Dear Uncle
October 17, 2019
Dear Uncle,
It’s been far too long since my last letter. I’ll spare you the excuses and leave you with 3 heavy words instead, time-moves-on.
I’m writing to you now from a different island and of a different mind. A year has passed, and with it, nearly all memory of my former “self” which used to navigate broad society with ease.
At present, my focus is narrowly on the tiniest and frailest of kangaroos, venturing out of its mother’s pouch for the first time. Witnessing such a thing outside our kitchen window feels a lot like witnessing a miracle. If a heart could smile, mine would sure be grinning.
Three Hummock Island is where our ship has laid anchor. Nearly a year and a half on this “other” incredible rock of solid granite. We’ve swapped seals for kangaroos, leeches for snakes, the Southern Ocean for Bass Strait, yet we remain an island, off an island, off an island. Right where we were meant it seems.
There have been triumphs and losses, as you know, and we continue to witness it all from afar. Our hearts carry a certain weariness about them, with the subtle ache of missing loved ones, and yet we wouldn’t trade these days for much else in the world.
Maatsuyker taught us to slow down and root ourselves in the moment. It remains a picture perfect memory, the sort you look back on with such awe and wonder, you struggle to believe it was real. Three Hummock has settled us to a more realistic pace - somewhere between island dreaming and reality.
There’s no question we’re still isolated. We’re still the only two people living on this much larger island. Our closest neighbors are still either furry or feathered, and I’m quite sure our social awkwardness continues to grow.
But Three Hummock is both a job and a home, and the mightiest sort of the two. Work and life can be hard here, but to say it’s rewarding would be a dreadful understatement.
The days are full of cleaning and maintenance - slashing airstrips, pumping water, clearing tracks, repairing old broken things, painting, gardening, brushcutting, caring for our chickens. We run an accommodation business and caretake an island - the jobs are never done. And when they are, there’s always dishes!
When we were handed the reins of this place by our two extremely dedicated predecessors, we learned quickly their motto, “what doesn’t get done today, there’s always tomorrow”. So we continue to flip the calendar pages and tackle each new challenge as it arrives. Much of what we do is still a battle of preservation against nature. Sometimes we have a mind to let nature have its day.
As for the rewards, well I think Garibaldi described it best, “O desert island of the Hunter Group – how many times have you pleasantly excited my imagination. When tired of this civilized society, so full of tyrants and gendarmes, I have often transported myself in my imagination into your gracious bosom.”
This island is as near to paradise as we’re likely to find. The water is a glossy teal, the air is clean, the beaches are soft, and the flora and fauna are plenty. The weather is volatile but that’s just how we prefer it now. And the best part has to be the sounds. The sound of the frogs in our water tank at night, of the dung beetle landing on this page, the sound of the rain on the old cottage roof, or the wind outside an old shaky window, the sound of the Swamp Hens screeching hysterically, or the chicken that laid the egg, the restless honking of the Cape Barren Geese, or the “thump, thump” of the kangaroo in the night commuting outside our bedroom window. The sounds of no one else. The silence and the stillness that allows you to hear only what you would like to hear.
Now Uncle, I don’t mean to misrepresent. Our busy times are bustling. We’ve got helicopters, 8-seater aircrafts, fixed wings, twin-engines, yachts, fishing boats, charter boats, suicidal jet skiers, stranded sea kayakers, park rangers, Telstra, biosecurity officers, the marine police, mutton birders and pilots in training - this list is not exhaustive. But the point is, at the end of the day or the end of the week, they all fly away, and the silence returns.
And that’s when the magic happens, when the island comes alive. The return to the simple art of being, when everything takes its place and carries on how it was meant to. Ourselves not withstanding.
I miss you Uncle, and so it goes. Please give Bama all my love. She’s my sunshine, you know. Please remind her for me.
With love from the island,
Your niece
*My uncle has written us a letter nearly every month since we journeyed to Maatsuyker Island. His manila envelopes come all the way from Granite Falls, North Carolina - a tiny town you would never have heard of - but the letters never falter. They are usually held for us until we leave the island or a generous traveller has a heart to pick up our mail. The longest we have waited is 6 months. My Uncle’s patience is enduring.
