Great adventure, lovely river meandering, Orator's stool movement, possible an earthquake, I read once EQ's in PNG were so severe a car under a shelter bounced up and down hitting the roof and the tyres came off
A spell-binding narrative that makes Apocalypse Now seem pretty tame by comparison. You’ve done for the Sepik in five thousand words what it took Joseph Conrad fifty thousand to achieve for the Congo in Heart of Darkness. It also brings to mind the stories of escaped convicts in Australia who lived so long with Aboriginal clans that they lost the ability to speak English.
Hugh, I really enjoyed reading your PNG two part story The White Crocodile and The Eye of the Crocodile. Jeff Liversidge was certainly a remarkable man. The Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne's east next to Ferntree Gully, with lots of forest, steep terrain and lyre birds, might have inspired Jeff in some way, that there was another world out there waiting to be lived in such as the Sepik River area of PNG. Loved all the photos in the two stories, including the Paradise Kingfisher.
You are right. Jeff would venture alone into the bush of the Dandenongs for days at a time.....sleeping in temporary survival shelters he had made. He worked as a groundsman at Nicholas Laboratories, the makers of aspirin, up the hill. Not one to see animals put down after testing, he would bring home test birds for his mother to keep in a cage. The test mice were kept by his younger siblings.
Ah Ha! A reader who knew Jeff Liversidge when he was a young man — so that’s why he was like he was: living 400 miles up the Sepik and walking through jungles barefoot and marrying a local girl and having six children..
At least my readers will now know that he was a real person — and Aussie who’d left home and never returned! Hugh
Great adventure, lovely river meandering, Orator's stool movement, possible an earthquake, I read once EQ's in PNG were so severe a car under a shelter bounced up and down hitting the roof and the tyres came off
A reader in the USA just emailed me this:
"I just read these stories about Jeff. They are fascinating and sound unbelievable, but then again this is New Guinea.
I am glad you kept your notebooks and now published these stories."
Great story. I think I would have died of fright if I was on that boat seeing the Crocodile’s eye coming out from underneath the Lilly Pad.
Another superb story Hugh ...keep them coming..
A spell-binding narrative that makes Apocalypse Now seem pretty tame by comparison. You’ve done for the Sepik in five thousand words what it took Joseph Conrad fifty thousand to achieve for the Congo in Heart of Darkness. It also brings to mind the stories of escaped convicts in Australia who lived so long with Aboriginal clans that they lost the ability to speak English.
Hugh, I really enjoyed reading your PNG two part story The White Crocodile and The Eye of the Crocodile. Jeff Liversidge was certainly a remarkable man. The Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne's east next to Ferntree Gully, with lots of forest, steep terrain and lyre birds, might have inspired Jeff in some way, that there was another world out there waiting to be lived in such as the Sepik River area of PNG. Loved all the photos in the two stories, including the Paradise Kingfisher.
You are right. Jeff would venture alone into the bush of the Dandenongs for days at a time.....sleeping in temporary survival shelters he had made. He worked as a groundsman at Nicholas Laboratories, the makers of aspirin, up the hill. Not one to see animals put down after testing, he would bring home test birds for his mother to keep in a cage. The test mice were kept by his younger siblings.
Ah Ha! A reader who knew Jeff Liversidge when he was a young man — so that’s why he was like he was: living 400 miles up the Sepik and walking through jungles barefoot and marrying a local girl and having six children..
At least my readers will now know that he was a real person — and Aussie who’d left home and never returned! Hugh
Took me right there. Loved the Trombone harmony metaphor!