Our Olympic Torch Relay

This is a Queensland story that is worth telling again and again.

The Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Olympics took place on 26 July, but the Olympic Torch had already arrived in Paris. I know it had, because my granddaughter sent me a video from Paris ten days earlier of the torch procession travelling down a Parisian boulevard. A tall young man dressed in white is running with the torch held high.

Con was moved by the thought of his granddaughter watching the Olympic Torch making its way through Paris, because as a young boy he’d watched an Olympic Torch being carried through Innisfail, Far North Queensland, by his brother Jim.

To qualify as a torch bearer for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, you had to be able to run a mile in under seven minutes. And you had to be a man. Jim was a good miler, and he carried the torch from the Innisfail Shire Hall, down the hill and south across the river to hand it over to the next runner.

There was a huge crowd in town to watch the torch go through. Then as now, international events didn’t often touch Queensland towns.

The Torch Relay for the Melbourne Games began in Cairns on the ninth of November when the flame was flown in from Greece. The Relay caused excitement all the down the east coast of Australia. As the Relay passed through small towns and regional cities local people in huge numbers watched its progress.

The 1956 Torch Relay route *olympics.com*

The most testing sections of the Relay were in Queensland.

Setting up the Relay had been an epic in itself. Nineteen days earlier a convoy of army trucks and Holdens had set out from Melbourne on the road trip to Cairns, loaded with torches, fuel, medals for the runners and other equipment. The convoy was manned by army personnel and Melbourne university students.

The 1956 Olympic Torch carried through Bowen. Note the support truck with torches and support personnel *slq.qld.gov.au*

Perhaps the route had been planned using maps, not local knowledge, because heading north from Rockhampton through a stretch of country that was virtually unknown to the southern states, the convoy took the coastal route via the tiny railway town of St Lawrence, following the train line, instead of the Bruce Highway (such as it was), inland through Lotus Creek.

The coastal route was a dreadful track of creek crossings, potholes, swamps and cattle grids.

In the end, it was impossible. At St Lawrence the convoy was loaded on to a train to make the journey to Sarina, being bogged down once again before making it through to Mackay and the highway and on to Cairns.

Once the actual Relay began, the Torch was carried all the way south on foot, regardless of weather or time of day or night. Runners were dropped off at marker pegs a mile apart. When they’d run their section they would pass the torch in to the support truck and be tossed a commemorative medal before the truck disappeared on its way.

At the Burdekin River, the road crossing was flooded, and once again the Torch and the convoy crossed by train. From Mackay to Rockhampton, coming south, the Relay followed the inland route and wisely avoided the St Lawrence road.

Olympic Torch Relay Monument beside the old Bruce Highway at Lotus Creek *tripadvisor.ca*

Plaque on the Relay Monument at Lotus Creek *tripadvisor.ca*

Bringing the torch through was not easy, all the same. It was dark and raining. Each young runner in his white uniform would wait nervously by his marker for the previous runner to emerge from the gloom, torch in hand, to pass on the flame – relieved when at last the lights of the support trucks showed through the dark.

The torch weighed one point eight kilograms, and after a mile held at arm’s length it weighed heavily; and the runners found that if they held it too close to their bodies, sparks blew in their faces.

People came out with hot soup down that dark, muddy road and cheered the Relay on. Souvenir hunters followed after the support trucks, illegally pulling up the markers. There must still be relay markers in sheds and cupboards all down the coast. Family members clearing out Dad’s or Granddad’s bits and pieces may puzzle over what they could be.

Rutted, muddy roads, encounters with snakes and dogs, rainy nights, leeches, mosquitoes: those Melbourne University students went home with enough stories of the wild north to create legends in the south.

Thirteen days after leaving Cairns, right on time, the Torch arrived at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Olympic Stadium, and the Cauldron was lit.

Ron Clarke lighting the Olympic flame, Melbourne 1956 *Fairfax, Archives, smh.com.au*

On Friday, with the whole world watching, the 2024 Olympic Torch was carried over the iconic rooftops of Paris, and the Cauldron was lit under a magnificent hydrogen balloon that carried it off into the night sky.

Masked torch bearer across the Musee d’Orsay *metro.co.uk*

In 2032, Brisbane will be hosting the Olympic Games. I’ll be interested in how that Torch Relay is run. And I might want to tell this story again.

Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony: Flying Cauldron *theguardian.com*

Main photo: Don Craig, running with the 1956 Olympic Flame. cairnspost.com.au

July 29, 2024 2

Where the Bruce meets the Sea

The first glimpse of the sea is always exciting. Suddenly there it is, spread out blue in the sun, with light glinting off the wave crests.

I feel calmer and happier near the sea. Perhaps it’s the clean, salty breeze. Coastal air seems more charged with oxygen than inland air. Perhaps it’s the peaceful sleep that comes with the sound of the waves all night long.

We think of Queensland’s Bruce Highway, in its magnificent 1679 kilometres from Brisbane to Cairns, as a coastal highway. The irony of it is that in all that length there are only four spots where can you actually see the sea. And you have to earn those views.

First sight of the sea comes 840 kms up the Bruce from Brisbane: well into the Tropics, passing the beaches of Noosa and Rainbow Beach, of Hervey Bay and Yeppoon, without a glimpse.

After eight hours or so of hinterland driving to Rockhampton and another couple of hours through the beautiful but dry cattle country further north, suddenly, below a curving hillside, across the railway line that skirts the highway, the sea appears. On a narrow strip of land beside the water is the tiny fishing village of Clairview.

Less than a minute’s drive later, it’s gone, and the dry forested hills are back.

“That looked beautiful,” you say. “We must stop there some time!”

A few weeks ago when driving to Cairns, we did stop at Clairview, spending the night in a cabin at the peaceful BarraCrab Caravan Park.

BarraCrab Caravan Park Clairview *Photo: thetimes.com.au*

We ate fish and chips (neither barramundi nor crab was on the menu) with a beer at the casual licensed restaurant, looking across the coconut palm lined beach to the peaceful evening sky and sea, where people were strolling or fishing.

Workers commute up and down the Bruce Highway all year round, often spending the night in motels and caravan parks, and here at Clairview a tradie was standing relaxed on the beach, looking at the water, work done for the day, in hi-vis and thongs with a Fourex Gold beer can in his pocket.

We weren’t tempted to swim. Stingers and crocodiles are always a threat in these waters, and like all northern beaches in the shelter of the Great Barrier Reef, the waves are little more than ripples.

Onwards up the Bruce.

Three and a half hours north of Clairview, just south of Bowen and across the road from the Big Mango, you glimpse the sea again. The tide is out, revealing the roots of mangroves and millions of tiny mud dwelling creatures; but beyond them the water is bright blue. Looming to the east are the hazy purple hills of Gloucester Island and the Whitsundays.

Nearby, above the highway and looking out across Nelly Bay, is the Ocean View Motel, and it’s a pleasure to sit outside a unit there, under the frangipanis, and enjoy the evening view across the water to the lights of Bowen.

Bruce Highway where it meets the sea, south of Bowen, near the Big Mango *Photo: petfriendly.com.au*

This is one of the rare Bruce Highway motels with a view of the sea. You’ll need to drive north for another four hundred kilometres or so to find another.

An hour and a half north of Townsville comes the next ocean view. On a stretch of the these-days divided highway that crosses the Cardwell Range nineteen kilometres north of Ingham, you can glimpse the sea through roadside vegetation. For the full sea view, away from the fast-moving traffic, take the slip road at the top of the range and walk five minutes to Panjoo Hinchinbrook Lookout for a breathtaking outlook over the channel and Hinchinbrook Island (Munamudanamy) to the ocean.

View from Panjoo Lookout across Hinchinbrook Passage and Island (Munamudanamy)

The Banjin People are traditional owners of this large, undeveloped, beautiful island, which is part of the Girringun Indigenous Protected Area.

At Cardwell, thirty-eight kilometres north of Panjoo Lookout, the Bruce Highway at last spends time near the sea – the Coral Sea. Here, for over a kilometre, the highway follows the shoreline. A walkway leads past big old calophyllum inophyllum trees, otherwise known as ballnut trees, on the edge of the beach.

Protected since 1865, a *Calyphyllum inophyllum* at Cardwell

Governor Bowen, travelling in the ship “Platypus”, visited this area in 1865, only a year after the town was formed and the local Girringun people had been violently “dispersed” from their ancient lands. The Queensland Government wanted Cardwell for a port.

Governor Bowen was impressed by the calophyllum trees, hundreds of years old even then. Since 1866 they’ve been protected by law; and they weathered Cyclone Yasi better than most.

A postcard from c.1885 shows the dark-leaved calyphyllum trees, old even then, on the shoreline of Cardwell *Photo: northqueenslandhistory.blogspot.com*

In 2011, Cardwell was devastated by Yasi, with sand and water blown across the highway, the bitumen ripped up and houses destroyed; but now, eleven years, later, it has never looked better.

Girringun Bagu sculptures, based on the design of firesticks, by local artists Eileen Tep and Charlotte Beeron, stand enigmatically on the shoreline. They watch the tourists who stop here for the scenery, the information centre, playground, petrol and food.

There are motels and pubs, the popular Yasi Bar, and a charging station for electric vehicles. And the calophyllum trees.

Best not go for a swim, though. Crocodiles and stingers are common here, so close to the mangroves and muddy water of Hinchinbrook Channel.

That’s it for sea views from the Bruce Highway.

Named in the 1940s after a North Queensland Labor politician and Minister for Works, Harry Bruce, this highway deserves a more romantic, evocative title. Many travellers have called it derogatory names over the years, one favourite being Goat Track. That’s unfair. This is a long road, covering difficult terrain in an extreme climate, with a comparatively small population to pay for it.

I’ve been travelling the Bruce for over fifty years, in drought and in flood. I’ve crossed the old Marlborough Stretch, been stopped at its one-way bridges, experienced flat tyres and breakdowns and dodgy motels. I’ve crawled around the hills south of Gympie, stuck behind caravans on the old narrow, curving road that has now been replaced by a motorway. I’ve suffered the bumps and potholes in the flood-prone roads around Bowen and Proserpine. But to me the Bruce Highway is a beautiful road, and I’ve seen great improvements to it over the years, making it far safer and more pleasant to drive on; and upgrades are happening all the time.

However, if it’s sea views you want, you’d be better to take the Captain Cook Highway from Cairns to Port Douglas.

Captain Cook Highway *Photo: australiangeographic.com.au*

There are many spectacular sea views to enjoy in Queensland; but you’ll have to leave the Bruce to find them.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/03/blue-space-living-near-water-good-secret-of-happiness

October 12, 2022 4

Bowen Arrow

“Bowen Arrow. That’s a good name for a motel!”

As Con drives, I’m looking online for a place to spend the night. Bowen will be a convenient place to break our trip.

In 1963, on a road trip with my family, we put up Dad’s old army tent in a caravan park in Bowen. It was a depressing spot, squeezed up against a fence, down by the wharf.

Bowen the Beautiful – No Place More So! said the tourist brochure.

“Oh really?” we scoffed.

I’ve since taken a closer look at Bowen. Queens Beach is indeed beautiful, and Horseshoe Bay is one of the sweetest spots in the country.

I like the way the coconut palms here wear upside-down skirts to stop the coconuts from falling on people’s heads.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Coconut palms, Bowen

I like to walk around Mullers Lagoon and stand under the shady umbrella of the biggest fig tree I’ve ever seen.

Herbert Street, which sweeps grandly down the hill to the harbor, was named after Queensland’s first premier, and Bowen itself after Sir George Bowen, the first governor. This was North Queensland’s first port and first major settlement, retaining its stature until Townsville was developed, two hundred kilometres to the north. It still has a feeling of the important centre it was intended to be.

Bowen has had time in the spotlight. We last visited in 2007 while scenes of Baz Luhrmann’s epic movie Australia were being filmed here, with Bowen’s harbour standing in for Darwin Harbour, and the Grand View Hotel, since lavishly renovated, made over as a bombed-out ruin.

Bowen also boomed with the mining boom, and perhaps is now suffering, as Mackay is, from the consequent bust.

I’m fussy about motels. Con and I have stayed at some dodgy ones over the years. An old-style air-conditioner in the corner roars all night, too far from the bed for us to feel the cool air it may or may not be producing. The bed is hard, the sheets are short, and the bedspread is a multi-patterned affair, designed to hide stains.

The room is never quite dark. There are tiny lights on smoke detectors, air-conditioner, clock, television and microwave. Security lights peek through the curtains where they don’t meet properly no matter how hard you yank them together; headlights flash across the ceiling as people arrive late or leave early.

The milk in the small, noisy fridge is the long-life variety, and the freezer section isn’t cold enough to actually freeze anything.

Everything reeks of that scented cleaning product found only in motels.

Things have improved a great deal in recent times, and very few motels have all of the above. These days, road workers, railway workers and tradies stay in country motels. It’s common to see loaded utes and work boots outside rooms, with a bloke in a high-visibility shirt having a beer next door. These hard-working people want a good night’s sleep. Now there is always hot water in motel showers. The television works, the air-conditioning is efficient, the beds reasonably comfortable.

The bedspreads haven’t changed, though.

Up to a third of travelling time is spent in accommodation, so it should be a pleasurable experience. Location, security, comfort and affordability are essential, but atmosphere, charm and hospitality also rank high with me.

I don’t mean a Bed and Breakfast place packed with crocheted doilies, potpourri and milk churns painted with roses. A friend told me about a B&B where the bed was decorated with boy and girl rag dolls, leaning against the ubiquitous stack of ornate pillows and cushions. When she and her partner came back from dinner, the covers had been turned down and the boy and girl dolls were cuddled up together in bed.

Not really my style.

Here in Bowen, on a previous trip, we stayed in one of the best motels I’ve ever come across, for hospitality, amenities and comfort: the Bluewater Harbour Motel. We won’t stay there tonight, because it’s off the highway and we’re in a hurry.

In the end, I decide on the Ocean View. I’ve noticed this place over the years, positioned above the highway south of town, next to the Big Mango, with an outlook over the sea and the islands. According to the online description, it also provides dinner.

We check in in the late afternoon, and eat our simple meal on the verandah, looking past a flowering frangipani at the lights of Bowen across the bay.

This is not exactly the Bowen Hilton, but it is comfortable, the situation is beautiful, and it turns out that the manager was best man at Con’s niece’s wedding. In North Queensland, that’s the way of things. Everyone is connected.

It’s all good. But next time we come, I want to have a shot at the Bowen Arrow.

August 28, 2018 3

Tag: bowen

Our Olympic Torch Relay

Where the Bruce meets the Sea

Bowen Arrow

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