TRAVEL FEATURE - AUSTRALIA
JEREMY TORR
FORBIDDEN LOVE
Late in 1792 , French explorer Joseph-Antoine d ’ Entrecasteaux was cruising past the southeast Tasmanian coastline , looking for his lost seafaring pal , Jean-François La Pérouse . He didn ’ t find La Perouse , who had carelessly wrecked his vessel on a Pacific island . But he did find Cockle Creek . It wasn ’ t called that then but offered — as well as cockles-a-plenty — lots of seals , pademelons , and other edible game in the forests nearby . It also had clean fresh water and a lovely white sand beach that was just right for his crew to laze about on .
Sail forward a little over 200 years and I was riding into Cockle Creek , not in search of a lost travelling companion , but to visit what is now the most southerly point reachable by road in the whole of the Australian continent . Yes , Cockle Creek truly is the end of the road , Oz-style .
The place has always been remote even by Tasmanian standards , and as a result has a chequered history .
The first wave of white settlers after D ’ Entrecasteaux , the whalers and loggers , helped kill off the local natives assisted , no doubt , by some of the nastiest representatives of the King of England . These were the brutal prison guards who often stopped to replenish there while escorting male and female convicts to their final hell on Sarah Island ’ s infamous prison . A final hell that for some offered slight consolation in the form of “ reprehensible nightly association ”, and the “ filthiest acquired habits ” at which I can only wonder . Those are the words of John Stephen Hampton , then-governor of Tasmania , from hundreds of years ago . Of course , that kind of thing doesn ’ t happen there anymore — or so I thought .
Luckily , when I arrived at Cockle Creek there were no musket-toting redcaps , knife-wielding whalers or
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