Life is a Song68856

Art experts who visit Tropical North Queensland often castigate the local artists for using what they call 'a poster paints' approach to this spectacular landscape. A righteous howl of protest rises from the painters as they challenge the critic to leave his hotel room and just look about. When such letters appear in the local papers, I feel sympathy for both sides.

With a fine disregard for the opinions of experts, The Great Artist floods this corner of the planet with ultramarine, cerulean and viridian green. All seemingly 'straight from the tube.' It takes time and a nit-picking, patient eye to analyse the myriad subtle mixtures of colour that await discovery.

Perhaps that is why few fine artists tackle the subject in a realist manner. And why the more successful images are made by the many excellent graphic artists who live and work here. As a painter of people and their stories, I treat landscape as a backdrop or 'stage' for the figures. Even so, it took ten years to overcome my terror of these stunning colours and find a way to keep them from overwhelming the painting while remaining true to the lush reality of the place I call Home.

The first time I saw this area, the overload of pure colour and light hammered me into wonder. It still does, whenever I have returned from the soft and nearly shadowless light of Europe. That first time, I was twelve years old and too young to express my response to the place as 'spiritual.' Hindsight lets me understand the experience that way. It cannot be mere coincidence that brings so many artists to live here.

You probably already know Australia as a continent of contrasts. Of gently rolling grasslands and vast red sand deserts. Of snow-clad mountain ranges and steaming jungle. But here is a statistic that will better help you understand our people: In a country with about the same land area as the United States, we have just 2.2 people for every square kilometre. (In the USA, it is 25.8 per square kilometre.) But close to nine out of every ten Aussies live in urban centres or large cities of the eastern coast, knowing little about the life of folk in the Outback.

Growing up in Sydney, I was ignorant about life in the isolated rural parts until I travelled with a youth tour to the then mysterious 'Far North.' As our train crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, the air became heavier with moisture until we entered the sugar-growing town of Tully, one of the wettest places on Earth. The blue ribbon for rainfall goes to either Babinda or Innisfail, villages just south of Cairns, which vie for an annual Golden Gumboot award.

We could smell Babinda before we saw it. The smell of a sugar mill in full production during the crushing season must be experienced to be believed. Crushing starts as soon as the sugarcane farms begin harvesting during the Dry (winter) months of June and July. For more than a century, harvest was signalled by fires set at night, when danger from wind was lowest. The fire scoured the cane fields of cane rats, which caused Weils' Disease, a curse to the men who wielded machetes to harvest the stalks. Now, machines cut cane and as sugar content is known to be increased by green-cutting, the spectacle of cane fires is almost a thing of the past.

Here, I should mention that 'winter' is only a figure of speech in the North. During May, June and July night-time temperatures can reach as low as 14 degrees centigrade at the extreme. Locals may be forced to wear a long-sleeved cotton shirt during those days. Old hands even resort to a light jacket, mainly at night. Our other season is called the Wet, when - El Nio permitting - monsoon rains sweep across the Top End. They bring an occasional cyclone that appears as a devastating disaster in the southern news reports, while we locals wonder what all the fuss is about. Somehow, like Camelot, Cairns seems to arrange for rain to fall mostly in the evening.

On arrival, my group of youngsters was settled in digs and then let loose to explore the town. As we wandered, we kept a nervous lookout; southern friends had warned us that crocodiles stalked the streets. The locals laughed, assuring us it was only a myth. One year, that myth finally became reality and made front page news: Crocs In The Streets! At the peak of monsoon season, a king tide had put the wharf end of the main street under water. Motorists driving slowly up the flooded road were startled to see two saltwater saurians swimming alongside the traffic. Astonished officers from the Wildlife Service were despatched to relocate the confused animals.

Our exploration of the sleepy seaside town was soon done. Few of the buildings rose more than two storeys. Limited shopping was available in town, with corner stores providing weekend supplies. The only take-away food was fish and chips wrapped in butcher paper from the Greek cafe or Chinese cuisine in a returnable, shiny tin billy-can. If you were adventurous, you could sit at a table in the Italian cafe and struggle with spaghetti marinara on a plate big enough to feed a whole ship crew.

Today, several high-rise hotels of five star class punctuate the shoreline. A multitude of restaurants caters to every imaginable taste; some offer a 'native' cuisine of crocodile, emu or snake. Corner stores have given way to large shopping centres in the suburbs and the inner city hosts two huge retail/entertainment complexes. Duty free shops have signage written in Japanese and the inevitable tourist souvenirs made in China or Korea lurk cheek by jowl with genuinely Australian arts and crafts.

For me, the next day was bliss. Immediately after breakfast, we boarded the (one and only) craft that took day-trippers out to Green Island, a coral cay just 27 kilometres north-east from Cairns. Then state-of-the-art, our boat wallowed through the cobalt blue waters, sending most of the group to offer their breakfasts to the waves. Remembering the tales of seafarers in the action-adventure type reading I loved, I talked a new friend into joining me at the bow. Facing into the wind, we sang at full stretch of our lungs every song we knew and were spared the misery of sea-sickness.

In the current era, visitors are wafted smoothly across in their choice of the many swift and air-conditioned catamarans that ply the reef islands. Or they can cruise leisurely on luxury maxi yachts. They can even hop out by helicopter. The island, fringed by coconut palms and a beach of blinding white sands, floats jewel-like on a lagoon of pale turquoise. Artists please note: Here is the one legitimate reason I know of for keeping a tube of viridian green beside your palette. Out where the sea turned to ultramarine, coral gardens could be seen through the panels of our glass-bottomed boat, a dozen heads vying for a glimpse, a dozen throats sighing in awe.

If you come here now, you will see it all in close-up comfort through the glass walls of an air-conditioned submersible. You can snorkel or scuba dive. Either way, it is a sight you will never forget. One of the 14 World Heritage listed natural wonders in Australia, the underwater gardens of the Great Barrier Reef extend for 2,300 kilometres along the coast of Queensland and can be clearly seen from satellites in low earth orbit.

On the following day, we rode a steam train up the winding Barron Gorge route to Atherton Tablelands. Because the river had not yet been dammed, we saw Barron Falls in stupendous flight down the massive rocks of the gorge. Up in the cool rainforests of the tablelands, we canoed across Eacham and Barrine Lakes, formed in the craters of long-extinct volcanoes. While we picnicked on the grassy shores, elegant white herons stalked fish in the shallows and miniature turtles popped their heads from the water edge to watch us watching them. Later, we walked through more open bushland to peer down at Crater Lake, remnant of another spent eruption from pre-history. A bright green weed covers the surface of this lake that sulks far below the rim of its volcanic spout. A favourite sport is to drop a stone and watch a circle of eerie blackness spread from the point of penetration.

The only change nowadays is, you have to bring your own pocketful of pebbles; the ground near the rim has been picked clean. And you might travel there via the Skyrail, one of the longest cable car rides in the world, skimming over the forest canopy with unrivalled views of the Coral Sea. But enough. If I were to try describing the full range of beauty this place presents, its extravagant variety of wildlife, or to list all the attractions on offer, this would become a travel brochure. Perhaps it has given you a taste, enough to inspire you to come visit.

Like most Australians, I have done my fair share of travelling. But the only place I ever felt homesick for is this tropic wonderland of which Cairns is the heart. And to get back here to live, I had to marry the bloke! Anyway, that's how he likes to tell the story...

Dorothy Gauvin

Dorothy Gauvin is an internationally acclaimed Australian painter in oils who specialises in an epic theme of Australia's pioneers.She is also the author of what may be the only novel ever published about Australia's 'Secret Civil War' of the 1890s,'Traveller's Luck,' available online. See images of her 'Life-Story' portraits of fascinating and successful people,limited edition prints of Outback heroes and horsemen,plus tips and advice for aspiring artists and collectors on her website at http://www.gauvin.com.au