island life I

At the confluence of the Blackwood and Scott, the island's four hundred acres almost fill the north-east arm of the Blackwood's estuary. It sails in the mist of day's first light, an ark of ancient jarrah-marri forest preserved from the encroachment of development.



Kangaroos swim the river channels in the hope of greener pastures over here and finding no grasslands, become gaunt beggars at the steps of the inhabited houses or give up and swim back to the life they knew. A preservation colony of endangered ring-tailed possums was established here and find the forest much to their liking - no feral cats, dogs or foxes lying in ambush down below.


"Wot? You don't feed the wildlife? Pfffft!"

But the island really belongs to the creatures of the air and water. Cockatoos, wrens, eagles and parrots. Water monitors, frogs, water rats... and those denizens of both air and water - mosquitos!



Perhaps once visited by the Wadandi, although no trace has been found, the island first entered our history as the possession of a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. He'd led the first colony established in this part of the country and gave his name to this place, but I'll bet the Wadandi spoke of it more lyrically.



It's not the island that draws my eye today,
but the waters that define it...