Red Bluff

A bumpy two hour car ride north from Carnarvon took me to the magnificent beach at Red Bluff, which is now a campsite.

This is where my grandfather came ashore in a lifeboat with 56 other men the morning of Nov. 26th, 1941. Kormoran was scuttled shortly after midnight on Nov. 20th, so it took a little more than six days to finally reach land. In his memoir, my grandfather describes how the men would sit next to each other as tightly as possible, covered in wool blankets, trying to form a wall to keep the water out. Still, they had to constantly dump water out of the boat. His mind would go from waking dreams to fear for his life to deep thoughts. And so, in one of these ruminations, he swore to himself to never complain again about the trials in life, if he ever were to see a faucet with clear, fresh water again.

I can't imagine what it must have felt like to finally be on land again and to get out of that boat. [You can see a picture of the boat at Red Bluff in the report about he pistol I had already linked in a previous post (page 8).] On top of being alive against the odds, it also seems to me that they couldn't have found a better spot to land, because at the end of the beach there are some natural caves that provide shelter from the sun. Although it didn't take long for them to be discovered and transported to Carnarvon. They arrived around 5 AM and were transported around 4pm. I read some sources that say they didn't waste much time before they set up camp and killed and cooked one of the many goats that (still) roam around the hills in the area.

I spent some time at the beach and in the cave, wondering if this was the grand finale to my journey, if this "pilgrimage" had led me to any deeper understanding of my grandfather's story and my own place in the world. To be honest, though, I wasn't really in the mood for deep thoughts, because I kept getting distracted by the sheer natural beauty of the place. If you look closely at the rocks, for example. you find traces of fossilized corals (anemones?) everywhere. Then there were swallows flying around in the cave chasing each other. A seagull came to say hello.

This place has been here for millions of years, in one shape or another. One day in 1941, 57 Germans landed here, happy to be alive. 81 years later, I had the privilege of experiencing this place, too. Our human stories attach themselves to these places, but they appear fleeting in the grand scheme of things.

And then I thought of the poem by Johann Gottfried Herder that was read at my grandfather's funeral:

Ein Traum, ein Traum ist unser Leben

auf Erden hier.

Wie Schatten auf den Wogen schweben

und schwinden wir,

und messen unsre trägen Tritte

nach Raum und Zeit;

und sind (und wissen's nicht) in Mitte

der Ewigkeit.

[A dream, a dream is our life

on earth here.

Like shadows on the waves we float

and disappear.

And measure our languid steps

through space and time

and are (without knowing)

amidst eternity.]

His time on the lifeboat and survival must have seemed like a dream in retrospect. He must have been grateful for all the time he got to spend on earth after Nov. 19th, 41, even though the trials in life would have made it hard sometimes to remember that sense of gratitude for clean, fresh water.

For me, too, there's not much left besides gratitude for the little time we have on this planet and the stories we get to share. Even if I didn't know my grandfather that well while he was alive, I am grateful for the time I did get to spend with him and for the story he left behind for me to trace.

So -- that's it for the main "travel" part of this blog! I've been writing and seeing a lot of things that didn't make it on here, so there are a lot of leftovers to work with when I come back.

I was also invited to a memorial event at Curtin University in Perth on the 18th, where the new 3D model of the Kormoran will be unveiled, so they journey continues before I head back home next week!