By Phil Jarratt
I first became acquainted, rather too closely, with the lifestyle and breeding habits of the brush turkey some years ago, when our then next-door neighbor decided that he would help them build their enormous mounds right next to our common fence.
Along with their many other failings, bush turkeys are not particularly good at flying, but with a bit of assistance from a large mound underfoot, they were soon able to flutter over the fence and make themselves at home in our pool and garden, digging holes and pooing randomly, as is their wont, until called home by their master at feeding time. Why would a brush turkey ever leave this country club existence? Well, they didn’t, so we did.
Since those halcyon days the turkey population of Noosa has increased at least tenfold. When I drive down Hastings Street at first light to share the dawn patrol surf with the tradies and the schoolies, I see them strutting like peacocks through town, and on the access track to the beach it would be a rare day you didn’t meet a dozen or more, rooting around in the undergrowth, moving leaves and compost around like they own the place.
But they’re protected, I’m all for live and let live, and as long as they’re not invading my home, I’m good with that. But there are limits, and last week a turkey crossed a line in the sand, literally.
In the middle of a surfless working day, your columnist dotted an I, crossed a t, and decided to hit the beach for a run and a swim. Parking at the usual Woods secret spot, I hit it for the sand, where I wrapped my keys in my tee shirt, which I then wrapped in my towel, which I then placed my thongs on top of. Yes, a turkey was scratching around in the undergrowth behind the beach, but there always is. You know where this is going, don’t you?
Forty minutes later, feeling invigorated after a run-walk-run to First Point and back, some stretches on the wet sand and a refreshing swim, I jogged back to my belongings, looking a little askew it’s true, perhaps the result of a gust of wind. Quick inventory: both thongs here, towel here, tee shirt here, keys, keys … no damn keys! A couple was sunbathing not 20 metres away. Excuse me, did you see anyone messing with my stuff?
“No, but a very cheeky turkey was annoying us so we shooed him away, and then we saw him at your towel.” Great. Couldn’t you have shooed him the other way, I think but don’t say, being a polite columnist. And because of my manners, the sunbathers follow me back to the scene of the crime and help me forage through the undergrowth, looking for a turkey mound with the crown jewels sitting on top of it.
It is, of course, in vain. When turkeys steal from you, they mean business, and if they can’t eat it or otherwise destroy it, they’ll bury it. I made my way back to the car park, half expecting to find a bunch of turkeys in my car, yahooing as they hoon up and down Claude Batten Drive. But the car sat untroubled by turkeys, with my wallet and phone locked inside it. There being no such thing as a taxi in Noosa in daylight hours any more, and since you can’t call an Uber without a phone, I walked the two kilometres home and a neighbor kindly drove me back with the spare keys.
I’ve since learnt that antisocial turkey behavior has been rife in Noosa in recent weeks. A colleague here at Noosa Today saw one tear its way through half a dozen beach bags while she sipped a coffee at Sails. Another friend told me about one pulling a bra out of a handbag while its owner swam, and ripped the stuffing out of it. Now that’s deeply disturbing.
Where will it end? It can only get worse. They’re protected and they know it and they’re flaunting it.
The first surfboard rider in Noosa I’ve written two short histories of surfing in Noosa and in both of them I credit Australia’s first ironman champion Hayden Kenny with being the first person to surf Noosa’s points and beach breaks on a surfboard, specifically a Gordon Woods hollow plywood okanui that he bought in early 1957.
The Woodsy was a copy of the balsa Malibu Chip finned surfboards that both Gordon and Hayden had seen at the Olympic surf carnival at Torquay, near Melbourne in 1956, but large planks of balsa weren’t yet available in Australia, so they improvised.
But last week fellow surf historian Stuart Scott posted a couple of shots on the “Who Lived In Noosa Before It Was Cool?” Facebook page that challenge the assertion that Hayden led the way. The photos, from Noosa Heritage Library’s Picture Noosa collection, are captioned, “Kevin Freeman and Dolphin surfboard, Noosa 1948”, and the board, as much as we can see of it, looks like a huge and primitive “pig” shape.
Kevin, of the pioneering Freeman clan, who soon after wooed and wed the lovely Emma, and became Noosa’s trendiest couple of the 1950s, was a fine sailor, a riverboat skipper and a bodysurfer, but did he ride that thing standing up?
I can’t wait to find out more.
