found himself in. There are ant castles (termite mounds), clouds of beautiful blue butterflies on Magnet Island (Blue Tigers), a meat eating plant (Albany Pitcher Plant), black cockatoos (which become his Manitou/totem) and an extraordinary lizard with an umbrella around its neck (Frilled Neck Lizard).

There are also many adventures and near misses aboard the Mermaid -

Encounters with large flotillas of Maccassans/Malays who collect sea slugs in the north - are they friend or foe?

Sailing through the Barrier Reef – will they make it or does their ship get damaged and need extensive repairs like Captain Cook and his ship the Endeavour?

A theodolite is taken on Melville Island by the Aboriginal Australians which is crucial for their mapping work – how can they get it back?

There is no water to be found and the rats have destroyed the last water barrels – do they turn back and end their trip without finishing what they need to do?

Lofty’s diary not only captures the trials and tribulations of navigating the Australian coast but also reveal the journey of a young boy into a young man who learns to become independent and think for himself. His encounters with Aboriginal Australians and their ways of living also lead him to develop a strong awareness and sensitivity towards Aboriginal Australian peoples and their culture.

Through Lofty's eyes we experience what is was like to be an explorer in Australia as his story is closely based on the original journals of Lieutenant Phillip Parker King's surveying trips of Australia’s north and west coasts from 1818 - 1822.

Where does Lofty’s journey end? It's time to go home and he must decide where home is. Has Australia's spirit seeped under his skin, or is the pull of his English home still strong?

This story is a fictionalised version of true events and is based on the journals of Lieutenant Phillip Parker King's surveying trips of Australia’s north and west coasts from 1818 – 1822. His journals are called Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia: Performed between the Years 1818 and 1822.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Antje Dun
• Release date: Feb 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370680856

Antje Dun

Lives in Melbourne, loves porridge, fascinated by the world, has too many books, would like to be able to sing, takes photos of nature and street art, thinks music is medicine and can't say no to white chocolate.

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Wonders, wishes and waves:

Diary of an accidental explorer

By Antje Dun

Copyright 2018 Antje Dun

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Smashwords Edition

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its education purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I work and live, and recognise their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging. In the spirit of reconciliation, I also acknowledge the valuable contribution that Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to make.

This book contains references to early contact relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and with utmost respect I have tried to be mindful of any depiction of Indigenous Australians, the events and places. Aboriginal and Torres Strait readers are advised that the following book contains images of people who have died.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 – Voyage No. 1, 1817: Fish traps and first contact

Chapter 2 – Voyage No. 2, 1819: Barrier Reef, blue butterflies and ‘butter’ mountain

Chapter 3 – Voyage No. 3, 1820: Miss Mermaid at beach hospital

Chapter 4 – Voyage No. 4, 1821: The Mermaid tree, Multi- Mauritius and my Manitou

Author’s note

References

Images

Chapter 1 – Voyage No. 1, 1817:

Fish traps and first contact

10 Oct 1817 - How did I end up here?

‘You are the luckiest bowl in the world Lofty’ said mum. ‘What do you mean I’m a lucky bowl?’ I questioned.

‘You are the luckiest bowl in the world, my Lofty’ mum kept saying again and again. I think mum meant boy but she was talking whilst chewing a chunk of chewy bread.

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full’ I said in the same tone she always said it to us. This made her laugh and bits of flying crumbs sprayed all over the sink. Then she got the giggles and went into a laugh choke I couldn’t tell if she needed help or was just getting into mum giggle zone which she sometimes does. Then Judith decided she would join in. She’s at that age where you learn to laugh along with everyone else but you don’t even know what it is everyone is laughing about. Anyway, who cares – it’s just good to have a laugh sometimes. Especially, since dad died there hasn’t been much joy in our house.

Before I left Mum must have said I was the luckiest bowl boy about 500 times (OK…slight exaggeration) but it didn’t make me feel any luckier and couldn’t she see what she was doing to me? Making me leave everybody behind - my family, my friends, Woof Woof and I was even going to miss nosy Mrs Pettigrove and her yapping fluff ball, Smookie.

So, hhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I really wonder what mum was thinking - a ship’s boy! I had never even seen the ocean let alone been on a ship when Captain King said to mum he could give me a job. Apparently, his dad and mum’s dad were good friends growing up. I don’t why that meant I had to go away. Mum said he was being very kind and helping our family out.

Captain King has been and is nice to me but I still can’t believe I am now on the other side of the world and now it’s time for the real work of preparing a ship to sail around Australia.

Right now, I JUST WANT TO GO HOME…it is so hot ...and what is with all the FLIES!!

They buzz in my ears all day and yesterday I swallowed 2! Gross, it made me feel like gagging.

‘Don’t worry mate,’ said Will, the other ship’s boy. ‘That’s your first buzzing meal of about one thousand!’

My feelometer isn’t going that well. Not happy is today’s reading.

23 Nov 1817 – Mapping the rest of Australia

Today Will introduced me to some of the other shipmates that will be on board the ship – some are convicts - What!?? I guess most of them seem OK, although I will stay away from grumpy bum David; he looks like a ferocious lion with his wild hair flying around and beard that makes it look like he has a mane.

Captain King gave us an official talk today to tell us what we will be doing. His mission, from the top bosses in England, is to hopefully find a river that will go inland into the middle of Australia and along the way map, measure and give names to places along the coast of the top half of Australia. He is to map the bits that Captain Matthew Flinders did not get to. Apparently, he got put in prison in Mauritius.

Captain King told me and Will how he met Captain Flinders as a boy when his dad was the Governor of NSW. They were having dinner one night when this strange, dirty man burst into