Chapter 3: Waterfall

I was happy to be back on the Island.

It was fun catching up with Kerry and Trish. The girls had popped over to Hamilton Island for two days, and they had both gotten lucky, so they were as mellow as I was. My friendship with them continued as it had for the first two weeks.

A heap of the equipment that I needed for the refurbishment of the old units had turned up, so I was kept busy. We worked from 7 am to 3:30 pm on the weekdays. Mark let us knock-off at 2 pm on our weekend on the Island. We often kept our two-way radios with us when off-shift in case we were called for an emergency. The guest’s needs always came first.

Because I was in the dongas and the new boy, so far, the boys had left me alone, plus, callouts were overtime and Mark, in particular, liked the extra money as he and Anne were saving for a house when he found a job on the mainland. They tended to go to Mackay on their second fortnight off and to spend the other three weekends on the Island.

They had been on the Island for nearly a year, and Mark had mentioned Anne’s biological clock was sounding like a gong. If she got pregnant, they couldn’t stay on the Island for long. We did have a nurse, but in an emergency, the Mackay Helicopter Rescue had to be called. The Island didn’t have the facilities for working couples with small kids.

It was a shit reason to lose your job.

I liked bushwalking and swimming.

The Island boasted over twenty klicks of tracks that you could walk. There is a small lake and about eight pretty beaches that were worth visiting. I’d already walked most of the closer trails and up to the lookout in the first two weeks on the Island.

Mark had mentioned that on the eastern side of the Island, there was a cave behind the waterfall, but it wasn’t common knowledge. The falls were fed from an underground stream that ran under the mountain and emerged near the top of a steep, sloping rock face. The cave entrance was about halfway down to the shallow valley below.

On Sunday, I’d conned Kerry into making me some extra sandwiches at lunchtime, and she filled a thermos with coffee for me. I picked them up when I knocked off at 2 pm and made sure I had two water bottles and insect repellent in my small backpack. Sandflies are not my friends.

I slapped my Akubra on my head, headed over the golf course and worked my way around to the east. Lindeman isn’t a big Island, and you can circumnavigate it in about six to seven hours depending on the tides.

If, however you went from east to west and over the top to the other side, it took a bit longer. Mount Oldfield was 212m above sea level. The Island had 690 hectares of National Park and heaps of bushwalking tracks. Guests were not however encouraged to go off the paths.

I followed the path to the waterfall. It was well signposted and not a particularly arduous walk if you were moderately fit. It was also well shrouded by denser growth, so it wasn’t a hot walk. I’d picked an awesome day. We had some scattered clouds, and a light breeze that kept the temps down and the open eucalyptus forest wasn’t hard to navigate through.

I got to the waterfall and sat on the viewing seat. It was impressive enough for me. I heard a rustling off to the side and spied a brush turkey. There is a heap of them on the Island. You could hear the bush curlews at night, and they did make some hair-raising sounds. The Island had a considerable number of bird species living on it.

The spot beside the waterfall was so peaceful that it was good for my soul. I ate my sandwiches and enjoyed the coffee; it was milky and robust. I preferred tea but didn’t mind the odd cup of coffee. As I relaxed, I decided that I loved my present job. The off-time was worth every minute of the on-time.

To be honest, it was a cruisy job. I could work at my own pace as long as I dropped anything to look after the guests when it was required. So far, I hadn’t had an unreasonable request from one of them. Lindeman wasn’t a party resort. The Island tended to attract families with kids and people who just wanted some peace and quiet.

Us workers could go to the nightclub on the Island as long as we didn’t go home with the guests. It closed at midnight mostly because the guests frequently went to bed by then. We often disappeared sooner, as most of us worked every day that we were on the Island.

If we had time off, we often got off the Island. Since half the workers were back-packers, they used their time off to go visit the other islands in the Whitsundays. Most of the rest of us had people on the mainland, so we had plenty of reasons to go too.

Feeling adventurous after my rest, I scrambled up the path that led to the waterfall. I could see where others had ascended the side of the slope and followed the faint trail. I could see a shadow behind the fall, so I pushed under the edge of the water. While it was at least thirty degrees that day, the water spraying from the falls was cold. I laughed at the sheer exhilaration of it.

I popped into the cavity and stepped back out of the spray. I turned so that I was looking through the cascading water. It was a magnificent sight. I’m not sure how long I stood there enjoying it before I decided to explore more. I turned back and looked into the cavern.

The cave wasn’t more than 3m deep, but it was damp. You couldn’t spend the night here, as you wouldn’t be comfortable. I flicked on my torch and looked around. Water pushed down through a crevice in the back and dribbled along the floor to escape with the rest over the cliff. It leaked through in other places as well.

I noticed that some people had put their initials on the walls and dates. The first one that caught my eye was, ‘Angus Nicolson, 1923’. He was the bloke who had first used this Island as a resort. Others had inhabited the Island before him, but he had actually set up a camp on the Island to the north-east and brought guests here.

I did know that he let them shoot the goats. I remembered something about the Government trying to cull all the goats on the islands in the region in the seventies and eighties. It was common knowledge there were no goats on Goat Island, which was to the south-west and viewable from this Island. But I wasn’t sure if they had culled them all here. I did know that I haven’t seen any.

‘Adderton, 1905’, was the next name that jumped out of me. He had lived on the Island too and had tried farming sheep here. The environmentalists wouldn’t have liked him at all because he cleared quite a few hectares of land. I didn’t know if these men had put their names here or if others had done it for them.

I had no problem with a bit of history being recorded in the walls. The indigenous people had been doing it for a lot longer. I was surprised there were no markings that I would identify as Aboriginal. Way back in history this Island had been part of their traditional fishing grounds. They had not liked the White-fellas using it at all.

Sadly, the local tribes weren’t as numerous now.

I was exploring the back corner of the cave when I suddenly felt the floor shift under my feet.

I went to grab the wall and found myself falling. I must have struck my head, as I don’t remember how I ended up on the floor. My stomach felt odd like I had dropped over a cliff before I had mentally prepared for it. After a few moments, I climbed to my feet, cussing, and shone the torch around.

I was in a bigger cavern, and the walls were smooth and flat. A doorway was in each of the other three walls. The shock of that alone was immense. It left me stunned. I finally looked around the room again after blinking several times in confusion.

A chunk of white rock caught my eye. I picked it up and drew it across the ground. It left a bright white chalk line, so I turned and marked the floor where I had been lying. I then put a big cross on the wall. After I had explored, I’d come back here and see if I could find the way out.

I shone the torch through the first doorway to my right. A smaller room was on that side, but it was bare. I walked to the next doorway, and this room looked like someone had started excavation, but they hadn’t got far. It looked like a hallway that was about 10m long and about 3m high and wide, and then it stopped.

The left side door led to another chamber. This room was at least four times the size of the one that I had just left. It looked like the rear section of the ceiling had collapsed, and the centre and rear of the room were just rubble. Water leaked down from above and drained towards the left side through a crack in the floor.

I suspected the collapse had happened in more recent times as the rock fall still had that loose look about it. I knew that the last big quake in this area had been in 1918. I’m no geological expert, but somehow that time seemed right. The water had been busy, but the rocks in the drier areas hadn’t fused.

I poked into the corners, but I couldn’t see a way out of this cavern. I headed back into the one I had entered, and then on impulse, I walked back down the hallway that stopped at a dead end. I shone my torch over the walls, but they looked flat and smooth.

I started running my fingers over the walls. I felt a spot that seemed warm and pressed harder on it, but nothing seemed to happen. I thought I had heard a sliding noise, but the walls looked the same. I sighed and turned to lean against the end wall.

“Fuck me!” I yelled as I fell backwards. I twisted and landed on my side as I didn’t want to crack my head again. My elbow stung and went pins and needles from the sudden jolt on landing. I gingerly sat up, rubbed my elbow and then tried to shake the sensation out.

Picking up the torch again, I shone it around. To my amazement, the light shone back into the hall that I had just left. I got up, poked my head into the hall and shone the torch down it. I could see where my feet had disturbed the fine layer of dust.

Then I got the creepiest feeling. As the light shone back off the walls, I noticed my head and arm were poking through a wall. To say I was weirded out, was the mildest description I could give for how I felt. I walked back into the hall and shone the torch around. It reflected off the wall that I had just walked through.

I pushed the torch at the wall, and I was suddenly in darkness. I stepped forward and found myself on the other side again. I don’t know about you, but by then, I thought it was cool. I had no idea how I’d explain the wonder I had found and was wondering if I could even tell anyone about it.