This morning I caught the second ferry from West Island, and waited for all the secondary school kids to get off before I could board. Both islands have primary school classes, but only West Island has secondary education - and that only goes to year 10. After that, students board in Perth, or maybe Christmas Island.
It was pouring with rain, but I had intended to visit the museum first. It was very interesting and included a lot of information that I hadn’t seen before about things that happened here. There were three boats in the museum. The first was built from turpentine wood, by the islanders, to plans supplied by John Clunies-Ross from Scottish designs in the 1800s. This boat is different to any Malay boat design of the time, but it’s also different to any Scottish boat too.
The other two boats were also made by the cocos Malays. The larger one is from teak.
I tried to hire a golf buggy (almost all transport on Home Island is by golf buggy), but the person who hires them out wasn’t available. Then I went through the village to the place that sells food and had a delicious lunch. As it wasn’t really raining, I wandered to Oceania House which is rather run down.
I saw the school building where John Clunies-Ross and his wife taught the Cocos Malay children. They learnt how to write in Javan script.
And some interesting birds.
As it started to bucket down again , I went back to the ferry, but I’d got my wires crossed, and although there was a ferry from West Island that arrived at 11:30am, the next one back didn’t leave until 2:30pm. I met a family of two marine biologists and their two young children who were staying on the island because they found accommodation there until Thursday, when they’ll start camping on Direction Island since there’s nothing else available for a few weeks. There’s another family of marine biologists who have a baby who are also having trouble finding accommodation. I went to their place and after about an hour the rain had slowed again and I resumed my perambulations.
A person who had come over on the ferry with me offered me a lift in his golf buggy, and I discovered he was the shire infrastructure manager. He took me around parts that I hadn’t seen, and left me at the chicken houses that the cocos Malays keep some poultry in (there are chickens everywhere on both islands, and, I believe, all the others).
I walked back to the ferry through the town.
By this stage, it was bucketing down again. I saw a crab hiding under a golf buggy from the rain.
When we got back to West Island, all the school kids were waiting for the ferry to go home. It wasn’t raining, and I managed to catch a great sunset. You might be able to see the fins of the black tipped reef sharks.
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