A Black Horizon

Jonathon Kendall

AFTER DRIVING HALF A DAY TO MALLACOOTA, WE’VE BOARDED A BOAT TO GABO ISLAND, one of the most beautiful and isolated parts of Victoria. There’s hardly any swell or wind. A beautiful day. I’m with my mum, sister and brother-in-law, as well as my wife, Belinda, and our two very excited kids.

Halfway to the island my phone vibrates. It’s a text message: ‘You need to leave East Gippsland today 29 December for a safer location as fires are likely to impact this area.’ There’s a link at the bottom to a Victorian government website.

Hang on. What? Everyone needs to get out of East Gippsland? That can’t be right. East Gippsland is a big place. Its centre is Bairnsdale, home to 15,000 people. It’s also the height of the summer tourist season. There would be more than 100,000 people in the region right now, most of them in coastal areas. Are all those people supposed to evacuate? Where will they all go? I need some more specifics. The message doesn’t even say who it’s from. If this is real, surely it’s overreach.

And as I’m grappling with this, our boat docks at Gabo Island.

Gabo is a place I’ve heard so much about but never had time to get to until now. A wild island in Bidawal country, it’s only 154 hectares and is just three kilometres long and one kilometre at its widest point, shaped like an upside-down comma. It’s 14 kilometres east from Mallacoota but because of the curve of the coastline, its northern tail almost whips the beaches of Croajingolong National Park. It sits in the waters of the Cape Howe Marine Park and the name Gabo is most likely an Aboriginal pronunciation of Cape Howe.

The island is run by Parks Victoria and when we get there we’re greeted by the lighthouse caretaker, Leo op den Brouw, a salty old seadog who seems to have become a product of this environment. He’s extremely knowledgeable, helpful, friendly, and loves the island and its history. He picks us up from the wharf in a trumped-up golf buggy, the only vehicle that’s allowed on the island because the landscape is so sensitive. Gabo is home to thousands of penguins and seabirds and their fragile sandy burrows, not to mention seals and the odd cow to keep the kikuyu grass down.

We’re staying in the assistant lightkeeper’s cottage. It’s a historic building but one of those places you immediately feel at home in: large armchairs and couches, big lamps, eight comfy beds, and artwork on the walls from previous guests. It even has its very own library of CDs: kd lang, Tony Bennett, some hard NRG trance and compilation albums from the 90s. The cottage has been a sanctuary from the ocean’s howling gales for more than a hundred years, and you can sit on the southeast-facing verandah and watch the weather come in.

We are so busy exploring that first day I don’t really give the text message all that much more thought – plus I don’t seem to have mobile reception. I ask Leo about the threat and he promises to keep us updated if anything breaks out. Right now, an island 14 kilometres from Mallacoota seems like a reasonably safe place to be.

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The next day Leo gives us a tour of the 167-year-old lighthouse, made of pink granite quarried from the island. The kids really get a kick out of being up so high – 47 metres – and looking down on the seals, ocean and cottages below and out to the horizon.

I still don’t have any mobile signal, but the others have got a tiny bit: one bar of reception in a spot near the back door of the house. That night we check the VicEmergency app and see that a fire has started in thick bush near Wingan River, west of Mallacoota. An emergency warning has been issued for Mallacoota. The app tells us that the westerly wind is expected to pick up and the town could be threatened.

Before we go to bed that night Belinda pulls me aside. ‘Leo has left the tractor out of the shed and laid a fire hose around the outside,’ she says. ‘Do you reckon he’s worried about embers making it here?’

‘I’m sure he’s just being cautious,’ I say so we can get some sleep.

But when I get up in the night to go to the toilet I look across to the mainland and see a frightening orange glow around Mallacoota. It’s not looking good.

We wake early the next day, New Year’s Eve, and the westerly is howling. It feels unreal. By 8 am there’s a huge black cloud over the mainland and the wind is coming straight from the fire ground towards us. We’ve all been in bushfire situations before, so we know what it’s like when the sky goes dark, but we all agree it is a touch more disconcerting when you’re on an island with young kids. At least I can see one patch of blue sky to the south. Burnt leaves are starting to land on the island. It’s too windy to be outside so we’re all cooped up in the cottage. By 8.15 am the patch of blue has disappeared; the sky is pink and orange and the black cloud seems to be steaming towards us from the mainland.

By 10 am it feels like it’s 10 pm. It’s pitch-black outside and the kids are starting to get spooked. I’ve spent hours inventing games with them inside and now I’m in Leo’s office. I’ve decided to record an interview with him each day we’re on the island so that I can file to ABC Gippsland. He’s just submitted the latest weather observations to the Bureau of Meteorology, all part of his job. He reckons living on the island is quite slow until it’s suddenly not. ‘As long as we don’t get any burning embers we’ll just cruise along and see what happens,’ he says.

When he’s not on the island, Leo lives on one of the streets in Mallacoota that borders the bush and it looks like it will be hit pretty hard.

‘There are friends there; young families live across the road,’ he says. ‘I’m quite concerned for some of them. I hope they’ve all had some success. What really worries me is if their houses will survive and how they’re faring mentally and physically.’

We are supposed to be getting the boat back to Mallacoota today and heading home but that clearly isn’t happening. Leo’s daughter Cass and her kids have joined us on Gabo, evacuating Mallacoota before the fire hits. We have been told we can stay on the island until the food runs out and it’s safe to get off, and we’ve been in touch with Parks Victoria and the police, who are keeping track of us in the incident control centre in Bairnsdale. They’re telling us to stay put until we can be evacuated.

We’ve moved the old stereo to a part of the house that can get a skerrick of reception to pick up ABC Gippsland and we’re listening to it a fair bit. The situation in Mallacoota sounds pretty bad. We know that houses have been destroyed. Four thousand tourists are sheltering on the beach waiting for the fire to come. Gas bottles are in the shallows so they don’t explode. Families with kids are out in boats, floating around so they can stay safe. And locals are dealing with the terrible destruction of a ravenous fire.

Jonathon Kendall filming at Bruthen, Victoria. (Peter Somerville/ABC)

Jonathon Kendall’s family running for their flight off Gabo Island. (Jonathon Kendall)

It doesn’t feel like New Year’s Eve. I have one beer and try not to eat too much in case we need to ration food.

On New Year’s Day the guilt hits. We have a dilemma. Leo is the State Emergency Service (SES) controller for Mallacoota and is a pretty important community leader. He needs to get off the island to be with his community but his boss has told him to stay and babysit us. We could go with him but we’re not keen on taking our chances in Mallacoota with limited supplies and the road closed.

Belinda and I alternate between keeping the kids busy and having meetings to discuss if we should be trying to get off the island so that Leo can go home. But what will we find when we get to Mallacoota? Our car was parked next to tea trees so it has probably burnt – and even if it has survived and manages to start, the Princes Highway home is closed.

We are cooped up inside because of the smoke. It’s extremely thick and only a few moments outside leaves our clothes smelling like we’ve been at a bonfire. We can see a large grey navy vessel over at Mallacoota and we reckon it’s HMAS Choules. There’s a suggestion they might send a chopper to fly us off the island. I almost scoff at the thought and actually make a bet with my mum that it won’t happen. We’ve been told a boat is coming this afternoon and will be taking Leo’s daughter and her kids back to Mallacoota tomorrow. I reckon we should get on it too. But my sister, my mum and Belinda disagree.

The next day is more of the same. We’re struggling to keep the kids contained inside but the smoke is so thick we don’t want to let them out. Burnt leaves continue to land on the island. After spending a bit too long in doona cubbies and reading too many books, the kids burst out the back door and we have running races on the kikuyu grass in the thick smoke.

We have decided to stay. Supplies are getting low but Leo brings us a second box of food, including a jumbo jar of peanut butter and some self-raising flour. In between visits to the reception spot at the back door to check her phone, my mum makes us scones and we top them off with our newly acquired peanut butter. Cass generously brings round a box of fresh food for us before she leaves, including olives, mangoes, chicken, snow peas from her garden and sourdough bread.

That night we invite Leo over for a chicken stir-fry dinner made from the ingredients Cass has given us. After taking a few mouthfuls he tells us he’ll duck back to the caretaker’s cottage to get some beer. He returns with four beers and his phone. ‘You better down this beer pretty quickly because a chopper is coming to get you at 6 o’clock,’ he says, and there are a few hoots of joy before we realise we only have 20 minutes to pack everything up and get the kids ready for a helicopter ride.

The Taipan chopper from HMAS Choules touches down on the island with military precision. Its crew is friendly and help us put on helmets, ear plugs and ear muffs, which our two-year-old hates and rips off.

As we’re getting the gear on, I ask one of the crew why we get to be evacuated before the thousands of tourists and residents on the beach at Mallacoota. He says they were heading to Bairnsdale to refuel anyway. Our four-year-old goes quiet in the chopper and looks scared. The two-year-old is now bawling. But we are so grateful to be leaving and to everyone who is making it possible.

This is part of a massive military response. We find out later the chopper crews were working from dusk to dawn, in hot and smoky conditions, to get vital supplies in and evacuees out. Over the next few days HMAS Choules transports thousands of holidaymakers and their pets to Hastings south of Melbourne. Its crew had been recalled from their holiday break on New Year’s Eve to work on Operation Bushfire Assist. And then there’s the Australian army reservists who work for a month to clear and re-open the Princes Highway, assisted by troops from neighbouring countries, including Indonesia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. It will be only the third time the PNG Defence Force has ever been deployed overseas and is its largest deployment ever. Three Royal New Zealand Air Force helicopters and their crew are also sent over the ditch to help.

After one day resting, I go straight into emergency broadcasting, getting vital information to communities. Then comes the recovery. And making sure locals aren’t forgotten in the fallout of a national emergency. Months later, I go back to Mallacoota and stand in the devastated and eerily quiet bush. I broadcast from the town and chat with locals about the fires and their hopes for the future. I see some of the 120 homes that were destroyed. Belinda and I collect our car from the boat ramp, complete with plastic that melted when the tea trees just metres away went up in flames.

The recovery from this will take years. As for Gabo, we haven’t yet been back there. But we will. Hopefully for a more relaxing stay.

Jonathon Kendall is an ABC journalist and presenter