CHAPTER THREE
SUNDAY - DALY WATERS
Jake woke up with the early morning sun shining in his eyes through a crack in the blinds. He rolled over to Shoni who was lying on her side with her naked back to him. He studied her thinking that he had never seen anything more lovely in his life. She stirred and reached out to him. He caressed her as she moulded her body into his. He pushed her onto her back kissing her body all over until she could bear it no more and pulled him on top of her.
Over breakfast Jake asked Shoni about her background. She was born in Takayama, a small town in the foothills of the Japanese Alps, and had a typical Japanese upbringing. She had hard-working parents and was the youngest of three sisters. Shoni was educated at local schools, excelling in English, and decided to move to Tokyo University to study for a communications degree. On graduating, she joined a small public relations company which worked with a number of companies involved in conservation and new energy. She always had an interest in conservation because areas of national parks in Takayama were constantly under threat from developers. As her interest grew in environmental issues, she joined the Tokyo office of the World Conservation Council as their Public Relations Manager. The nuclear explosion at Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in March 2011 had shaped her views on energy and conservation, particularly as it had affected the lives of her grandparents. They had lived near the plant and had to move out of their home for twelve months until the area had been de-contaminated. Consequently she was vehemently opposed to the building of new nuclear plants in Japan.
Shoni was twenty-eight years old and faced continual pressure from her family to follow the Japanese tradition of marrying and establishing a family like her sisters. But she was not ready to settle down into married life. She had a number of relationships with men and the last one had ended badly so she decided to leave her job and travel. Her first trip was to Europe where she and a girlfriend spent six weeks backpacking around England, France and Italy. On her travels she met and became friendly with a group of Australians who had encouraged her to visit Australia. She returned to Tokyo and found a temporary job but quickly became restless and applied for a twelve months holiday working visa to Australia.
She had started her trip in Sydney and gradually moved north up the east coast, working occasionally as a waitress to help pay for her accommodation, usually at a backpackers’ hostel. After touring seaside resorts on the New South Wales and Queensland coasts she had decided to see the outback, travelling by bus across western Queensland to the Northern Territory and eventually stopped at Daly Waters. Having spent the first night in the backpackers’ room at the Daly Waters Hotel, she noticed the hotel was seeking a barmaid/waitress, and on enquiring with the manager, was immediately offered a job for two months. She was now two weeks into her job. At the end of her employment at Daly Waters she planned to travel to Darwin before returning to Tokyo.
Jake suggested she must visit Kakadu National Park which was a unique heritage listed park famous for its waterways, plant species, crocodiles and bird life. A loud knock on the cabin door interrupted their discussion.
“Come on Jake, time to rise, we’ve got something special to show you.”
Jake put on some shorts and struggled to the door to see his father standing there.
“Oh, did I interrupt something? Not to worry, we’ll pick you up in ten minutes for our little excursion.”
“Right, Dad, I’ll be ready.”
“You can bring the young lady with you if you want,” said Bill smiling and wandered off.
Jake looked quizzically at Shoni.
“I can make it as I don’t start work till 4pm today.”
Fifteen minutes later, Bill and Lizzie arrived in a battered jeep and Shoni and Jake climbed into the back seat. Bill accelerated and headed off.
“Where are we going?” asked Jake.
“We are going to a special place which very few white people get to see,” responded Lizzie.
Bill drove out past the old airport which he explained used to be a base for the American and Australian Air forces during the Second World War.
“That’s strange, there’s an old plane sitting on the tarmac. I’ve haven’t seen anything but crop-dusters at the old airport for years,” Bill remarked as he turned onto a dirt road.
Lizzie said, “It looks like one of the old planes that the Australian Flying Doctor Service used to have. I think it’s a single-engine Pilatus PC-12. They have long range capability and they were popular in the 1990’s.”
Jake looked at the plane curiously and noticed two men strolling towards the aircraft as the car passed by the airport.
After about thirty minutes the track petered out near a large rocky outcrop and they all got out of the car.
“We’ll have to walk from here, put on your hats and bring your water bottles,” said Lizzie, moving on ahead. After fifteen minutes, Jake could see the rocky outcrop was much larger than it first appeared as they came to an opening between two huge boulders. Walking through the gap, they entered an old dried creek bed surrounded on both sides by steep rocks. The rocks were shaped like beehives with stripes of orange and black caused by wind erosion. They followed the sandy stretch till they came to a bend in the creek bed where the rocks closed in on the trail forming a small gorge. Jake could hear running water and was surprised to see water trickling over the rocks into a large pool.
“There’s a spring up here that feeds into the pool. The drovers used it seventy years ago to water their cattle but it fell into disuse and very few people know of it now. It’s a great spot for cooling off.”
“Come over here, I want to show you something.” Lizzie led them up the gorge, climbing for another hundred metres before squeezing through a narrow opening which tunnelled into the rocks before ending in a large cave.
Jake and Shoni stared in wonder. Around the walls of the cave was the most amazing scene. Aboriginal paintings covered the entire walls with pictures of giant wombats, kangaroos, turtles, snakes, crocodiles, lizards as well as aboriginal men dancing and women cooking over fires. There were ochre- coloured drawings of hands, boomerangs and dongas, scenes of bush fires and battles between aboriginals and white men.
“Very few people know about this place Jake and we want to keep it that way. This is aboriginal spiritual ground and we don’t want any white fellas coming here to disturb our sacred ground.”
“This is just amazing Lizzie, it’s much better than any rock art I have seen before. I can understand why you would want to keep it private,” Jake replied.
“Yeah, you can see some wonderful paintings at Katherine Gorge and Arnhem Land but they’re nothing like this. When you’ve seen enough come down to the pool and we’ll have a picnic lunch,” said Bill
After spending an hour together admiring the paintings, Jake and Shoni wandered back to the pool where Bill and Lizzie had prepared some sandwiches and fruit using a large flat-topped rock as a table. They ate their lunch enjoying the natural beauty and solitude of the surroundings.
Lizzie asked Jake about the conference he was attending at Kakadu. After listening to Jake’s explanation she said intently, “You know Jake that new uranium mine is on sacred aboriginal land. There could be a lot of trouble from groups of activists, not just aboriginal protesters but from the greenies, the anti-nuclear group and conservationists. I have a bad feeling about it.”
“I’ll be careful, don’t worry, there’ll be lots of security with the Prime Ministers of Japan and Australia there.”
“That won’t stop some of them, they like the publicity with all the media there. The Kakadu Land Council endorsed the project after a long negotiation but there is still a lot of unrest among my people. My brother Barry lives up at Jabiru and is involved with the Aboriginal Land Council there, so if you’re interested you could contact him.” Lizzie scribbled a mobile phone number on a piece of paper and passed it to him.
“Enough of this negative stuff, let’s cool off in the pool” said Bill stripping do
wn to his jocks and plunging in. Lizzie flung off her dress and followed and after a quizzical look at Shoni, Jake took off his shirt and joined them. The water was surprisingly cool in the shadow of the rocks but it was crystal clear and refreshing. Jake splashed Shoni with a “come-on” urging her to join them. She looked at Jake’s lean body gleaming in the water, and with a shy smile stripped down to her bra and panties and quickly slid into the pool next to Jake. Jake was admiring her body as she entered the water and didn’t see Bill duck-dive underneath him and lift him bodily out of the water before dumping him head first into the water. That started wild splashing between the four of them before they all lay back laughing and floated in the pool. Jake and Shoni swam around a bend to the end of the pool out of sight of Bill and Lizzi. Jake pulled Shoni to him and kissed her lightly on the lips. He could feel her body cling to him as she responded and kissed him back. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he carried her to the edge of the pool and laid her down on a sandy beach, their passion burning for each other.
Afterwards, Jake looked up at the clear blue sky and thought this was one of the best days of his life. He had always enjoyed the Australian outback but nothing could be better than lying with a beautiful woman in surroundings like this.
“Hey you two, it’s time to head back.” Bill’s voice interrupted their reverie. They hastily dressed and walked back to their picnic spot.
On returning to the caravan park, Lizzie and Bill excused themselves promising to meet again at the pub at sundown. Shoni had to start work again at the pub at 4 p.m. so Jake spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the town looking at the few shops with their range of goods on display; tourist items such as T-shirts, mugs, caps; food and drink; live chickens; antique chairs and ancient agricultural equipment. He enjoyed talking to the shop-keepers who were characters in the own right, telling their stories as to how they ended up in Daly Waters.
The pub was starting to fill up by dusk as Jake wandered over to join Bill and Lizzie on the deck. They sat watching the old gum trees silhouetted by the orange sky of the sunset, talking quietly of their lives over the past few years. Although they had kept in touch by telephone, email and occasionally Skype, it had been three years since Jake and Bill had seen each other in the flesh. Jake noticed Bill had aged physically in those three years, his short cropped hair had turned white, his skin was like leather due to exposure to the harsh outback sun but he seemed just as fit in mind and body. His father had never been one to show his emotions and Jake had never felt close to him in the past. Seeing his father now made Jake realise how much he had missed his down-to-earth approach to life and enjoyed listening to him talking about his love of the outback. Lizzie’s insights into living in the outback and black-white relationships were interesting to Jake who admitted he didn’t know much about aboriginal culture.
They moved into the main dining room for dinner and again had the “Beef ‘n Barra” buffet. Instead of the iconic “Chook Man”, the hotel had a ballad singer and an aboriginal band complete with a didgeridoo player to entertain the crowd and before long there were couples up dancing. Jake saw no sign of the Chinese men he had eavesdropped on the previous evening. Shoni was rushing around clearing glasses from the tables and smiled at Jake whenever she passed near him. Bill and Lizzie had a couple of dances and chatted to the locals. The night went quick enough and after Bill and Lizzie made their goodbyes Jake started to feel tired. He caught Shoni’s eye and invited her over to his cabin for a nightcap when she had finished up at the bar. He wandered back to his cabin and turned on the television set and watched an old movie till Shoni knocked on the door and slipped in. He made her green tea and they made their way to the bedroom. They made love again, this time slowly, neither of them knowing when they might meet again.
MONDAY MORNING - DALY WATERS
Jake packed up to leave, trying to be cheerful when he really wanted to stay with Shoni. He kissed her once more, promising to ring her from Yellow Water.
He threw his case in the back of the Land Cruiser and walked over to say farewell to Bill and Lizzie. Lizzie was hanging out the washing in the back yard. A small boy was using an old cricket bat to hit a cricket ball in a stocking tied to a Hill’s Hoist clothes line. Lizzie looked around at Jake and smiled.
“Hi Jake, this is my grandson Gillie. He thinks he’s going to be a test cricketer.”
“Is that so,” said Jake, “let’s see if he can bat.”
Jake picked up a ball and gestured for Gillie to stand in front of an old rubbish bin to be used as a wicket. Gillie smiled showing his beautiful white teeth and big brown eyes twinkling at the thought of a contest. Jake then proceeded to bowl a slow ball to Gillie which was promptly clouted into the back fence.
“Hey, this guy can play. Let’s see how he handles a fast ball,” said Jake as he swung his arm over a bit quicker before letting the ball go. Gillie giggled shyly and hit the next ball clean over the fence. They played for the next ten minutes while Lizzie finished hanging out the washing.
“O.K. That’s enough now Gillie, Jake’s gotta get going.”
Lizzie gave Jake a huge hug. “You come back real soon Jake, your father has missed you heaps. He talks about you all the time and although he wouldn’t say so, he really is very proud of you.”
“I’m so glad to have met you Lizzie. Thanks so much for making Dad so happy.”
Jake walked with her to the back door and went into the house to say goodbye to Bill. Bill shook his hand and gave Jake an affectionate hug, something he had never done before.
“Take care of yourself son, it’s been good to see you. Come back soon.”
“If I can manage it I just might come back after the conference but it will depend on whether there is much follow-up work.”
“That’d be great son. You know you can take the old Stockmen’s Track up to Kakadu which is a rough ride but a much shorter and more interesting trip than the highway. No one uses it these days. There’s an aboriginal site half way along the track called the Lost Temple which is just a magic place.”
“Thanks for that Dad, if I have time I might take it on the way back. In the meantime, you look after yourself,” Jake said as he jumped into the car and drove back to the junction of the Stuart Highway, veered left and headed straight north towards Kakadu National Park.