Victoria Settlement

The word that comes to mind with I think about Victoria settlement is “Epic”.  The history is epic, and so was our day getting there. 

It started with a crack-of -Dawn start because we had to drive 80km of dirt road to get there. Sounds easy right? Except that someone read the map wrong and it’s more like 130km. And the road is shithouse. So it took about 3.5 hours to drive it. Which was a bad start because it meant that we’d missed the high tide at Victoria Settlement and would be there on an outgoing tide run. This had me stressing over 2 points. Firstly Port Essington is a large body of water and you have to drive up the middle of it to get the ruins of the settlement. There is a point where there inlet narrows down to a choke point that I read some horror stories about tidal  races and visible differences in the height of the water. I was worried about that even in a 6.5 m boat. Secondly Anchoring on a shallow beach and leaving the boat unaccompanied on an outgoing tide sounded like a good recipe for getting stranded overnight. So I was a bit cranky with the map readers.

After going through some national parks shenanigans which the ranger in the really tight shorts described as “easy” we were finally allowed to use the boat ramp. It was blowing a gale right up the middle of Port Essington which made the boat launch dodgy and the trip up the middle of the harbour pretty rough. (I was feeling a fed up with driving the boat through chopped up tidal races at this point). Anyway this is where things got a bit better. There was no horizontal waterfall at the narrow part of the harbour and we were able to locate the beach near Victoria Settlement really easily. Rather than anchor the boat and leave it to get stranded on the outgoing tide we decided to check out the settlement in 2 shifts. So we dropped Daz, Daph, Jess and Matilda at the beach and Dad and I headed back out in the boat we have a beer and some leftovers for late breakfast (it was after all about 11am!). After an hour or so Tour Group #1 re-appeared at the beach so we want in and picked them up and switched places.

There is a loop walk around the settlement and the NT Parks people have kindly labelled the ruins so you know what you’re looking at. This was a pretty big settlement with 2 Quartermaster stores, Sawpit, 2 wells, a wharf, an officer’s mess, married quarters, a hospital, hospital kitchen, kiln, blacksmith forge, battery and tellingly, a graveyard which is the resting place of about 60 people who perished over about 11 years. Probably not the best mortality rate right? The ruins left behind are now silent monuments to those poor bastards who tried to scratch a civilisation out of the remote and extremely inhospitable environment. Thinking on our short stint there that day it was about a million degrees in the shade, blowing its chops off, and remote as hell. And this was the good time of year! I can hardly image how hard life must have been for those trying to set up a town there in the 1800s. Imagine being a sailor sent to live there with your wife and baby daughter/son it must have seemed like an undeserved and very cruel death sentence for the whole family. No wonder it failed!

 

Anyway, Dad and I did a quick lap of the town, before heading back to the beach to get picked up and head home. Wouldn’t you know it? The tide had gone out and the boat couldn’t make it to the beach. Dad and I were obliged to wade 50m out to the boat with heads on swivels looking out for the big scary water lizards.  I had a plan to grab Dad and throw him in the path of any crocs coming my way (so I kept him in arms reach) but it turned out I didn’t need it. We safely boarded the boat and Daz drove us to 30km back to the ramp….which is the location of our next saga!

I dropped Daz and Dad off at the ramp and they decided to use two vehicles to pull the boat out   because the ramp was so slippery. So they got their 2 vehicles positioned and I drove the boat up near to the the trailer. Just as I was starting my drive onto the trailer maneuver Daz slipped over on the ramp and did an impressive arse-over-tit! He stood up swearing and cursing cradling his hand. There was no blood so I figured it couldn’t be too bad, so I finished driving the boat onto the trailer until it latched itself on, and then looked over at Daz who was still swearing and pointing at his hand. Dislocated finger. Bugger! So I climbed out of the boat and had a look. His ring finger on his left hand was a Z shape and still dislocated. Owch! And Yuk! 

I said to him, “What the f*%k we gunna do about that?” (pointing to his finger)

He said “You gotta pull it back out and get it back in – it’s too far to a doctor!”. 

So I steeled myself and grabbed his finger and pulled it. He pulled back against me and we gave it a good proper yank. CLUNK! It pulled apart and popped right back into its rightful place. With a vehement curse Daz walked in circles for a while inventing new swear words while I tried to work out if I should  vomit or laugh .After we settled him down I bandaged him up, drove the boat up the ramp and with Daz sitting in the passenger’s seat and complaining about my driving, I drove him home. We arrived at about 7pm after a huge day and had pancakes for dinner.

Now Daz has a swollen bruised knuckle but he’s ok