Life in the Deep North, January 2026

For those who don’t know, we live in Kaba Kada (settler name Cow Bay) on the Daintree Coast in Far North Queensland. The last week has been dominated by the impending potential rain event or cyclone. There’s a big difference between those, the first is a large low pressure system that stays in one place for a while and dumps massive rain. It can develop into the latter which moves more quickly with extreme winds, and cyclones can turn back into a big low that hangs around, like it did after Cyclone Jasper over Xmas New Year of 2023-24. Our block is on high ground and our house is about 8 metres above the creek so we were largely unaffected with Jasper other than about 4 trees down, but we were cut off for a month due to multiple landslides over the range at Walu Wagirigga (Alexandra Range). We had been planning to go south to visit facility so were not stocked up for food so had to rely on some charity food drops by helicopter to the local Sports Club. The roads over the river had been cleared by resourceful locals with earthmoving gear.

Climate scientists are suggesting that these massive rain events are becoming more frequent and severe with up to two metres of rain in a week. We’ve been through two, 2019 in Townsville a the post-Jasper event. People have learned to prepare better - the Mayor of TSV for example has been all over social media reassuring people about the management of the Ross River dam overflow gates which were badly managed and opaquely communicated in 2019. Our Douglas Shire has vastly improved emergency communications now. There have always been monsoonal floods of course but having two 200 or 500 year events within a short space is frightening.

Anyway the current alrert caused a bit of stress as the organisation I work for, Jabalbina (the Yalanji traditional owners), had bought 218 cattle and we wanted to move them to paddocks on the north of the Daintree River for the rest of wet season. We ended up pulling our barge out of the river so that has been postponed, which is a bit of a pain but it also needed some repair to the steering cables so no real harm done.

Prior to that we spent Xmas and New Year in TSV with our crew, the Diffraction Collective, helping with their NYE event and preparing for a joint exhibition with some of them in March-April at Umbrella Studio. I am doing sound design for it playing with motion-activated sound. They party hard and our visits are one of my few chances to let my hair down these days. They really are some of the best and most creative people I have ever met. It was also lovely to stay at our friends house with air conditioning, we are off grid at home with only fans.

We did get delayed a day coming back due to flooding north of Ingham. We were in our Troopy so decided to try driving around on the back road from Mt Fox to Mt Garnet. We didn’t get through in the end - turns out the road goes via a place called Valley of Lagoons, which should have been a giveaway, but it was spectacular country, photos attached.

Otherwise we are back at work although V is also running a workshop/exhibition with local Yalanji Jalbu (women) artists called The Red Seed Project in a vacancy shopfront exploring the use of traditional materials and contemporary art making techniques. Particularly one elder Aunty Lorna has been coming in every day and out us looking fantastic, we will think about touring it to Cairns and maybe beyond.

This is a good way for me to keep flexing my writing muscle post thesis. I have a couple of drafted papers I want to get published and what with the current Adelaide Writers Festival debacle am thinking about getting back into arts commentary. However it’s all about getting my studio properly set up and making some music, so that is today’s mission.

Take care everyone.