Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef: Aesthetics, Heritage and the Senses 9781138049918, 9781315169316

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Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef

Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef explores how visitor encounters have shaped the history and heritage of the Reef. Moving beyond the visual aesthetic significance, the book highlights the importance of multi-­sensuous experiences in understanding the region as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, the book describes how visitors have experienced the Great Barrier Reef through personal embodied encounters and the mechanisms they have used to understand, access and share these experiences with others. Illustrating how such experiences contribute to a knowledge of place, Pocock also explores the vital role of reproduction and photography in sharing experiences with those who have never been there. The second part of the book analyses visitor experiences and demonstrates how they underpin three key frames through which the Reef is understood and valued: the islands as paradise, the underwater coral gardens, and the singular Great Barrier Reef. Acknowledging that these constructs are increasingly removed from human experience, Pocock demonstrates that they are nevertheless integral to recognition of the region as a World Heritage Site. Demonstrating how experiences of the Reef have changed over time, Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef should be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of heritage studies, history and tourism. It should also be of interest to heritage practitioners working around the globe. Celmara Pocock is Director of the Centre for Heritage and Culture and Associate Professor in Anthropology and Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Southern Queensland. Her research interests encompass human relationships with the environment, including senses of place; social value and community heritage; and the intersections between heritage and tourism.

Routledge Studies in Heritage

  9 Heritage and Memory of War Responses from Small Islands Edited by Gilly Carr and Keir Reeves 10 Marie Antoinette at Petit Trianon Heritage Interpretation and Visitor Perceptions Denise Major-­Barron 11 Heritage after Conflict Northern Ireland Edited by Elizabeth Crooke and Tom Maguire 12 Historicizing Heritage and Emotions The Affective Histories of Blood, Stone and Land Edited by Alicia Marchant 13 Underwater Cultural Heritage Ethical concepts and practical challenges Elena Perez-­Alvaro 14 Cultural Heritage, Ageing, Disability and Identity Practice, and the Development of Inclusive Capital Simon Hayhoe 15 Securing Urban Heritage Agents, Access, and Securitization Heike Oevermann and Eszter Gantner 16 Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef Aesthetics, Heritage, and the Senses Celmara Pocock www.routledge.com/Routledge-­Studies-in-­Heritage/book-­series/RSIHER

Visitor Encounters with the Great Barrier Reef Aesthetics, Heritage and the Senses

Celmara Pocock

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Celmara Pocock The right of Celmara Pocock to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-04991-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-16931-6 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

For Lyndy and Maureen

Contents



List of illustrations Acknowledgements

1 Introduction

ix xii 1

World Heritage values  1 New directions in heritage  2 The cultural bias and potential of aesthetic value  4 Aesthetics as senses and place  7 Visitor experience  9 PART I

Visitor experiences of the Great Barrier Reef

15

2 Orientation, wayfinding and cartographic knowledge of the Reef

17

Disorientation and danger  17 Controlling danger: orientation and mapping  21 Science, tourism and navigation  24 Visitor traditions of orientation  27 In the footsteps of the navigators  30 Disorientation  32 Orientation: continuity and change  33 3 Visitors’ sensuous experiences at the Reef Seeing the Reef  44 Feeling the Reef  47 Reef sounds  57 Smelling the Reef  65

42

viii   Contents Tasting the Reef  67 Merging senses and movement  72 4 Sharing experience of the Reef with the world

79

Contact and copy  79 The means of capture  81 Transmission of experience  89 Representing a multi-­sensuous Reef  96 PART II

Cultural constructions of the Great Barrier Reef

109

5 Reef islands as signifiers of paradise

111

Australian landscapes of the Great Barrier Reef  111 Australian bush as the everyday  116 In pursuit of paradise  117 The coconut palm as signifier of paradise found  123 A tourist gaze for Australian visitors  128 6 Controlling the underwater Reef through cultivation of coral gardens

136

Cartographic mimesis: control over the other  136 Out of control: a return to otherness  138 Seeking similitude: coral gardens  142 Aquariums as controlled gardens  145 Immersion and loss of control  147 Coral gardens as imagery  149 7 The Great Barrier Reef as hyper-­reality and World Heritage

153

The simulacra of a single natural reef  153 Hyper-­reality at ReefWorld  155 Loss of place  157 Conservation of the Great Barrier Reef  161 World Heritage listing  169 Postscript  173

Index

178

Illustrations

Figures 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2a.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

4.5

Map of the Great Barrier Reef showing key locations mentioned in the text and the boundaries of the World Heritage Area Map of existing and proposed lighthouses for the Inner Barrier route along the coast of Queensland, 1922 William Saville-­Kent photograph from The Great Barrier Reef 1889 Postcard of Whitsunday Islands c.1938 Map showing the voyage of the Cheerio route 1935 Mont and Ted Embury fossicking on an exposed reef at low tide c.1932 A group of holidaymakers riding turtles on Heron Island c.1938 Nicholson and Party netting fishes at Masthead Island 1910 Holidaymakers behind a pile of bone at the turtle soup factory on North West Island, 1910 Climbing coconut palms on Brampton Island Drinking from a coconut, Green Island 1966 The photographer of Figure 3.3 is photographed in action View of Tyron Island with corals visible beneath the water surface c.1932 Photograph of Mel Ward diving in a coral pool taken with early experimental underwater camera c.1932 Holidaymakers fossicking on Lodestone Reef. The coral foreground, sea and sky of a black and white image were hand coloured to create this postcard c.1920  A coral and shell display arranged and painted by Shirley Keong to represent the underwater Reef, 1965

19 22 25 29 39 48 51 54 69 71 72 88 90 93

95 96

x    Illustrations 4a.1 4a.2 4a.3 4a.4 4a.5 4a.6 4a.7 4a.8 4a.9 4a.10 4a.11 4a.12 4a.13 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 6.1 7.1

Ornithologists Camp, Masthead Island 1910 Lindeman Island Camp Site 1928 Embury holidaymaker at her tent, North West Island c.1930 View from hill looking to the newly constructed Hayman Island resort and swimming enclosure c.1932 Grass huts for holidaymakers, Lindeman Island 1930s Holiday huts, Hayman Island c.1940 Hayman Island Resort Accommodation 1950s Hayman Island Resort Pool c.1961 Hayman Island Resort c.1970 Hamilton Island Resort, 1984 South Molle Island, 2001 Hamilton Island Resort, 2001 Hayman Island Resort, 2018 Mess tent set under trees on North West Island c.1928 Commonwealth Government promotional image for Heron Island used Pandanus, a native species, to frame the visitor experience, c.1950 Casuarina branches soften the edges of black and white promotional images of Reef islands c.1950 Dene Fry working in an outdoor laboratory on Masthead Island 1910 Coral composition set among casuarina branches on Masthead Island, 1910  Honeymooners at Hayman Island in 1960. In spite of the Australian setting, the woman wears a hula skirt representative of the tropics Brochure for Hayman Island shows women posing with leis, c.1959 Tourist poses against a palm trunk holding a coconut while casuarinas and Australian scrub dominate the background Tourists viewing coral through waterscope from the side of a row boat, Lindeman Island c.1931 ReefWorld offshore pontoon, Hardy Reef

102 102 103 103 104 104 105 105 106 106 107 107 108 112 114 115 116 117 123 124 126 139 155

Table 7.1 UNESCO World Heritage Criteria 1980: Natural criteria against which the Great Barrier Reef was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981

169

Illustrations   xi

Boxes 2a 4a 7a

Come and Get It: The Voyage of the Cheerio Photographic Essay: Changing Environments and Accommodation on the Great Barrier Reef Islands Bunga Teratai Satu

37 102 163

Acknowledgements

I was first enchanted by the Great Barrier Reef as I pored over colourful photographs in National Geographic and watched enthralled as Jacques Cousteau dived the underwater reefs. I imagined one day I might join that world. It was therefore with great delight that I accepted an invitation from James Cook University to participate in a workshop on the social significance of the Great Barrier Reef in 1999. At the time, I was working for the Australian Heritage Commission, and the following year I accepted an invitation to return to James Cook University to undertake a doctoral research project on the same topic. I am forever grateful to Martin Gibbs, Shelley Greer, Rosita Henry and David Roe for the opportunity they presented me. It has been a great privilege to work on such a significant project and it is from those first opportunities that this book emerged. The research for this book is based on historic archival research and participant observation, and I am indebted to a number of individuals, institutions and agencies that made it possible to draw together such diverse sources. The research was generously supported by the Cooperative Research Centre for the Great Barrier Reef (CRC Reef ), which funded my doctoral research scholarship and provided both direct funding and in-­kind support for the travel and fieldwork associated with the project. FantaSea Cruises provided transport and accommodation in the Whitsundays region. Other research was enabled through a number of grants and fellowships including travel and doctoral merit scholarships from James Cook University. I have made extensive use of records in the Australian Museum Archive, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the John Oxley Library at the State Library of Queensland, the National Archives of Australia, the Mitchell Library at the State Library of New South Wales, the National Library of Australia and the State Library of Victoria. Jan Brazier at the Australian Museum was particularly helpful in the earliest days of my research and guided me to invaluable sources. Of the many images in this book most are reproduced with the kind support of these organisations. Since completion of my doctoral research I have refined and extended my research on the Great Barrier Reef through a John Oxley Library

   Acknowledgements   xiii Fellowship and a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at The University of Queensland. I have been able to research additional collections in the British Library and Museum of Natural Science in London and return to Great Barrier Reef a number of times. The support of the University of Southern Queensland continues to be invaluable to my research and I am grateful for a collegial and supportive workplace. Most important in a research project is the support and encouragement of trusted friends and colleagues. Marion Stell has offered steadfast support; moving cities, joining me on fieldwork, carefully reading both thesis and book manuscript. I am ever grateful to David Collett for his interest and intellectually stimulating friendship, and invaluable contributions as my associate supervisor. My serendipitous meeting with Randolph Delehanty led to a rewarding collaboration; and his enthusiasm for my Great Barrier Reef research motivated me to find a publisher. I am very grateful to Matthew Gibbons at Routledge for his quick response to the initial proposal and to the editing team that has patiently assisted me in refining the manuscript; Dominic Shryane, Marc Stratton and Heidi Lowther have all made helpful suggestions. Heidi Lowther in particular has made useful suggestions to strengthen the manuscript. Some of the ideas in this book have been extended in other forums, a few merit particular mention. The introductory chapter includes a summary of some of the ideas published in the International Journal of Heritage Studies in 2002; Chapter 5 is elaborated in an article in The Australian Journal of Anthropology in 2005. Other ideas absent from this volume include the significant role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at the Great Barrier Reef. Related research appears in an article published in the Journal of Pacific History in 2014, and a book chapter in Archaeologies of “us” and “them” published by Routledge in 2017.

1 Introduction

All over the world people proclaim a love for the Great Barrier Reef – whether they be one of the millions of tourists who visit the region each year, or the many more who aspire to see it before they die. It is this passion for the Reef that led to its nomination and eventual inscription in the World Heritage List for its superlative natural and aesthetic qualities. The aesthetics of the Reef are readily brought to mind through images of vivid blue seas dotted with verdant islands and cays fringed by white sand, and a brilliant array of underwater fishes and corals. It is these visual imageries that underscore public passion and awe, and which inspire political rallies for the protection of the Reef. Despite a ready acceptance of the aesthetic significance of the region, the ways in which these attributes are prescribed and created through human experience is poorly understood. This book explores how visitor encounters shape the history and heritage of the Great Barrier Reef as we understand it. Far from being an intrinsic characteristic, the aesthetics of the Reef are created through colonial myths, the discoveries of science, technology that enables new human experiences, and the thrill and joy that visitors have imagined and realised through their Reef encounters.

World Heritage values Stretching more than 2,000 kilometres along the east coast of Australia, almost the equivalent distance between London and Moscow, the Great Barrier Reef is a truly amazing phenomenon. Listed under all four natural criteria of the UNESCO (1972) World Heritage Convention, aesthetics is a significant contributor to the status of the Reef as a place of “outstanding universal value”. At the time of nomination, the World Heritage Operational Guidelines (UNESCO 1980, p.  6) defined aesthetics as those properties that “contain superlative natural phenomena, formations or features or areas of exceptional natural beauty”. The original nomination by the Australian Government addressed this criterion by stating that “The Great Barrier Reef provides some of the most spectacular scenery on earth and is of exceptional natural beauty” (GBRMPA 1981, p.  6). Since 1994 the

2   Introduction Operational Guidelines have been slightly modified to state that a property must “contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance” (UNESCO 1994, 1999, 2015, 2017), bringing the term aesthetic into the definition. The specific values for which the Reef is listed under this criterion are summarised by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority as: • • • • •

Vast mosaic patterns of reefs providing an unparallel[ed] aerial panorama of seascapes and landscapes.… One of the few living structures visible from space Beneath the ocean surface, there is an abundance of shapes, sizes and colours, including spectacular coral assemblages (hard and soft corals) and >1,500 species of fish Globally important breeding colonies of seabirds and marine turtles, including Raine Island, the world’s largest green turtle breeding area Superlative natural phenomena include the annual coral spawning, migrating whales, and significant spawning aggregations of many fish species (GBRMPA 2018)

In this summary of attributes aesthetics is confined to scenic qualities with an emphasis on “unparalleled aerial” panorama and a diversity of shape, size and colour of underwater marine life. In other words, the focus is on visual qualities. This invites questions about the way in which aesthetic qualities are defined and interpreted within heritage practice; their relationship to a sense of place; and the mutability of value.

New directions in heritage Over the past couple of decades heritage studies have emerged as a field of critical enquiry. Central to scholarly debates is the increasing recognition that heritage is a political process, a form of social action and what constitutes or is recognised as heritage is negotiated and contested. A particular focus of criticism is the dominance of Western approaches to heritage conservation, including a long-­standing bias towards monumental built heritage. There has been a concerted effort, in both scholarship and practice, to broaden what is understood to be heritage and to include a greater range of heritage forms within established heritage regimes. In an international context this is exemplified in the ratification of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the inclusion of cultural landscapes as a category of World Heritage property with the potential to integrate cultural and natural values (Taylor and Lennon 2011). While Australia is not a signatory to the Intangible Heritage Convention, it has been something of a leader in recognising the interrelationship between cultural and natural values, particularly in the context

Introduction   3 of identifying Aboriginal heritage (Pocock and Lilley 2018). This sensibility further underscores the emergence of social significance as an important category of assessment in evaluating heritage properties. Social value has been recognised as a criterion in the Australian Burra Charter since the 1970s. However, the concept enjoyed renewed vigour following the work of Byrne et al. who argued that social value was a powerful means through which to include Aboriginal community values in heritage assessment (Byrne, Brayshaw and Ireland 2001). The potential for social significance to recognise community attachment beyond archaeological significance ascribed by experts in heritage assessments, has been an important mechanism through which to address bias in heritage lists, and consequently is gaining attention internationally (see, for example, Harrison 2010; Jones 2017; Jones and Leech 2015; Willems 2009, 2014). Intangible heritage recognises folklore, dance, storytelling and cuisine and social significance, similarly recognises stories, attachments and community perceptions of the past. These new directions in heritage studies are often summarised as a turn away from the material. It seems that with an interest in human attachment to space and place as in the instance of social significance, and the capacity of intangible heritage to consider food, that these new turns in heritage studies are not so much a turn from the material as a turn towards change. A central tenet of traditional heritage assessment and management is the high regard for stasis, the value of integrity and authenticity tied to an original unchanging materiality. The repetitive heritage practices – storytelling, cooking, dancing – will always incorporate some element of change whether by invention, remembrance or omission. Social value and intangible heritage both contribute to a growing recognition of diverse forms of heritage and different cultural approaches to appreciating and valuing the past in the present. However, unlike intangible heritage, which is recognised as an autonomous category of heritage, separate and distinct from the materiality of World Heritage, social values are more readily recognised as an integral aspect of physical space and material heritage (Pocock, Collett and Baulch 2015; Pocock and Lilley 2018). This may be an artefact of the observation that social significance is rarely assessed as a category in its own right (Byrne, Brayshaw and Ireland 2001; Gibson 2009; Jones and Leech 2015), and that it is more likely to be conflated with other more traditional criteria such as historic and architectural values (Jones 2017). Importantly, however, it also recognises that it is ultimately difficult to separate cultural practices from their entanglement with the material world. Furthermore, it is arguable that it is the physical dimensions of heritage that bear the brunt of threats in the face of a rapidly changing world. Consequently heritage sites and objects are still afforded greater recognition and protection than other forms of heritage. Despite the introduction of new categories of heritage significance as in the case of intangible heritage, and the broader interpretation of cultural

4   Introduction significance, many standard assessment criteria remain unchanged in definition or interpretation. This means that these alternative forms of heritage largely remain on the periphery of heritage assessments. In considering aesthetic significance, these issues are particularly noticeable.

The cultural bias and potential of aesthetic value Many heritage management regimes in Australia and elsewhere recognise the importance of aesthetic appreciation as a component of heritage significance and, by implication, its contribution to the establishment of place. However, there is a large degree of variance in the way these criteria are defined, interpreted and used both within and between different management systems. This includes the criteria within the World Heritage System. In a discussion of the significance of the Great Barrier Reef, it has been suggested that aesthetic values might provide a bridge between natural and cultural values by representing a form of social value (Pocock 2002b). Lucas et al. (1997, pp.  52–3) consider the inclusion of the phrase “aesthetic importance” in the World Heritage criteria as an important avenue through which to consider “the range of values which the community places on the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area”. This interpretation suggests not only that aesthetic values offer a potential nexus between cultural and natural heritage values but also that they are a form of community value. However, in the World Heritage regime aesthetic qualities are treated quite distinctly under natural and cultural criteria. The definitions bind ­aesthetics to high art in a cultural context, but allow for a much broader consideration of values in relation to natural heritage (Pocock 2002b). The criteria of the World Heritage Convention encapsulate a fundamental dualism between nature and culture. This has significant consequences for nominations and management, especially where large protected areas are nominated solely on the basis of natural attributes. While there have been some attempts to redress this issue, the system continues to privilege a separation of culture and nature (Lee 2016; Pocock and Lilley 2018). For instance, while the category of cultural landscapes has been recognised since 1992 as a means through which to integrate natural and cultural values (see, for example, Bridgewater, Arico and Scott 2007; Brown 2015; Cleere 1995; Harmon 2007; Lowenthal 2000; Rössler 2006; Taylor and Lennon 2011; UNESCO 1998; Wallace 2014), it remains possible to nominate properties solely on the basis of natural characteristics without reference to associated cultural values. Similarly, while there has been a single list of criteria for cultural and natural properties since 2004, the criteria themselves echo their earlier division into two separate lists. In the Operational Guidelines, the definitions of cultural heritage emphasise monuments and buildings recognised from the “point of view of history, art or science”, while sites, including cultural landscapes and

Introduction   5 archaeological sites are identified from “historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological points of view”. On the other hand, natural properties are defined in reference to “aesthetic or scientific point of view” in relation to features and “science, conservation or natural beauty” for delineated natural areas. Hence the definitions already create a distinction in the perspectives used to assess aesthetics. This is furthered within the criteria themselves, in which cultural properties are implicitly defined by aesthetics through reference to “human creative genius”, art, architecture and design. In contrast, criterion vii states that a natural property must “contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance”. Criterion v, which ostensibly recognises cultural landscapes, makes reference to neither. Consequently, aesthetics continues to be defined and assessed differently for natural and cultural properties, with an emphasis on art and architecture in relation to cultural properties, and the more ambiguous “aesthetics” and natural beauty in relation to natural properties, including cultural landscapes. The emphasis on art and architecture in the cultural context is framed by a very particular cultural tradition. Aesthetics has been the subject of extensive research, academic debate and a comprehensive literature, largely in relation to fine arts and visual quality (Grace 1996, p. 2). A brief discussion of these issues provides context for the way in which aesthetics is invoked in heritage contexts. A core critique of aesthetics has been its preoccupation with visual qualities (Eagleton 1990; Grace 1996; Litton 1982; Riley 1997; Upton 1997). It is arguable that visual preoccupation is legitimate within fine arts, especially where interpretations of aesthetics and art originate within a single cultural and social discourse. It is much more problematic when these preoccupations are transferred to situations outside that framework. Most significant in a heritage context is the diversity of ways in which different cultural groups perceive and articulate a sense of what might broadly be regarded as “aesthetics”. There is a longstanding opinion in anthropology that art is difficult to define or identify in a cross-­cultural context, where the purpose and the responses evoked by creative or expressive culture can be strikingly different to those of Western European tradition. Thus, the terms art and aesthetics are difficult to translate and may be inappropriate when applied to other cultural contexts. This is the case too in considering aesthetics of “natural” environments. The way that landscapes are defined and appreciated derives from a specific cultural discourse about vision, view, vantage point and painting (see, for example, Berleant 1992, pp.  2–7, 1997, pp.  12–15; Bourassa 1991, pp.  1–4; Carlson 2001, pp.  9–10; Patin 1999, pp.  41–59; Riley 1997, pp. 200–9; Rodaway 1994, pp. 126–33; Ryan 1996, pp. 9–10, 62). Thus, the problem for heritage assessments of aesthetics is that the term itself is value laden and encompasses the biases and preoccupations of a fine arts framework.

6   Introduction Heritage definitions remain focused – albeit uncritically or obliviously – on very particular understandings of aesthetics. These stem from elitist appreciation in Western artistic traditions and of the sublime in landscape. This continued bias, together with the division between cultural and natural values, leads directly to the problems that Lucas et al. (1997, p. 39) identify in relation to understanding the aesthetics of the Great Barrier Reef; that there is a lack of consistency in methods used to document and assess aesthetic value and that aesthetic qualities are reduced “solely to visual amenity”. The lack of methodological consistency stems directly from assumptions about what is valued in aesthetics. Bourdieu’s (1984) critique of the assessment of taste suggests that aesthetic judgements of the bourgeoisie are always made in contrast to those of other classes. In other words, aesthetic judgements, even within Western Europe, are circumscribed by class. Aesthetics as defined and implemented by heritage experts and elites thus privileges particular forms and in doing so denies or denigrates the aesthetics of others. Following Bourdieu, it is arguable that those deciding aesthetic value not only maintain the powerful position in deciding and adhering to the forms of aesthetics that determine cultural capital, but they are able to use social capital to influence these decisions. The deployment of these high levels of social and cultural capital further enables heritage experts to exercise and realise symbolic capital in recognising particular kinds of heritage properties as significant, particularly properties judged to be of “outstanding universal value”. Thus, aesthetic judgements continue to privilege particular forms of heritage at the expense of others. While aesthetes and heritage experts may recognise aesthetic qualities in cultural forms outside their own dominant cultures, these remain judged according to the established ideas of aesthetics. This undermines, or at least ignores, attempts made by UNESCO and other heritage organisations to redress imbalance in heritage lists. Aesthetics criteria are particularly vulnerable to misinterpretation or misuse because the underlying assumptions remain unchallenged. Identifying different cultural perspectives in aesthetic values is likely to face similar challenges to assessing social significance (Jones 2017; Pocock 2002a), but these difficulties are exacerbated because the bias to a particular social perspective is largely unrecognised. In Australia, at least, there have been some attempts to define aesthetics more precisely, and to include reference to the social context that might give rise to different aesthetic judgements. For instance, the former Australian Heritage Commission defined aesthetic value as: [A]spects of sensory perception (sight, touch, sound, taste, smell) for which criteria can be stated. These criteria may include consideration of form, scale, colour, texture and material of the fabric or landscape, the smells and sounds associated with the place and its use. (Australian Heritage Commission 2001)

Introduction   7 The more recent criterion for assessing aesthetics for the Australian National List specifies “aesthetic characteristics valued by a community or cultural group” (Australian Heritage Council 2009, p. 6). This recognises the social origin of aesthetic appreciation, and the explanatory notes further suggest that aesthetic responses originate in human perception (2009, p.  34). Nevertheless the definition of aesthetics remains tied very much to ideas of “beauty”, and the guidelines for application of the criterion specify that aesthetics be taken in the “ordinary meaning” of the word in “pertaining to the sense of the beautiful, having a sense of beauty” (2009, p. 35). While the guides suggest that “The aesthetic response may be evoked by … visual or non-­visual elements – including emotional responses, sense of place, sound, and smell” aesthetics that might trigger responses with “a strong impact on human thoughts, feelings and attitudes that are unconnected to the concept of ‘beauty’ ” are specifically excluded (Australian Heritage Council 2009, p.  35). In other words, aesthetics reverts more broadly to a sense of beauty. While the National List guidelines suggest a systematic assessment of aesthetics is desirable, it is not always apparent in the examples provided. Significantly, however, some examples refer to the capacity of places to evoke an emotional response. While the implementation of these definitions is yet to be fully realised, they do build a potentially stronger understanding and role for aesthetics in the assessment of heritage. The potential to consider sensuous experiences that include but go beyond visual appreciation is particularly pertinent to the assessment of heritage places.

Aesthetics as senses and place Unlike “common sense” or dictionary definitions of aesthetics that refer to artistic concepts like beauty, scenic or picturesque, the senses can be explored from a diversity of social and cultural contexts, and can be invoked in relation to any type of site or area. An interpretation of aesthetics focused on the senses is therefore more inclusive of a diversity of social and cultural understandings. Such sensuous experiences and encounters can be investigated for any region, site or landscape, regardless of whether it is built or apparently unmodified, and is therefore a valuable means through which to understand aesthetic significance in an integrated framework. This is significant because of the centrality of “place” to heritage assessment and management. Despite the shift towards recognising intangible heritage, many forms of heritage – including movable material culture and socially significant sites – are entangled with places. This does not simply refer to locality, but a more particular definition of place as a meaningful rendering of space through the interactions between people, and between people and their environs. It is the accumulation of experiences over time that gives rise to the histories, stories, relationships, practices and events

8   Introduction through which space gains its meaning as place. Hence heritage identification and assessment are closely entangled with the cultural production of places. An appreciation of how human senses contribute to such experiences and sense of place is therefore a significant, but largely overlooked, aspect of heritage assessment. As an aspect of aesthetic appreciation, understanding senses is an important element of how particular places are significant. Researchers commonly use the term “place” as though its meaning is obvious and refers simply to the bounded geographic areas in which they conduct their particular field research (Augé 1995; Casey 1996; Kahn 1996). The philosophical distinction between space and place has, however, come to influence the way these terms are used within anthropology, geography and other disciplines concerned with human relationships to their environments (Kahn 1996; Malpas 2018; Rodaway 1994). Despite the heritage preoccupation with places, however, heritage studies have been slower to engage with these debates. Within the practice of identifying, conserving and managing heritage, the word place is used to describe a bounded geographic area that contains heritage features. For instance, a common definition of place within the Australian heritage context is “a landscape, seascape, feature, area, site, building or other work, group of buildings, or other works or landscapes, together with associated contents and surrounds” (Australian Heritage Commission 2001). However, space has been defined philosophically as the abstract, prior concept in which particular places are inscribed. Within this division, most agree that space is the general and absolute category while place is that imbued with social meaning. While heritage places might be constructed from such meaning, this has not been an integral aspect of place definitions in heritage, and arguably is linked to the preoccupation with fabric at the expense of social significance. Augé (1995) defines “anthropological place” to contrast with the long-­ held understanding of time and space as universal. This interpretation is further supported by Casey’s (1996) extended review and argument about the interrelationship of place and human knowledge. Casey suggests that human knowledge is constructed first from personal experiences of the particular. As such knowledge is built, in the first instance, from place – a space animated with names, stories, associations and memories, rather than with the commonly held position that space is prior and abstract. In claiming that in human experience place precedes space, Casey argues that human beings are always emplaced, and it is from this primary knowledge that they construct subsequent knowledge. Casey (1996, p.  14) suggests that all knowledge commences with people’s own experience and that individual acquisition of knowledge of place is mediated through a sensate and kinaesthetic body. For Casey, experience is the starting point for all knowledge, and the senses are an emplaced and prior form of knowledge. Thus Casey (1996, pp.  16–18) argues that it is impossible to know or sense a

Introduction   9 place except by being in it, and that by being there a person is able to perceive that place. Malpas (2018) extends this idea to argue that place and experience are essential to one another. In this regard, places can be both sensed and sensation (Basso 1996, p. 55; Feld 1996, p. 98). These arguments draw on the work of many who regard places as culturally and corporeally informed. It is these aspects of place that can link aesthetics to social significance. Nevertheless, the critical element that all places are simultaneously social and spatial is realised by being in place. In other words, there is a physical component to place that is inseparable from the social (Augé 1995; Casey 1996). The human body is itself part of space (Augé 1995, p.  60) and consequently spatial relations of the body and its sensuous encounters are integral in knowing place. Rather than being an inert body as defined in physics, the lived body is integrated through “corporeal intentionality” (Casey 1996, p.  21). This knowing subject is like Grace’s (1996) ego cogito, the thinking ego through which people gain knowledge of their own places. Significantly, knowledge of place is synesthetic, in that it involves the whole body and senses inform one another (Casey 1996; Feld 1996; Ingold 2000; Rodaway 1994; Taussig 1993, pp.  25–6). Hence the knowledge is not acquired passively, but is absorbed and constructed through the thinking, moving, culturally informed and sensate body (Berleant 1997, p.  12; Casey 1996, p.  18; Grace 1996; Taussig 1993).

Visitor experience This book explores the ways in which people’s lived experiences of the Great Barrier Reef give rise to a social and cultural sense of place. It investigates how visitors’ sensuous experiences give rise to meaning and the construction of the Reef as a heritage place of international significance. Developments in heritage assessment, particularly the extended use and application of social significance, strive to recognise the cultural and local dimensions of “natural” and other non-­built heritage sites. To some extent local communities and local knowledge are the focus of social value assessments and might well be served by understanding the ways in which the lived body and lived experiences construct such values and places. The experiences of the lived body build local knowledge that is specific to the particular qualities of place and that is consistent with the sensuous properties and cultural characteristics of that place. In other words, through the lived body, the knowing subject perceives the particularities of any given place (Casey 1996, p. 44). Thus the body is not only central to place, but is fundamental to an authentically local knowledge gained through lived experience. Many heritage systems, including the World Heritage System, have sought to gain a better understanding and representation of local values and places on representative heritage lists. This is an important move,

10   Introduction ­ articularly in regards to recognising the rights, interests and expertise of p Indigenous peoples in relation to the assessment and management of heritage properties, including World Heritage Properties (Pocock and Lilley 2018). On the other end of the spectrum are tourists and visitors who tend to be regarded as consumers of heritage rather than stakeholders with attachments to places or contributors to the significance of heritage sites. In the case of a property like the Great Barrier Reef, however, tourists are one of the most significant groups of people to consistently experience and communicate the value of the region to others. In addition, while definitions of visitors, by and large, exclude locals, locals may also consume or understand heritage values in a similar way to visitors. This book therefore focuses on visitor encounters with the Great Barrier Reef and takes a historic approach to understanding how these experiences have changed over time and given rise to particular understandings and appreciations. The book is divided into two parts; the first describes how visitors have experienced the Great Barrier Reef through personal embodied encounters and the mechanisms they have used to understand, access and share these experiences with others. Drawing on original archival and ethnographic research, these chapters illustrate how embodied and oriented experiences contribute to a knowledge of place, and the vital role of reproduction and photography in sharing this experience with those who have never been there. The second part of the book interprets these experiences – direct and indirect – to show how they underscore how the Reef is understood and more particularly how it is valued as a World Heritage site. The chapters that comprise the first part – orientation, sensuous encounters and transmission of knowledge – are largely descriptive. They comprise original historical research drawn from tourism ephemera, photographs, film and personal records in a number of archival collections. The contemporary comparisons in the same part are drawn from participant observation at key tourist regions of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as analysis of web pages and other first-­hand accounts from the beginning of the twenty-­first century (Pocock 2002a). The second part of the book analyses and interprets these historical records to demonstrate how visitor experiences underpin three key frames through which the Reef is understood and valued; the islands as paradise, the underwater coral gardens; and the uniqueness of a single massive Great Barrier Reef. The book argues that these constructs, that originate in visitor encounters but are increasingly removed from human experience, are integral to recognition of the region as World Heritage.

References Augé, Marc 1995, Non-­places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, Verso, London and New York. Australian Heritage Commission 2001, Glossary of heritage terms, viewed 25 April 2001, www.ea.gov.au/heritage/infores/glossary.html.

Introduction   11 Australian Heritage Council 2009, Guidelines for the assessment of places for the National Heritage List, Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Heritage Council, Canberra, www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/8b50f33542e8-4599-b5e0-ac643f75475f/files/nhl-­guidelines.pdf. Basso, Keith H 1996, “Wisdom sits in places: note on a Western Apache Landscape”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, NM, pp. 53–90. Berleant, Arnold 1992, The aesthetics of environment, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA. Berleant, Arnold 1997, Living in the landscape: Toward an aesthetics of environment, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. Bourassa, Steven C 1991, The aesthetics of landscape, Belhaven Press, London and New York. Bourdieu, Pierre 1984, Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. Bridgewater, Peter, Arico, Salvatore and Scott, John 2007, “Biological diversity and cultural diversity: The heritage of nature and culture through the looking glass of multilateral agreements”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 13, no. 4–5, pp. 405–19. Brown, Jessica 2015, “Bringing together nature and culture: Integrating a landscape approach in protected areas policy and practice”, in R Gambino and A Peano (eds), Nature policies and landscape policies: Towards an alliance, Springer International, New York, pp.  33–42, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-054100_3, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05410-0_3. Byrne, Denis, Brayshaw, Helen and Ireland, Tracy 2001, Social significance: A discussion paper, Research Unit, Cultural Heritage Division, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Sydney. Carlson, Allen 2001, “On aesthetically appreciating human environments”, Philosophy and Geography, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 9–24. Casey, Edward S 1996, “How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time: Phenomenological prolegomena”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of Place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, pp. 13–52. Cleere, Henry 1995, “Cultural landscapes as world heritage”, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 63–8. Eagleton, Terry 1990, The ideology of the aesthetic, Blackwell, Oxford and Malden, MA. Feld, Stephen 1996, “Waterfalls of song: An acoustemology of place resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, NM, pp. 91–135. GBRMP Authority 1981, Nomination of the Great Barrier Reef by the Commonwealth of Australia for Inclusion in the World Heritage List: United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, by GBRMPA, viewed February 2018, http://dspace-­prod.gbrmpa.gov.au/jspui/bitstream/11017/265/1/Nomination­GBR-World-­Heritage-List.pdf. GBRMPA 2018, Criteria values and attributes, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, viewed February 2018, www.gbrmpa.gov.au/about-­the-reef/heritage/ great-­barrier-reef-­world-heritage-­area/criteria-­values-and-­attributes. Gibson, Leanne 2009, “Cultural landscapes and identity”, Valuing historic environments, pp. 67–92.

12   Introduction Grace, Helen 1996, Aesthesia and the economy of the senses, Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts. University of Western Sydney, Nepean., Kingswood, N.S.W. Harmon, David 2007, “A bridge over the chasm: Finding ways to achieve integrated natural and cultural heritage conservation”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 13, no. 4–5, pp. 380–92. Harrison, Rodney 2010, “Heritage as social action”, in S West (ed.), Understanding heritage in practice, Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 240–76. Ingold, Tim 2000, “Stop, look and listen! Vision, hearing and human movement”, in T Ingold (ed.), The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, Routledge, London, pp. 243–87. Jones, Siân 2017, “Wrestling with the social value of heritage: Problems, dilemmas and opportunities”, Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, vol.  4, no. 1, pp. 21–37. Jones, Siân and Leech, Steven 2015, Valuing the historic environment: A critical review of existing approaches to social value, Report for the AHRC Cultural Value Project, University of Manchester. Kahn, Miriam 1996, “Your place and mine: Sharing emotional landscapes in Wamira, Papua New Guinea”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, NM, pp. 167–96. Lee, Emma 2016, “Protected areas, country and value: The nature–culture tyranny of the IUCN’s Protected Area Guidelines for Indigenous Australians”, Antipode, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 355–74. Litton, R Burton (Jr.) 1982, “Visual assessment of natural landscapes”, in B Sadler and A Carlson (eds), Environmental aesthetics: Essays in interpretation, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, pp. 97–116. Lowenthal, David 2000, “Environment as heritage”, in K Flint and H Morphy (eds), Culture, landscape and the environment; The Linacre Lectures 1997, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 197–217. Lucas, PHC, Webb, T, Valentine, PS and Marsh, H 1997, The outstanding universal value of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville. Malpas, Jeff 2018, Place and experience: A philosophical topography, Routledge. Patin, Thomas 1999, “Exhibitions and empire: National parks and the performance of manifest destiny”, Journal of Amer­ican Culture, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 41–59. Pocock, Celmara 2002a, “Identifying social values in archival sources: Change, continuity and invention in tourist experiences of the Great Barrier Reef ”, in V Gomes, T Pinto and L das Neves (eds), The changing coast, Eurocoast/EUCC, Porto, pp. 281–90. Pocock, Celmara 2002b, “Sense matters: Aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef ”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 365–81. Pocock, Celmara, Collett, David and Baulch, Linda 2015, “Assessing stories before sites: Identifying the tangible from the intangible”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 21, no. 10, pp. 962–82. Pocock, Celmara and Lilley, Ian 2018, “Who benefits? World heritage and indigenous people”, Heritage & Society, pp. 1–20. Riley, Robert B. 1997, “The visible, the visual, and the vicarious: Questions about vision, landscape and experience”, in P Groth and TW Bressi (eds), Understanding ordinary landscapes, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, pp. 200–9.

Introduction   13 Rodaway, Paul 1994, Sensuous geographies: Body, sense, and place, Routledge, London and New York. Rössler, Mechtild 2006, “World Heritage cultural landscapes: A UNESCO flagship programme 1992–2006”, Landscape Research, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 333–53. Ryan, Simon 1996, The cartographic eye: How explorers saw Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; New York. Taussig, Michael 1993, Mimesis and alterity: A particular history of the senses, Routledge, New York and London. Taylor, Ken and Lennon, Jane 2011, “Cultural landscapes: A bridge between culture and nature?”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol.  17, no.  6, pp. 537–54. UNESCO 1972, Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage, viewed 16 January 2003, www.unesco.org/whc/nwhc/pages/ doc/main.htm. UNESCO 1980, Operational guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, viewed 25 April 2001, www.unesco.org/whc/nwhc/pages/doc/ main.htm. UNESCO 1994, Operational guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, viewed 25 April 2001, www.unesco.org/whc/nwhc/pages/doc/ main.htm. UNESCO 1998, Report of the World Heritage Global Strategy Natural and Cultural Heritage Expert Meeting, Theatre Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, http://whc.unesco.org/archive/amsterdam98.pdf. UNESCO 1999, Operational guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, viewed 25 April 2001, www.unesco.org/whc/nwhc/pages/doc/ main.htm. UNESCO 2015, Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, http://whc.unesco.org/en/ guidelines. UNESCO 2017, Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, http://whc.unesco.org/en/ guidelines. Upton, Dell 1997, “Seen, unseen, and scene”, in P Groth and TW Bressi (eds), Understanding ordinary landscapes, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, pp. 174–9. Wallace, Paulette 2014, Approaching cultural landscapes in post-­settler societies: Ideas, policies, practices, thesis, Deakin University. Willems, Willem JH 2009, “European and world archaeologies”, World Archaeology, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 649–58. Willems, Willem JH 2014, “The future of world heritage and the emergence of transnational heritage regimes”, Heritage & Society, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 105–20.

Part I

Visitor experiences of the Great Barrier Reef

2 Orientation, wayfinding and cartographic knowledge of the Reef

Disorientation and danger The earliest European navigators traversed the Great Barrier Reef with a limited knowledge of its geographic location, and with the express purpose of creating and enhancing that knowledge. Furthermore, these navigators had an explicit mandate to create charts and portraits of landmasses. As specialist surveyors their constructions of the Reef were based firmly within a Cartesian model of marking space and had a strong influence on the way in which successive visitors perceived it. Captain James Cook is the most revered and foremost acknowledged of the European navigators. He is credited with the “discovery” of the Australian continent even though it was encountered by the Spanish and Dutch centuries before and had been home to Aboriginal Australians since time immemorial. The voyage of Endeavour along the eastern coast of Australia in 1770 is thus the principal event in Australia’s colonial history (Bowen and Bowen 2002; McCalman 2013). It was on this voyage that Europeans first encountered the labyrinth of islands, shoals and cays that came to be known as the Great Barrier Reef, and this voyage has had a profound influence on perceptions of the region. Like many encounters with new territories, the voyage of the Endeavour was characterised by danger, fear and excitement. These are important attributes of the exploration narrative and serve to enhance the status of Captain James Cook as a brave and intrepid navigator. Within the Australian context it was the Great Barrier Reef that posed the greatest navigational challenge to Captain Cook and his crew. This is invoked in the telling and retelling of the Australian conquest. One of the most commonly cited references to the Reef from this voyage is one that is similarly recorded by both Cook and accompanying botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, who wrote that: A Reef such a one as I now speak of is a thing scarcely known in Europe or indeed any where but in these seas: it is a wall of Coral rock rising almost perpendicularly out of the unfathomable ocean, always

18   Visitor experiences bare at low water; the large waves of the vast ocean meeting with so sudden a resistance make here a most terrible surf Breaking mountain high, especialy [sic] when as in our case the general trade wind blows directly upon it. (Banks 1770, 14 August) However, this focus on the dangers of the Outer Reef, or the Grand Reef as Sir Joseph Banks called it, did not exist in isolation. The formidable nature of the Grand Reef emerged through a number of hazardous encounters along the coral encrusted coastline. Initially Banks’ journal gives the impression of a labyrinth stretching itself out before them, day after day; forcing them to repeatedly backtrack. He recorded that when “there was no passage ahead of the Ship we were obligd [sic] to return” (Banks 1770). Hence the relatively sheltered waters of the Inner Reef were not perceived as a dramatic danger, but a hindrance to the journey that slowed the voyage and created mounting frustration and sense of confusion. The maze-­like progress of the navigational voyage was due to the numerous uncharted shallows and corals strewn throughout the waters. On the 10th of June 1770, the Endeavour collided with a reef north of present-­day Cairns. It is this and the subsequent events that give this particular voyage its dramatic and fearsome reputation, and that has since come to characterise navigation of the Reef. “[W]e were little less than certain that we were upon sunken coral rocks, the most dreadfull [sic] of all others on account of their sharp points and grinding quality which cut through a ships bottom almost immediately” (Banks 1770, 10 June). The damage to the ship was such that it was in danger of immediately sinking. The fear of drowning was paramount, but the crew also feared surviving in such an unknown place: [P]robably the most of us, must be drownd [sic] a better fate maybe than those would have who should get ashore without arms to defend themselves from the Indians or provide themselves with food, on a countrey [sic] where we had not the least reason to hope for subsistence. (Banks 1770, 11 June) It is a point of great celebration that Captain Cook survived this particular ordeal. He managed to sail the damaged Endeavour to a sheltered river mouth on the Australian mainland where the party repaired the ship through the last weeks of June and most of July. This location is eponymously known as the Endeavour River, near to present day Cooktown (Figure 2.1). This dangerous encounter with the coral of the tranquil lagoon made it a priority of the Endeavour party to extricate themselves from the lagoon as quickly as possible. While repairs were being made to the ship, other members of the party made exploratory trips to try and find

Figure 2.1 Map of the Great Barrier Reef showing key locations mentioned in the text and the boundaries of the World Heritage Area.

20   Visitor experiences a way through the reefs. When this proved unsuccessful, Joseph Banks recorded their situation as “indeed melancholy” (Banks 1770, 1 July). The party had still not found a suitable passage by the time the ship was repaired, and they became increasingly anxious that they might never escape. We were ready to sail with the first fair wind but where to go? – to windward was impossible, to leward [sic] was a Labyrinth of Shoals, so that how soon we might have the ship to repair again or lose her quite no one could tell. (Banks 1770, 20 July) They sailed cautiously among the reefs for a few more days. On the 10th of August the party thought they had left the Reef when they found themselves among steep landmasses. But when they climbed the hills of Cape Flattery they discovered that they were still within the lagoon and what they had taken for land was a number of high continental islands. Significantly, however, the height of the islands allowed them to see further afield. The following day Cook and Banks climbed what is now known as Lizard Island “in order to see whether the grand reef had realy [sic] left us or not” (Banks 1770). The island itself was high; we ascended the hill and when we were at the top saw plainly the Grand Reef still extending itself Paralel [sic] with the shore at about the distance of 3 leagues from us; through it were several channels exactly similar to those we had seen in the Islands. Through one of these we determind [sic] to [go] which seemd [sic] most easy. (Banks 1770, 11 August) The Endeavour set out for this passage and on the 13th of August passed through the Outer Reef and into the open ocean. For the first time these three months we were this day out of sight of Land to our no small satisfaction: that very Ocean which had formerly been look’d upon with terror by (maybe) all of us was now the Assylum [sic] we had long wishd [sic] for and at last found. (Banks 1770, 14 August) This pleasure was short-­lived, as the frustration and fears of the lagoon were trumped by the force of seas that threatened to dash the Endeavour onto the coral wall of the Grand Reef. Sir Joseph Banks recorded that “a speedy death was all we had to hope for”. Although they had spent so long trying to escape the labyrinth, the Endeavour was forced to make a seemingly miraculous return to the lagoon through a small passage in the

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   21 treacherous coral wall (Banks 1896, 16 August 1770). They eventually made their way to the northern end of the Reef and through the Torres Straits. However, it is the danger of wrecking and entrapment that distinguished this journey and which continued to characterise subsequent accounts of Great Barrier Reef navigation.

Controlling danger: orientation and mapping The navigational hazards of the Reef are twofold: the invisible confusion of obstacles within the lagoon and the evident threat of the forceful ocean on the Outer Reef. While these two forms of danger are related, they have been incorporated into concepts of the Reef in different ways. The inner Reef is characterised by a proliferation of submerged reefs and coral rocks and shoals that are not readily apparent from the surface. Although lagoons offer relatively calm water, these invisible hazards pose significant dangers to vessels, particularly fragile timber ships. Avoiding the dangers of these complex shoals and reefs was particularly challenging in the absence of any prior or local knowledge. While creating this knowledge was one of the key tasks of colonial navigation, for Captain Cook, trapped in an apparently inextricable maze of corals, it was equally important to acquire an initial knowledge immediately if he was to navigate safely. By taking advantage of the elevated and panoramic views afforded by the continental islands, he was able to orient himself in the surrounding landscape and determine a safe passage through the maze of obstacles. This strategic view of the elevated panorama preceded and informed the measurements used to create the early charts of the Reef. Charts enabled and were critical to subsequent voyages, and each navigational expedition added further detail to the spatial knowledge of the region. Extensive sailing directions, charts and beacons accumulated over several expeditions and by the late nineteenth century the Inner Route was being likened to a highway (Saville-­Kent 1893, p.  94). Maps and permanent markers in the form of lighthouses and beacons created signs that were comprehensible to Cartesian navigation, and through them the physical and unknown space of the Reef was transformed into one that was knowable and readable by others (Figure 2.2). These maps and charts are interpreted from the bird’s-eye perspective that characterises all Western cartography. Like the panoramic view on which it depends, the aerial perspective adopted in drawing maps offers the control of panopticism. Following de Certeau (1984), Ryan (1996, pp.  9–10) argues that colonial explorers depended on strategic panopticism to create a familiar framework through which they could colonise new territories. Similarly, navigators used an elevated view to transform the Reef from a bewildering unknown into a familiar Cartesian geographic space. The elevated view is a particularly important one in construction and understanding of the Reef. It is the bird’s-eye view of maps that made the

Figure 2.2 Map of existing and proposed lighthouses for the Inner Barrier route along the coast of Queensland, 1922. Source: Commonwealth of Australia. Reproduced with permission of the National Archives of Australia (A9568, 3/16/2).

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   23 invisible hazards visible, and significantly, began the process of understanding the numerous smaller reefs as being a larger single entity. This is reminiscent of de Certeau’s observation that while people walking in the city negotiate and create possibilities of pathways and routes, it is only from the strategic height of the skyscraper that it is possible to understand the accumulation of these activities as pathways and routes (de Certeau 1984, pp.  91–110). So, while the panoptic view of Reef charts controls hidden dangers, it necessarily diminishes the complexity of the many reefs, cays and islands that comprise the region. The strategic view thus contrasts with intimate experiences of those who encounter the Reef directly. Many descriptions of the Reef, particularly descriptions by early navigators, emphasise not a single reef, but a complexity of multiple reefs, shoals, islands and cays. And while the panoptic view offered by charts ameliorates dangers, it overlooks the dangers that persist in the everyday navigation of the Reef in which people make intricate negotiations over, through and within it (cf. de Certeau 1984, pp. 91–2). The negotiation is iterative because, despite the proliferation of charts and markers, strategic knowledge is repeatedly made redundant by continuous coral growth. While the hidden dangers of the lagoon are renegotiated, ameliorated and controlled through cartographic conventions, the dangers of the Outer Reef remain constant. This danger presents an extreme physical hazard at the juncture between the wild seas outside the Reef and the tranquillity of the waters within it. With few openings wide and deep enough for a ship, it is particularly difficult to pass from one set of conditions into another without being dashed onto the coral wall. These conditions severely restricted access to the Australian coast and led Matthew Flinders to coin the term “the great Barrier Reefs” which has given the region its enduring name (Flinders, Westall and Brown 1814, 11 October 1802). Significantly, Flinders’ coining of the phrase “great barrier reefs”, captures the plural rather than a single reef, for each navigator was dealing with a series of localities, which although interconnected, had not yet been conceived as a single entity. This relationship to discrete localities in the region is more akin to the way in which local Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders have used and managed the region. A number of distinct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural groups have occupied and managed the region for millennia (for an overview of archaeological evidence of Aboriginal use of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Area see, for example, Rowland, Wright and Baker 2015; Ulm 2011). These overlapping and complementary Indigenous connections do not present the Reef as a single entity, but rather as a series of discrete cultural domains. This more particular knowledge of specific locations can be read in descriptions of the life-­ threatening dangers that were greatly feared and apparent to all on board. In 1820, Lieutenant Richard Bastard, aboard a female transport ship, noted that: “[p]assing the Barrier Reef is considered the most dangerous part of the navigation of Torres Straits” (Bastard 1820, 11 May).

24   Visitor experiences

Science, tourism and navigation Early voyages were focused on finding new territories and recording them for future exploitation. As such they offered natural scientists a unique opportunity for discovery. Sir Joseph Banks had accompanied the Endeavour voyage in order to pursue his interests in botany. During the weeks the ship was under repair he was able to make extensive botanical collections of novel Australian flora. Banks used his wealth and influence to ensure subsequent voyages furthered this project, and botanist Robert Brown was appointed to accompany Matthew Flinders aboard the Investigator, becoming one of the earliest collectors of marine specimens. Thus began a tradition of scientific investigation on the Reef, and by the end of nineteenth century, a number of scientific expeditions were established independently of navigational voyages. William Saville-­Kent, who had first studied the Great Barrier Reef through collections of the British Museum, undertook a first-­hand investigation of marine life during his appointment as Queensland Commissioner of Fisheries from 1889 to 1891. He produced one of the earliest publications about the Reef, titled, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia: its products and potentialities. The book was highly acclaimed as a result of the “single dramatic core and unique illustrations” (Figure 2.3) that was revolutionary in “introducing the general public to the incredible beauty and variety of Reef life” (Bowen and Bowen 2002, p. 159). As the title suggests, his scientific interests and observations were made with a view to how the marine resources might be exploited for commercial gain and the contextual descriptions of Reef navigation: The linear chain of reefs that form the outer edge of the Barrier, together with the innumerable secondary reefs that are congregated closely within its boundaries, constitute a natural breakwater against the ever-­reverberating surges of the Pacific Ocean, and thus convert the “Inner Route” into a relatively shallow and tranquil inland sea, which the largest ocean steamers traverse, for the greater part of the year, with open ports and on an even keel. (Saville-­Kent 1893, p. 3) With a responsibility for exploring the economic potential of the Reef, Saville-­Kent was inclined to suggest that many of the navigational dangers had been overcome, and hence he described the Inner Route as a highway (Saville-­Kent 1893, p. 94). Nevertheless, the narration of danger is persistent and he reiterates it in telling readers of the recent grounding of a ship and reminding them of the 120 people drowned when the Quetta sank at the Torres Strait entrance in 1890 (Saville-­Kent 1893, pp.  46–8). So although Saville-­Kent emphasises the safety of navigating the Reef, which was important for trade and resource exploitation, the narrative of danger is perpetuated through him as recipient and transmitter of such narratives.

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   25

Figure 2.3 William Saville-Kent photograph from The Great Barrier Reef 1889. Source: Private collection.

Saville-­Kent was himself a keen observer of orientation and location, and the accuracy of his descriptions was such that scientific parties were able to revisit exact locations years later. His practice of field observation, rather than collection-­based research, marks a turning point in Reef research. The British Great Barrier Reef Expedition of 1928–1929, under the leadership of Maurice Yonge, conducted field research at Low Isles over a period of some thirteen months. The party of scientists and Aboriginal workers lived and worked on the island (Pocock 2014), making both direct observations of the surrounding reefs and working in the field laboratory. The Low Isles expedition was reported extensively in newspapers and magazines. Journalist Charles Barrett accompanied the expedition and wrote regular pieces about it for the Melbourne Herald (Bowen and Bowen 2002, pp. 249–82), and other publications including National Geographic (Barrett 1930). Together with Maurice Yonge’s book, A Year on the Great Barrier Reef (1930), these accounts of living on Reef islands and collecting marine specimens sparked the interest of the broader public. Field research stations became established as the standard model for conducting research on the Great Barrier Reef, and offered the opportunity for professional and amateur scientists, including holidaymakers, to visit the Reef in the early twentieth century. The new phenomenon of holiday expeditions was closely associated with, and modelled on, scientific expeditions. These included regular Scientific and Holiday Expeditions organised by Mont Embury, a schoolteacher from New

26   Visitor experiences South Wales. In the 1920s and 1930s, Embury planned for paying holidaymakers to accompany and participate in Australian Museum research expeditions. These became a popular form of holiday, with additional tours being offered from cruise ships travelling the Inner Passage. While there was a growing regularity and familiarity with travelling to the Reef and among the islands, visitors were nevertheless reminded of its treachery in popular accounts and promotional articles about the Reef, as illustrated in this article titled, A navigator’s nightmare: “I wonder where the Captain is?” said the Lady in the Deck-­chair. “And that nice Chief Officer. Why, we’ve hardly seen anything of them since we left Cairns. I shouldn’t think they’d be unsociable, but – well I haven’t seen either of them for two whole days.” A passenger who heard the complaint of the lady in the deckchair, laid down the book he was reading. The title on the back of its green cover was “Northmost Australia” by R. Logan Jack. He took up the book again, opened it to page 86, and handed it to the lady. She read: “What ‘frightfulness’ means in navigation can be fully appreciated by any passenger on a mail steamer who has the run of the chart-­room on the bridge between Cooktown and Cape York”. “The narrow passage between the land and the Barrier Reef, charted, lighted, buoyed and beaconed though it now is, is crowded with reefs ready to punish remorseless any deviation from the right path”. “That this passage is navigated daily in safety and comfort is due to the skill and ceaseless watch of the officers. What must the passage have been when this was an unknown sea and the frail sailing craft depended upon the caprice of the winds!” (Simpson 1933) As this suggests, cruises had become relatively commonplace and at the time of publication tourism was flourishing in the Great Barrier Reef region. Cruises offered ease of access, but the threats remained prominent in the promotion, perception and recording of journeys. The retelling of stories about hazardous waters, wrecks and sunken treasure is the subject of juvenile and adult fiction, scientific and popular non-­fiction, newspaper and magazine articles, and tourist brochures. Through these multiple narratives the navigational dangers of the Reef were transmitted from one generation to the next, reinforcing the importance of cartographic knowledge. There are, of course, navigational hazards associated with the Reef, and even today with advanced technologies, detailed charts and sophisticated warning systems, ships occasionally founder on the coral. However, it is the life-­threatening nature of the Reef that is conveyed in these earlier accounts. They build on the colonial and heroic narrative of Captain Cook and the Endeavour and reinforce the deadly consequences of straying

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   27 outside the known routes, reinforcing orientation as an important experience for those visiting the Reef. There is even the suggestion that it was a particular thrill for visitors to experience this kind of vulnerability. For instance, Hilda Violet Marks who accompanied one of the Embury expeditions recounted: The “Bird” party returned late on the fourth day after exciting experiences. They had been away three days, and met a cyclone soon after leaving Hayman Island. The dinghy was lost, and they could not land on the islands which were their objective, so took shelter and were marooned on one of the other islands for two days. But from all accounts they were a happy party and had a cheery time round the camp fire, making the best of things. (Marks 1933, p. 6) And in another incident a group of holidaymakers were stranded on an island for six days. An anonymous family biographer of Mont Embury suggested that: This incident highlights the risks taken in those days when boats of perhaps less than seaworthy condition were pressed into service to carry the large contingents of visitors to their various destinations. However the thrill of such incidents was a part of the adventure of the occasion which for many was a unique experience and perhaps today’s tourist are missing something as they travel about in air-­conditioned arm-­chair comfort. (“The Embury story” n.d.)

Visitor traditions of orientation While particular navigational routes were established as safe through cartographic conventions, dangers still existed in those parts that were unknown, unmapped or had altered significantly. The extent of the reefs contributed to the impression that the region could never be fully controlled. The dangers of navigating the Reef are retold and remembered, making cartographic knowledge valuable and valued. This is illustrated by the activities of early holidaymakers who used and created maps and drew on other navigational conventions to relocate themselves in the landscapes, building on and mimicking the activities of the first navigators. Yonge’s personal photograph albums from the British Expedition (Yonge 1928) suggest that orientation was a primary activity for the party to establish themselves at Low Isle. Of the 223 images in the albums, twenty-­one contain compass bearings or other similar directional information about the island, its position relative to nearby isles and geographic features, as well as information about the arrangement of the dwellings,

28   Visitor experiences laboratories and the lighthouse. The album further includes a number of aerial views taken from a seaplane. Given the nature and duration of the Yonge expedition it is perhaps not surprising that such a strong sense of spatial location is recorded. However, photographs and records from shorter visits demonstrate a similar interest. For instance, the albums of both Dene Fry (1910), a young man who was part of an early Australian Museum expedition, and Berryman (1933), a tourist who visited the Reef aboard the TSS Katoomba, both include photographs that locate or orient their experiences. This is particularly noticeable at the front of their albums, but throughout the collections there are references to the direction of scenes, islands and landmarks both in relation to each other and to the camera. These directions are both Cartesian and relational in character. By the 1930s the scientific and holiday expeditions to the Great Barrier Reef had become regular affairs. Whether as part of one of the larger Embury expeditions or smaller groups of work colleagues or friends, trips to the Reef were organised in a similar way. Visitors largely travelled from southern cities by rail to one of the Queensland ports such as Mackay, or further north at Cairns, from where they travelled out to the islands by launch. Groups established one or more base camps from which they made excursions to other islands and cays, and to the Outer Reef on the rare occasions that conditions were suitable. Other holidaymakers reached the Reef via cruise ships that traversed the Inner Route of the Barrier Reef making stops at particular islands along the way. In either instance sea travel was an integral part of the Reef experience. Passengers in smaller vessels, in particular, were able to observe their surroundings and orient themselves to the mainland, sea and islands of the region. They observed the routes they travelled, and kept notes, wrote letters, drew maps and took photographs to record their movements (see Box 2.1: Voyage of the Cheerio). Their activities echo those of Captain James Cook and other navigators who found their way through and among the islands, and were an important aspect of holidaying at the Reef. Henry Lamond, the former lessee of the Molle islands in the Whitsundays, wrote in 1948 that it was important to promote the whole Whitsunday passage, not just one island (Lamond 1948, p. 13), suggesting that understanding the region as comprising multiple locations, and the activity of travelling between them were important. Visitor maps of the Barrier Reef are numerous and varied and indicate the importance of being oriented in space. Most tourism brochures show in some detail the various island groups (Figure 2.4) and, in some instances, the specific journeys offered by different operators. This is particularly marked in brochures from the first half of the twentieth century, and while the tradition continues today, maps are increasingly schematic and devoid of detail. Early twentieth-­century Reef books also include detailed maps, often featured in the frontispiece or endpapers. Although early tourists were travelling for the most part within well-­defined and recorded regions of the Reef, they made their own maps or traced details

Figure 2.4 Postcard of Whitsunday Islands c.1938 showing close detail of features and locations. Source: Private collection.

30   Visitor experiences of their journeys on those provided in brochures or other sources. For instance, in a letter to his parents Crosbie Morrison (1925, 14 September) included a map showing the route through the Palm Passage, and Love’s Heron Island holiday album (1953) includes a carefully drawn map of the location of the island in relation to the mainland and rest of the Reef.

In the footsteps of the navigators Early twentieth century holidaymakers recorded their experiences in diaries and journals, and there are several accounts from 1935 describing the “Voyage of the Cheerio” (Box 2.1). These and other visitor journeys include numerous references to landmarks, sailing routes, cardinal points and other directional information. A further significant and notable activity was climbing hills of continental islands. A number of tourist photographs, including those in the albums mentioned previously, depict scenes viewed from the summit or hillsides of the continental islands. One of the highlighted activities of the Cheerio excursion was climbing Mount Oldfield, on Lindeman Island. Lindeman Island was cleared of dense vegetation by herds of feral goats, thought to have been introduced to the Reef islands as food to aid the survival of shipwrecked mariners (Lamond 1948, p. 19) – again instilling the sense of danger in navigating the region. The steep topography and cleared vegetation of Lindeman Island made Mount Oldfield a particularly suitable vantage point from which to view the surrounding Whitsunday islands and seas, and the climb was a well-­ established activity for visitors to the region, promoted by the Australian National Travel Association (1931). It was recorded and photographed by several tourist parties in the late 1920s and 1930s, including one of the Embury expeditions in 1928 (Embury Bros. et al. 1925–45), and an Australian Museum scientific expedition in the 1930s (Whitley 1935). The pleasure of the climb was twofold; in achieving the summit and in viewing the panorama of the Whitsunday Islands below. The latter is a distinct tradition of navigation, and one used by Captain Cook to extricate the Endeavour fleet from the Labyrinth. While the panoramic view is also used in a strategic way by other cultures, it manifests in a particular mode in relation to Cartesian mapping (cf. Ryan 1996). The view from the summit of Mount Oldfield and similar vantage points afforded a scenic view but significantly also oriented visitors in the surrounding islands and seas: At the north end of [Whitehaven] bay is a sound which one might well miss since it is blocked up with Sandbanks and up here we sailed. Keeping careful watch for shallow water. In spite of this we were stranded several times. The View along this sound is magnificent, and in the morning I intend to take a panorama of it. (Morrison 1925, Monday, 27 July 1925)

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   31 The summit of Mount Oldfield allowed holidaymakers in the 1930s to orient themselves in their surroundings. And in emulating the activities of early navigators they linked themselves with their own colonial past (cf. McGrath 1991, pp.  122–3). The consciousness with which early visitors constructed their experiences in relation to the navigators is apparent in the following passage from a published account of the “Voyage of the Cheerio”: [A] full exploration of our surrounding on the following morning, with a hill climb by some to view and photograph from the heights one of Australia’s wonder spots – a prospect of cobalt blue sea, dotted right to the hazy northern horizon with the myriad isles of the Whitsunday Passage. From such a vantage point it was easy to see that the island chain owed its origin to an almost submerged mountain range. On the mainland to the westward was Cape Conway, defining the southern end of … the long passage.… The principle islands to be seen on the landward side were Pine, Long, and the Molle Group, while along the seaward margin were the closely-­packed Whitsundays, strung along in what appeared to be a continuous series of rugged hills and valleys. To-­day great liners regularly steam through the Whitsunday Passage, and it is practically as intact as it was on that day one hundred and sixty-­six years ago when the famous navigator who gave it its name sailed through on his little barque “Endeavour.” Here is the record that Captain James Cook penned in his journal: “Monday, 4th [June, 1770] … a gentle breeze and Clear weather. In the P.M. Steered thro’ the passage which we found from 3 to 6 or 7 miles broad, and 8 or 9 Leagues in length.… Our Depth of Water in running thro’ was between 25 and 20 fathoms; everywhere good Anchorage; indeed, the whole passage is one Continued safe Harbour, besides a number of small Bays and Coves on each side, […] The land, both on the main and Islands, especially on the former, is Tolerably high, and distinguished by Hills and Vallies [sic], which are diversified with Woods and Lawns that looked green and pleasant. On a Sandy beach upon one of the islands we saw 2 people and a Canoe.… At 6 we were nearly the length of the N. end of the Passage.… This passage I have name Whitsundays Passage, as it was discovered on the day the Church commemorates that Festival.…” With these deep impressions the climbers returned to camp to await others less fortunate of the party who had satisfied their interest with a fishing tour off Kennedy Sound. A run across to Linderman [sic] Island was made in the afternoon, and a regular round of inspection commenced. More climbing was indulged in, several being ambitious enough to climb Mt. Oldfield, an imposing peak seven hundred odd feet high. From here there was a duplication of the view previously

32   Visitor experiences described, with some of the closer islands to the north standing out in greater detail. (Pandion and Pandanus 1936)

Disorientation By the late twentieth and early twenty-­first centuries, orientation no longer featured as part of Reef marketing or experience. Analysis of advertising brochures and participant observation at Reef locations suggests that despite the predominance of panoramic, and especially aerial, views in tourism imagery, there is a radical diminishment of geographic knowledge. Observation of tourists in the Whitsundays region in the early twenty-­first century suggests that orientation is no longer a central visitor experience; awareness of and engagement with specific geographic locations is no longer a conscious, widespread or popular tourist activity. In contrast with earlier times, Reef tourism today is characterised by rapid transport. Many travellers reach an adjacent mainland destination by air, and others fly directly to one of the larger island resorts from where they might take a trip to an island or the Outer Reef. Trips to the Outer Reef are usually by means of fast catamaran and the aim is to reach the destination as quickly as possible. Unlike navigation traditions in which travellers were mindful of their movement within the region, tourists now are more likely to focus on a particular destination. The speed of travel – but particularly the perception of travel as an inconvenience to be endured in reaching the desired end point – has significantly diminished tourists’ sense of orientation in contemporary Reef experiences. Time spent travelling by sea was longer and slower in the past, but visitors also paid more attention to the act of navigation and used their time at sea to orient themselves in space and history. In contrast, today’s experiences are disoriented. Large high-­speed vessels transport visitors from mainland to island or reef, with little interpretation about the voyage. On the larger tourist vessels in the Whitsundays, skippers and crew make little effort to inform passengers of their whereabouts. Very occasionally the name of a particular island being passed en route to the final destination may be mentioned, but for the most part only the points of embarkation and disembarkation are named and noted. Directional information is non-­ existent. Although maps of island locations are included in brochures, these stylised images lack detail, and visitors pay little attention to maps or charts commonly displayed on board. On longer journeys, such as day trips to the Outer Reef, passengers are deliberately distracted with audiovisual entertainment. This may include documentaries about Great Barrier Reef marine life or other related information on the outward journey but is more likely to feature light entertainment on the return. The journey to the Outer Reef is therefore packaged as a “boring” necessity that is to be endured through distraction. The sea journey is no longer an integral part

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   33 of a Reef experience but is rather a means to an end. The idea of a dangerous voyage has been completely obliterated. Great Barrier Reef promotional material abounds in panoramic views of reefs, islands and seas. However, experiencing such a view is seldom a first­hand experience. There are a number of accessible bush walks on tourist islands, especially the continental islands of the Whitsundays, which feature summits from which a view of the surrounding area can be obtained. However, these activities are seldom promoted. Ordinary black and white photocopied pages about the walks were available on request at one island resort, but otherwise there was a distinct lack of information about these activities. This is a stark contrast with the proliferation of glossy full-­colour brochures for other island activities widely available at information centres, airports, retail outlets and resorts throughout the region. The walks are primarily self-­guided and information provided is minimal. Needless to say, very few tourists walk these paths. The visitor activities of orientation are greatly overshadowed by the scenic panorama, provided by the proliferation of aerial and satellite images in promotional material. Walking to the summit of islands has been replaced by the easier and more elevated aerial view offered by sightseeing flights, helicopter rides and skydiving. Commercial air travel along the Queensland coast often affords travellers an aerial view of the Reef, but few pay attention on these commercial flights. Rather, it is through more intimate packaged tourist experiences that tourists value aerial views. These include short flights to secluded locations and iconic features such as aquaplane trips for a champagne picnic at Whitehaven Beach or helicopter rides to Heart Reef. In all of these activities it is the destination that is valued rather than sense of spatial relationships between different localities. Reef visitors are disengaged from the act of orienting themselves to the landscape.

Orientation: continuity and change European navigators travelled considerable distances from their homes and were among the earliest visitors to the Reef. In most instances they had very little or no prior knowledge of the locations and environments they encountered. The knowledge they acquired came directly from short-­term or transitory encounters with the environs in which they found themselves. Their encounters were at once embodied and emplaced, and often frightening. The need to orientate themselves was essential for moving from one location to the next and finding their way back again. Human orientation is characterised as knowledge that can be transferred to other people (Tuan 1977), and in the case of European navigators, transfer was particularly important. As part of a program of acquiring land, European exploratory navigators had a responsibility to record their newly acquired knowledge into a form that could be conveyed and read by others. As navigators they employed the particular skill of reimagining their experience from the

34   Visitor experiences peculiar bird’s eye view of cartography (Ingold 2000). They thus transformed bodily orientation from a form of wayfinding into mapmaking – a form of spatial inscription that allowed locational information to be transmitted to others. Mapmaking in a Cartesian tradition depends on the artifice of the strategic elevated view that removes the detail and liveliness of the embodied experience (de Certeau 1984; Ingold 2000). In conforming to this convention, Reef maps drawn by early navigators eradicated the embodied and lived experiences of being in and moving through the environment. Visitors, who are by definition unfamiliar with the places they visit, are more likely to use this form of mapped representations to locate themselves at the Reef and find their way between fixed points (cf. Ingold 2000, p. 237). This is less likely to be an experience of wayfinding. However, Ingold (2000, p.  232) suggests that mapping can also be a form of retelling of journeys and the possible rehearsal of journeys to be made. In the case of the Reef, the charts and maps created by Captain Cook exist together with narratives of danger and skill. This combination of storytelling and charting is re-­enacted through tourists in the first part of the twentieth century. It is in the act of performing navigation – establishing location and creating maps – that orientation continued to be influential in the way the Reef was perceived and experienced. Experiences of orientation are critical to understanding the Reef as place. The human body is itself part of space (Augé 1995, p. 60) and consequently spatial relations of the body are integral to the establishment of place. The primary means of emplacement is through orientation of the body – commencing with bilateral awareness, of left and right, and other relative positions: up and down, in front and behind, top and bottom. Each of these is a specific referent of the conscious human body, and they form an initial sensuous knowledge of place (Casey 1996, pp.  21–2; Rodaway 1994, pp.  31–2). The configuration of spatial elements is complemented by geometric location for which Augé (1995, pp. 56–7) identifies three spatial forms: line, intersection of lines and points of intersections (see also, Ingold 2000). These translate into paths, crossroads and open spaces in everyday language and use, and in contrast with the fixed map, these forms continuously shift as fixed points form part of routes, journeys take people through multiple centres, and centres form and collapse in response to particular events and circumstances. The practice of mapmaking seeks to fix this fluidity and movement, to become a means by which the unknown is familiarised and controlled. Through cartography elements of a landscape are fixed together and this view is further realised in aerial photography and satellite imagery. However, this perspective diminishes the complexity and intricacy of interaction at a more localised scale (de Certeau 1984; Ingold 2000). In the first part of the twentieth century, in an effort to replicate colonising activity, Reef visitors gained a localised and oriented sense of place through slow

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   35 sea voyages, lengthy stays in particular locations and a desire to find their own way through the reefs and islands. In the contemporary context, Reef visitors travel more rapidly and the journey is not a valued part of the experience but only a means by which to reach “the Reef ”. Visitors no longer see the experience of moving between locations – the opening up of transitions in view – as part of a Reef experience. People’s experiences have shifted from spatial knowledge of lines that intersect and join particular points, to experiences of isolated points (cf. Augé 1995). This suggests a shift in which one of the defining aspects of places, orientation, is replaced by disoriented experiences.

References Augé, Marc 1995, Non-­places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, Verso, London and New York. Australian National Travel Association 1931, “AUSTRALIA and the enchanting south sea islands. Travel and General Information (North Amer­ican Issue)”, Travel brochure, National Archives of Australia, A1/15; 1934/8277. Banks, Sir Joseph 1770, Sir Joseph Banks’ papers: The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks 1768–1771, vol. 2002, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. Banks, Sir Joseph 1896, Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bat, K.B., P.R.S. During Captain Cook’s First Voyage in H.M.S. Endeavour in 1768–71 to Terra Del Fuego, Otahite, New Zealand, Australia, The Dutch East Indies, Etc., Macmillan, London. Barrett, Charles 1930, “The Great Barrier Reef and its isles: The wonder and mystery of Australia’s world-­famous geographical feature”, National Geographic Magazine, vol. 58, no. 3, pp. 354–84. Bastard, Richard (Lieut. Richard Bastard R.N.) 1820, “Manuscript 1820: Notes made while passing the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait on board a female transport ship Lord Wellington en route to India, 2–14 May 1820”, National Library of Australia, MS 8141. Berryman, RM 1933, “A trip to the Great Barrier Reef, Xmas, 1933, per TSS Katoomba R.M. Berryman”, Photograph Album, National Library of Australia, PIC Album 272. Bowen, James and Bowen, Margarita 2002, The Great Barrier Reef: History, science, heritage, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Casey, Edward S 1996, “How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time: Phenomenological prolegomena”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of Place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, pp. 13–52. de Certeau, Michel 1984, The practice of everyday life, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Embury Bros. et al. 1925–1945, “Embury scientific and holiday expeditions on the Great Barrier Reef: Pictorial material”, Photographs, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, PXA 642, 1–22, 23–188. “The Embury story”, n.d., Unpublished manuscript, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales PXA 642, 185, Sydney. Flinders, Matthew, Westall, William and Brown, Robert 1814, A voyage to Terra Australis: Undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast

36   Visitor experiences country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty’s ship the Investigator, G and W Nicol, London. Ingold, Tim 2000, “To journey along a way of life”, in T Ingold (ed.), The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, Routledge, London, pp. 219–42. Lamond, Henry George (“U.9.L”) 1948, “An island holiday”, Cummins & Campbells Monthly Magazine, vol. 24, no. 4, April, pp. 19–22. Love, AH 1953, “Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland”, Photograph Album, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Library, Townsville. Marks, Hilda Violette 1933, A Christmas Holiday on the Great Barrier Reef, 1932–1933, Harris & Sons, Sydney. McCalman, Iain 2013, The Reef: A passionate history, Viking, Melbourne, Victoria. McGrath, Ann 1991, “Travels to a distant past: The mythology of the outback”, Australian Cultural History: Travellers, journeys, tourists, no. 10, pp. 113–24. Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925, “Papers”, Photographs, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/1. Pandion and Pandanus 1936, “The cruise of the ‘Cheerio’ ”, Bank Notes, vol. 18, pp. 16–29. Pocock, Celmara 2014, “Aborigines, islanders and hula girls in Great Barrier Reef tourism”, The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 170–92. Rodaway, Paul 1994, Sensuous geographies: Body, sense, and place, Routledge, London and New York. Rowland, Michael J, Wright, Shelley and Baker, Robert 2015, “The timing and use of offshore islands in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Province, Queensland”, Quaternary International, vol. 385, pp. 154–65. Ryan, Simon 1996, The cartographic eye: How explorers saw Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York. Saville-­Kent, William 1893, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia: Its products and potentialities, WH Allen, London. Simpson, Colin 1933, “A navigator’s nightmare: Ship’s vigil – dodging the reefs of the Great Barrier – missing two days”, Sun, Thursday, 16 November. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 6. Tuan, Yi-­Fu 1977, Space and place: The perspective of experience, Edward Arnold, London. Ulm, Sean 2011, “Coastal foragers on southern shores: Marine resource use in Northeast Australia since the Late Pleistocene”, in Bicho, N, Haws, J and Davis, L (eds), Trekking the shore, Springer, New York, pp. 441–61. Whitley, Gilbert 1935, “Lindeman Island, Great Barrier Reef – Photo Album”, Photograph album, Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139/7, Box 6 Item 92. Yonge, Maurice 1928, “Great Barrier Reef Expedition, 1928 Albums”, Photograph Albums, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Library, Volumes 1–4, Townsville. Yonge, Maurice 1930, A year on the Great Barrier Reef: The story of corals and of the greatest of their creations, Putnam, London.

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   37 Box 2a  Come and Get It: The Voyage of the Cheerio1 It was a beautiful sunny day when M.L. Cheerio, with a very happy party of Sydney folk, left Mackay bound for an extensive cruise through the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. A party of twenty-­six adventurous souls, eleven girls and fifteen men solved the problem of a winter holiday in a novel fashion, and went off to find warm sunshiny days, whilst their friends in the south shivered and froze in the cold westerly winds of July. Drawn from various walks of life, of ages ranging from the early twenties to late middle age – their one thing in common being a love of adventure, their main character trait to be a good mixer.… Our new home, the Cheerio, was a roomy boat, with twelve bunks forward; the engine amidships, and a spacious cabin at the rear with the cook’s galley in one corner. Everyone was impressed with the sturdy construction of the craft. As the launch was so tiny, luggage had to be kept to a minimum, and clothes were therefore very simple – these consisted of shorts and shirt – the latter article more often than not dispensed with by the male members of the party – a pair of thick soled shoes or boots, and a sun hat. Meals were partaken of on board the launch, which boasted a cook who was a very real character in himself, and in a tiny space measuring 14ʹ × 10ʹ cooked and served the most delectable meals. In this space also were a refrigerator, a dining table, a couple of cupboards and a small kerosene stove, and everyone marvelled at the adaptability of the cook in the management of his tiny domain. The meal gong was a summons by the cook in a stentorian voice to “Come and Get It,” and needless to say there was a great rush from all sides to obey the call. During the cruise which extended over a fortnight, numerous islands were visited, and hundreds of others were passed, to which alas time alone did not permit a visit.… The usual procedure was to make camp for a night or two on a central island, and then explore the surrounding islands.… The men slept on board in the very comfortable bunks provided, a tent being pitched on the island chosen for camping, for the girls, and many amusing incidents happened in making and breaking of camp, which usually took about an hour, including the transporting of the camp beds from the ship to shore and vice versa. Unfortunately, the tide was on the ebb [at Scawfell Island], necessitating a laborious portage of the tents and stretchers for the camp ashore.… Then all ashore for our first camp-­fire, made from dead pandanus leaves and cocoanut husks. We were a very happy party that evening, and were agreeably surprised by the fine singing of one of our members and the musical ability of our skipper.… Several others did their little bit towards making the impromptu concert a success. The setting was extremely beautiful; the tide came right up to the camp, while a full moon enhanced the tropical effect of the cocoanut palms. The party, somewhat tired after a strenuous day, broke up about mid-­night, but three enthusiasts, fired by hope and a rum toddy, went fishing. We are sorry to say they returned home about 3.45 a.m. without fish and with their ardour and other things very much dampened.

38   Visitor experiences As the weather was particularly good on the second day, we set off early for Bushy Island, a little coral cay east of Scawfell Island. On the way at Tern Island, some of the party went ashore and returned with glowing accounts of fish, coral pools and sea birds, which included osprey, red-­bills, gulls and terns. The remainder stayed on board to fish, and running up to anchor at the edge of the reef were delighted by the under-­water views of the beautiful coral gardens submerged by the high tide. Strange to relate, the first fish caught by a “mug,” although he swears he knew all about it; but we were able to show the returning party a nice catch of Island Schnapper, Coral Cod and Shark. Continuing to Bushy, we went ashore at ebb tide and spent the whole afternoon either on the island or wandering over the extensive reef, while two enterprising members of the party brought home a young green turtle, which was subsequently rendered into an excellent soup. It was with deep regret that we left charming Bushy Island with its beautiful trees, beach and bird life. The close of that afternoon was marvellous. To the south we could see Red Bill Island standing sentinel to acres and acres of reef; to the east, Bushy, just green and yellow; north we saw Tern Island, and west, the sinking sun across a beautiful expanse of water. That night our concert was held on the return trip, and it seemed no time before we were once again moored at Scawfell. The following day was fishermans’ day, but somewhow [sic] or other the fish must have known. One of the trolling enthusiasts – we shrink from calling him anything else – hooked a nice fish, but lost him when his trace parted. He is quite sure that it was at least a 12 ft. shark! Striking camp next morning, we set our course northward. The sea was a little choppy, but the scenery was enchanting, and we ran past Carlisle and Brampton Islands, on through the Sir James Smith Group and reached Shaw Island late in the afternoon. Each base camp had its own particular charm; that at Shaw Island was scenically superb. Situated on a narrow neck of beach at the foot of Mount Shaw on the one side, with a rising hill on the other, it was all that one could wish for. Cocoanut palms, casuarinas and pandanus palms fringed the shore, while to the west we could see Lindeman, Seaforth and Pentecost Islands. Most of the party rambled on “Shaw” next morning, and after an early lunch we went over to Lindeman Island. We were very cordially welcomed by Captain Nicholson, who is the lessee of this island. He gave us the freedom of the whole of Lindeman, which was greatly appreciated. The majority of the party decided to climb Mount Oldfield, but tired themselves out by taking the wrong route, endeavouring to reach the summit by scaling the cliffs immediately behind the beach. Five of us made this arduous climb, which reached a climax when we struggled up the last two or three hundred feet via a goat track. We were rewarded by wonderful panoramic views, and, looking east, we saw our base camp and Shaw Island in perfect silhouette with two other islands in the background. To the north was Pentecost, outstanding and rugged, resembling a lion couchant, and to the west, the mainland; in the distance and south a long expanse of Lindeman Island, with Shaw Island and Seaforth Island further on. The sun was slowly disappearing in the west, and the whole formed a perfect setting.

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   39

Figure 2a.1 Map showing the voyage of the Cheerio route. Pandion and Pandanus 1935. Source: Reproduced with permission of the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.

After dinner we participated in a concert held in the hall on Lindeman Island, but most of the entertaining was left to us, and we congratulate those who sacrificed themselves to make the evening a success. The party broke up early, and we ran home to our Shaw Island camp very tired after a strenuous day. We pitched camp in the dark that night at the southern end of Hook Island, and had an early night, which enabled us to get up with the sun and obtain early morning impressions of the grandeur of Whitsunday Island over 2 miles away, and of the snug little beach on which we had pitched the camp. After lunch that day several of the crowd tramped around the rocks to end the misery of an old billy-­goat which had apparently been badly wounded in combat; also to enable “Jock” to scale a very high hoop pine and obtain a fine sea-­eagle’s egg.

40   Visitor experiences Our camp fire that night was a masterpiece for size and warmth.… The fire, unfortunately however, created too much warmth in the trees overhead for the green ants which abound in the leaves, and they descended in a shower much to everyone’s discomfort. The following day we all went aboard for a trip around the eastern side of Whitsunday Island to Whitehaven beach. We saw many fine vistas on the way, stopping at Border Island for lunch and were agreeably surprised by the pure white “whistling” sand at Whitehaven, which is, I believe, the finest grained sand known. Although we were troubled by showery weather, the sun finally came out and we had a very pleasant run back to our Hook Island Camp in the dusk. Before leaving camp next morning, [a] collecting enthusiast stirred up a snake while searching for “giddy-­giddy” berries. Archie dashed over to investigate and picked the snake up only to get bitten for his pains. He was given the usual treatment and soon recovered. Then off we went north to Hayman Island, where a cordial welcome from Bob and Bert Hallam made us feel very much at home. On looking around the island we were surprised at the extent of the settlement, which caters for very large parties at times. As at Lindeman, we again staged a concert, and enjoyed quite a good night. … On our return, the reefers went on shore to examine the fine Hayman reef. [M]embers of the party preferred exploring the coral reef at close quarters, either roving over it at low tide, or rowing over it when the tide was up.… [I]t is an extremely fascinating experience to row over the coral reef, which looks so marvellous under water. To gaze down through the deep blue, yet somehow crystal clear water, into what appears to be an enchanted flower garden, with blooms of unimaginable colouring and formation, and inhabited by the most weirdly and quaintly shaped marine life, of every rich conceivable and inconceivable hue, criss-­crossed, zigzagged, circled, and spiked, with colours mingled and inter-­mingled in a vision dazzling to the eye, proved a never ending joy, and held on spell-­bound at its beauty, as the ever changing picture of the waterscope was revealed. Yet even in this paradise of beauty the cruelty of nature was manifest, for whilst gazing with almost breath-­taking interest at the wondrous beauty of these pools, quite often sinister shapes would be seen lazily cruising round in search of prey, for sharks of a very large size were seen daily. Even from the shore it was quite a common sight to see large shoals of fish leap into the air as they rushed past the beach closely pursued until their numbers gradually diminished as they were inevitably overtaken. The coral at low tide is at first glance very disappointing, and looks like a mass of dirty brown rock. It is only when walking over it and discovering all sorts of fascinating specimens of live coral, shell fish of beautiful and uncommon variety, etc., that one becomes intensely interested and realises how truly strange and marvellous are the workings of nature. About 4.30 the fishermen set forth to do or die, and I am pleased to relate that they did. Five fine spanish mackerel and a bonito were caught trolling that evening.… We were all sorry to leave Hayman Island next morning, as we had been exceptionally well treated. However, pulling out, we nosed our way into a fairly solid sea, and had our roughest trip to the Molle Island Group. Our object was West Molle or Day Dream Island. On arriving there the launch ran right up to

Orientation, wayfinding and cartography   41 the very steep beach, and the whole party was able to go ashore via a gangway. Day Dream is a very pretty little tourist island and, as the name suggests, should be an excellent spot for anyone who desired a very quiet holiday. Archie’s call, “Come and get it,” was heard early the following morning, and after a hearty breakfast, which included fish fillets from our previous night’s catch, cooked as only the inimitable Archie could, we set forth to Grassy Island. We watered at this island, and as the tide was on the ebb, we had a rather tiresome job, that was not improved by the tropical weather. After lunch we cruised back to Armit Island, and then went fishing and reefing. Our fishermen had no luck whatsoever. All ashore for our last camp fire that night, and we carried on till very late, finishing off with coffee and biscuits at 1 a.m., and so to bed. Breaking camp next morning, we left Armit Island and the good old Cheerio set forth for Bowen past Saddleback Island, and then through the Gloucester passage, finally tying up at Bowen Wharf about 4 p.m. We were a little depressed when we realised that our trip had finished, but this feeling soon wore off, and we all toddled up town to have a bath, etc., at the hotel; then back to the ship for dinner. And so we write “Finis” to the finest holiday anyone could desire; a holiday that was carefree, adventurous, and healthy amidst a fine a crowd of folk as one could ever hope to meet, and although we may each go down our separate paths in life we all will look back on those happy days we spent together and long for the time when we shall again awake to the cry of “come and get it.”

Note 1 This case study presents an example of the way in which visitors wrote about their experiences at the Reef at the beginning of the twentieth century. The voyage was accompanied by staff from the Australian Museum and represents a typical holiday that introduces a number of observations and patterns examined in this book. The material is drawn from surviving eye-­witness accounts of a 1935 expedition to the Reef, including those of Watson (1935), Pandion and Pandanus (1936), Anderson (c.1935) and Pizzy (c.1935). The presented material is primarily drawn from Watson (1935) with additional details from Anderson (c.1935), and the map is reproduced from a version published in a bank staff newsletter (Pandion and Pandanus 1936).

References Anderson, Jean c.1935, “An ideal holiday. The Great Barrier Reef of Australia. By Miss J. Anderson – Sydney Office”, Manuscript, Australian Museum Archive, Papers of F.A. McNeill, AN 90/72, Book 5. Pandion and Pandanus 1936, “The cruise of the ‘Cheerio’ ”, Bank Notes, vol. 18, pp. 16–29. Pizzy, Alec c.1935, “The cruise of the ‘Cheerio’ ”, Unpublished manuscript, Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 5. Watson, Eric D 1935, “The cruise of the ‘Cheerio’ ”, The Australian Banker, 2 October. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 5.

3 Visitors’ sensuous experiences at the Reef

As a complement to cartographic knowledge, and the knowledge acquired through orientation, is an embodied knowledge of place. The strategic understanding of the Great Barrier Reef acquired through cartographic and scenic conventions stands in strong contrast with visitors’ bodily engagements with the region. Nevertheless, such embodied encounters are critical to both understanding the Reef as place and understanding its significance. Social significance, as it applies to heritage assessment, strives to recognise the cultural and local dimensions of “natural” and other grander kinds of heritage places (Byrne, Brayshaw and Ireland 2001; Jones 2017). To some extent, then, local knowledge is the focus of social value assessments and might well be served by understanding the ways in which the lived body and lived experiences contribute to such values and places. Casey argues that places are always located through embodiment and are also cultural because culture is carried within bodies (Casey 1996, pp. 33–4). His observation that the body is “a uniquely valuable vehicle in the establishment of place” is qualified by its distinction as a knowing subject. Rather than being an inert body, the lived body is integrated through “corporeal intentionality” (Casey 1996, p.  21). This knowing subject is like Grace’s (1996) ego cogito, the thinking ego through which people gain knowledge of their own places. Furthermore, this knowledge is synesthetic in that it involves the whole body and the senses inform one another (Casey 1996; Feld 1996, p.  99; Rodaway 1994; Taussig 1993). Hence the knowledge is not acquired passively, but is absorbed and constructed through the thinking, moving, culturally informed and sensate body (Berleant 1997, p. 12; Casey 1996, p. 18; Grace 1996; Ingold 2000, 2011; Taussig 1993). Similarly, Taussig draws on the work of Walter Benjamin and the idea that perception is not only formed by visual information, but in combination with tactile experiences which are “the great underground of knowledges” built from habit (1993, pp.  25–6), themselves founded in an embodied experience (Taussig 1993). Such tactile knowledge builds local knowledge of place; as the term suggests, constructed through a clear relationship between locality and knowledge (Casey 1996, p. 44). This knowledge acquired through the lived body gives

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   43 rise to local knowledge because it is specific to the particular qualities of place and is consistent with the sensuous properties and cultural characteristics of that place. In other words, through the lived body, the knowing subject perceives the particularities of any given place (Casey 1996, p. 44; Ingold 2011). This knowledge is constructed through acquaintance that is itself facilitated by the perception of the body. Thus, the body is not only central to place, but is fundamental to an authentically local knowledge gained through lived experience. This is not an experience that has already passed or that forms the basis of analytical or abstract knowledge, but experience that is of the place in time and space (Casey 1996, p. 18). These sensuous experiences are less strategic and more corporeal than the cartographic view and dependent on the perceptions and responses of the human body. Knowledge built in this way can undermine many colonial assumptions. However, it is important to note that although sensations are a physical response between environmental signals and human sensory organs, their interpretation is cultural. Ingold (2011, p. 314) goes further to suggest that “skills of perception and action … differ from being to being, depending on where they stand in relation to others” and that all people thus perceive the environment in different ways. In other words, the same signals and sensations have different meanings for different people and thus space and place are always constructed as culturally distinct (Rodaway 1994, pp. 145–7). As outlined in the introduction, heritage management regimes have the capacity to recognise various sensory experiences, but significance assessments tend to be limited to visual aesthetics (Pocock 2002). While there is wide-­ranging critique of this preoccupation, it is nevertheless important to recognise that visual experiences dominate many aspects of Western cosmology including perceptions of space and place. Indeed, sight is undoubtedly a critical human capacity in all cultures (Ingold 2011, p.  316). The significance of sight is particularly notable within tourism promotion and tourist experiences (Urry 1990), and visual qualities dominate promotion of the Great Barrier Reef. While it is the panoramic scenic views that are most often assumed to comprise the aesthetic values of the Reef, a fuller understanding of how visitors see, hear, feel and taste the Reef provides a richer way in which to explore how people physically interact with the environment to develop a sense of place. By considering sensuousness, it is possible to include a greater diversity of human experiences than usually considered in heritage assessments. Sensuous experiences comprising sight, smell, touch and sound are highly evocative of place (Carles, Bernáldez and de Lucio 1992; Feld 1996; Pocock 2002; Porteous 1985) and a number of these experiences underpin visitor knowledge of the Great Barrier Reef. These responses are multi-­ sensuous. In other words the senses are intertwined and inform one another in creating a sense of place, and the division of senses into separate bodily experiences is somewhat arbitrary. So, in order to understand

44   Visitor experiences s­ ensuous knowledge of place all of the senses and their interaction with one another should ideally be considered holistically. However, the division of senses into categories is a useful mechanism for the purpose of analysis (Rodaway 1994, pp. 26–30). In this chapter, sight, sound, taste, smell and haptic senses are considered separately to illustrate the multi-­sensuous ways in which visitors interact with the Reef, and how this has changed over time. It is apparent, however, that there is not always a neat division between types of sensuous encounter. In Part II of the book, these senses are drawn together with strategic orientation in a discussion of how the Reef is conceived.

Seeing the Reef Visual experiences are influenced by all other human senses, and this interrelationship is apparent in many descriptions of the Reef. Nevertheless, the significance of sight is acute, and dominant in many societies, and is arguably increasingly important in the digital era. Sight is particularly significant in visitor experiences, and according to Urry (1992, p.  172), it “is the distinctiveness of the visual” that heightens tourists’ awareness of other senses and experiences. For Urry, many aspects of the tourist gaze are panoramic, and as suggested in the previous chapter this is often a strategic view separated from embodied sensuous knowledge. However, vision can also be intimate and embodied, and it is these visual experiences that dominate visitor narratives and are integral to authentic Reef experiences. It is the underwater marine life that contributes to a distinctive Great Barrier Reef experience. There are numerous descriptions of the visual qualities of corals, and by and large these emphasise the colours and forms of marine life. In the earliest encounters, underwater life was observed in coral reef pools exposed by the low tide, or from the side of a dinghy by way of a water telescope – a simple invention of a glass bottomed tin that allowed a clearer view below the surface: Next morning, the morning of our one perfect day, camp was pitched, but the afternoon found us all on the reef; never before in our leader’s wide experience had the pools been calmer – not a ripple marred the beauty of their countless treasures – coral in soft pastel shades, green, pink, brown and mauve; sea weeds and anemonies [sic] of every hue, and any number of fish, painted with iridescent, metallic colours – blue and black, red and black, peacock blue, lemon, black and white; while others, more original may be, preferred fins of blue or green, and stomachers of yellow and red. From under the protection of his rock the green crab aggressively resented our invasion, and the red hermit peered suspiciously out of his borrowed home.

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   45 At the edge of the reef we looked down into deepness, transparently green, surrounded by the softest of corals and sea weeds; and from time to time a bright fish flashed and vanished, to return for the food we scattered. Our collectors had a marvellous time – corals of every type, money cowries, tigers, bailers, whelks, pearl oysters and trocus [sic]; most low tides we saw them across the shallows – shorts and gum boots, buckets and picks – silhouetted against the deep blue ocean. (Wilkinson 1932) I will now tell you as quickly as possible what one sees when one goes on to a reef. As one approaches by boat its dead mass[,] one passes over the live coral that surrounds it, and looking through a water-­telescope – a box or cylinder with a glass bottom that one thrusts below the rippled surface of the sea – one sees what has been described as the forms and colours of a tropic forest. There are blocks and lumps of the more solid corals – porites and astrea – and the tree-­like forms of the madrepores, all coloured and covered by the living organisms, purple, green and blue, pink and brown. Here and there as one gets closer to the solid mass, one can see brilliant fishes – orange with black and white bands, iridescent green and blue, scarlet and black, blue and yellow, and of many other colour schemes, passing between the branches of the coral growth. Then on the bottom are the clams, the smaller species nearly buried in the coral, and the larger ones, sometimes as much as 2 ft. 3 inches across, (Tridacna giagas) lying on the surface. The open serrated edges of their shells show mantles of brilliant and varied colouring – deep purple, brown with yellow lines, with emerald edges or with green points, clouded grey and blue and numerous other combinations. These bright lipped clams one sees possibly better because more closely, as one steps on to the uncovered reef at low tide. (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 1926, p. 19) Colour is a very important part of these descriptions, and not only of the reefs, corals and fishes, but of sunsets, water and sea: The night fell very quickly, leaving an orange glow in the western sky quite equal to any pictures I have seen. (Morrison 1925a, 22 May) You never saw water so blue as that round the Outer Barrier. It is a wonderful intense colour, with no trace of green in it at all, and when you are in the shade [of the] ship’s side, looking down to where the shadow ends and the light strikes again, the effect is exactly the same as the blue colours in Black Opal. (Morrison 1925b, letter from the Whitsundays)

46   Visitor experiences Demoiselles, amongst the most brilliantly coloured fish of the tropics. Most observers of life on coral reefs recall these tiny fishes of vivid blue and orange, like living gems, that flash in and out of the maze of coral branches. (Manilla Newspaper Co. 1932) Mention must also be made of the entrancing beauty and colouring of the sunsets and twilight hours. The wide vision of the sea dotted about with the vari-­shaped islands, all so clearly silhouetted, then gradually becoming bathed in the softest tints of indescribable colourings as the sun finally slipped into the sea, leaving a shimmering silken sea girt world which cast a spell over all. One evening in particular stands out, when there had been promise of a storm, which was dispelled by a rainbow of dazzling brilliance and colouring, which verily seemed to encircle the whole scene. It was unusual sights of this kind that added so piquantly to the trip. (Anderson c.1935) The colours of their experiences seem to be remarkable in every instance, even the less expected as described in relation to the dissection of a turtle at North West Island: A beautiful colour-­scheme of yellows, reds & whites presents itself as the entrails are exposed. (Whitley 1925) The significance of colour in written accounts from the early part of the twentieth century is partly a reflection of the inability to capture these in any other way, as discussed in the next chapter. Only those who visited and viewed the Reef for themselves could experience and recall the colours. Rowing to the reef crest in the dinghy, and stepping out into the warm surge among living coral growths, whetted our appetites for adventure. And as we picked our way towards the beach over the coral on the reef flat, we tried vainly to be in four places at once, so great was the variety of things new to our experience. Quaintly-­formed and gaily-­coloured coral fishes were seen in the deep pools in water of astounding transparency. We saw the beautiful shells of which we had read, including the clams with the flesh of their expanded bodies displaying every conceivable combination of colours. All these, and the indescribable beauty of the live coral satisfied us that we had not listened in vain to our urge. (Fletcher 1935, p. 14) Experiences of the underwater corals and fishes are the highpoint of any Reef excursion, and in the early twentieth century were the reward for

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   47 ­ iscomfort suffered. In contemporary tourism vision remains the most d significant aspect of experiencing the Great Barrier Reef, but visual engagement is much more accessible (see Chapter 6).

Feeling the Reef Seeing the Reef is mediated by touch. Our sense of touch is perhaps the most immediate and bodily of all our senses. Because touch is enhanced and complemented by visual and auditory information (Rodaway 1994, p.  48) it is often overlooked as an important contributor to our sense of place. Many haptic experiences are taken for granted and it is only the extremes like rough/smooth; cold/hot; hard/soft, that tend to be noticed. According to Rodaway, “touch” implies a form of sensuousness limited to extremities of the body, particularly the fingers and hands. He suggests haptic is a more inclusive term for the many senses taken in by our skin, and identifies four kinds of touch: global, reach, extended and imagined (1994, pp.  48–54). He describes these respectively as the general multi-­ sensuous exploration of the environment; the active process of reaching out, analogous to common understanding of “touch”; the extension of touch through the use of tools like walking sticks and reading glasses; and imagined touch based in memory and expectation. Haptic experiences are interactive, and through reciprocity between the body and the environment people develop a sense of place (Rodaway 1994, pp.  44–5, 54). Visitor knowledge of the Great Barrier Reef is based, at least partly, on haptic experiences. These are both passive and active exchanges between visitors and the environment, in which the degree of reciprocity changes. It is also possible to witness a shift from more direct forms of touch (global and reach) to an increased reliance on extended touch. Fossicking But the girls, whose privilege it is to have first close view of the coral and first using the water glasses, are not satisfied, and leap from the dinghies into the shallow water to touch the beauties of the ocean and rescue the coral from its bosom. Pink tinted coral is drawn forth by one, mauve tinted by another; in fact, all colors [sic] are brought to the surface, and staghorn rivals with clusters to win the admiration of the fair women gazing upon it. (Collins 1933) Access to the Great Barrier Reef changed significantly during the twentieth century, with striking impacts on haptic interactions with the reefs, islands and flora and fauna. Walking and fossicking on exposed corals at low tide was a central activity for Reef visitors for much of the twentieth century (Figure 3.1). As they reached out to touch and handle the textures,

48   Visitor experiences

Figure 3.1 Mont and Ted Embury fossicking on an exposed reef at low tide c.1932. Source: Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXA 642, 3a).

movements, weights, forms and densities of different shells, corals and other creatures on the Reef they were exposed to a variety of tactile sensations. Like a flash also disappear as one touches them the pink or green or blue feather heads of the sea worms (Serpula), that take their homes in the coral rock. (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 1926) The cotton bech-­de-mer is very peculiar. It is a long, spongy substance, which, when touched with a stick, lets out long strings of cotton. (Daly 1933) [O]ne could easily fill pages with untechnical ravings about the loveliness of the marvellous burrowing clams, the queer thrill of holding a little cat shark up by his tail, and the collecting mania which seems to descend on everyone paddling among the pools and coral boulders. (Stainton 1933) The intimacy required by this kind of touch also brought danger. In an immediate sense this danger took the form of physical threats from venomous species like stonefish and cone shells. In 1935 a young Reef visitor in his twenties, Charles Garbutt (Auckland Star 1943), died as a consequence of handling a cone shell:

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   49 Cone shells containing the live animal should be handled with care when found along the Australian coast, Mr. F.A. McNeill, marine zoologist at the Australian Museum, warns the public. His warning follows the recent tragic death of one of a party of visitors to Hayman Island, on the Barrier Reef, after being stung by a specimen of conus geographus. Mr McNeill has received a photograph of the actual shell, containing the animal that stung the man. It is shown herewith[.] Eye-­ witnesses said that on picking up the shell, which was covered with a thin skin, the finder held it in his palm and started scraping it with a knife. First white victim A barb-­like spike, about half an inch long, was thrust out by the animal, and penetrated his palm. He took no notice of it for some time, but then complained that his eyesight was failing. He next lapsed into a coma, and exhibited all the symptoms of snake-­bite. Rushed to the mainland, he died soon afterwards. Museum authorities state that this is the first case of a white person having been killed by such means in Australia, although natives of Fiji and other Pacific islands have been affected and avoid handling live specimens carelessly. (The Telegraph 1935, 9 August) Health risks were a real concern to the Belgian scientific expedition that visited the Reef in 1967. Prior to their arrival they requested advice about “whether it would be possible to obtain instructions for the treatment of such particular problems as snake bite, stings by venomous fish (stonefish, etc) and wounds or irritation caused by certain corals, sea wasps and so on”. In response, the Prime Minister’s Department wrote that although there was no specific guide: Injuries that the expedition may possibly suffer would include sunburn, dehydration, cuts from coral, external otitis, stings from hydroids, coral and jellyfish, puncture wounds from fish in general and particularly from Stonefish, Butterfly Cod, Mai-­Mai, Pearl Perch etc. There is also the possibility of injury from sea urchins, seastars, stingrays, cone shells, sea snakes as well as attacks from sharks. In addition, certain fish may be poisonous when eaten in certain seasons of the year. (Prime Minister’s Department 1967, 25th May) These and other dangers comprise a significant part of the way Reef marine life was portrayed in the first part of the twentieth century. This parallels

50   Visitor experiences but is distinct from the dangers of navigation discussed in the previous chapter. Giant clams were regarded as dangerous and deadly for divers and many unknown or mysterious creatures were reputed to pose a menace. But touch is not only linked with danger. Its role in establishing place is profound, and for locals touch is strongly linked with their sense of ownership. Henry Lamond, whose comments on tourists were never very positive (Pocock 2015), expressed his concern about visitors who assumed the right to touch parts of his island: Honeymoon couples are the nusiances [sic]. She wants something. He thinks she should have it. There’s nobody got the right to touch anything on this island only me and my family. There’s nothing for sale here. When the big strong man of the pair pulls out a wad to buy something for the bride – Well, then, the fun starts. Tell me, will you, who the hell are they that they think my soul has a price! It isn’t being done. (Lamond 1934) As recently as 1990, a documentary showed Valerie Taylor, one of Australia’s foremost advocates of underwater conservation, spinning, touching and playing with Reef creatures (Film Australia 1990). The emphasis in these activities and the associated commentary is that these creatures are not harmful. Her activities suggest that anyone might enjoy similar interactions. More recent documentaries are more guarded in the portrayal of interaction. Contemporary conservation concerns have transformed relationships of danger and ownership considerably. It is now perceived that the Reef is in danger from visitor tactile engagement. Although marine scientists continue to touch, play, manipulate, tag and kill marine life, this has become a more exclusive activity – and one that preserves scientific ownership. The protection of corals and shells prohibits fossicking as it was formerly practised by both scientists and enthusiasts. Instead, the Reef is now a conservation zone sanctioned primarily for use by the scientific community. Conservation regimes have diminished and eliminated many interactive activities for Reef visitors. Like fossicking, the activity of turtle-­riding (Figure 3.2), a pursuit that facilitated direct contact between people and Reef creatures, was once popular with both scientists and vacationers (Pocock 2006b, 2006a): “The visitors bathed twice daily in the warm and clear water of the lagoon, while turtle riding was frequently indulged in, and caused much merriment” (Sydney Morning Herald 1925, 20 November). The practice of turtle-­riding is now recognised as inhumane, and Reef turtles are endangered and protected. Turtle watching activities are highly regulated at hatcheries on the adjacent mainland and offshore islands. In highly managed groups, visitors can observe turtles lay their eggs. This is usually once the turtle has already come ashore and is in irreversible

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   51

Figure 3.2 A group of holidaymakers riding turtles on Heron Island c.1938. Source: Reproduced with Permission of the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.

­ osition of laying her eggs and cannot be interrupted by human presence. p A conservation ranger is present to oversee and manage both turtle and tourists and there is no direct contact with the animal, though there are often opportunities to handle the eggs. Bird and fish feeding remain popular activities at island resorts; but the focus has shifted to watching the animals eat rather than direct handling of living creatures. Holidaymakers once emulated scientists in collecting species and classifying them, but conservation has wrought a relatively recent division between holidaymakers and scientists. Whereas these two groups once worked together in cooperation, touch and intimacy with the Reef is now reserved for scientists who extend their sense of ownership through touch. Heat The skin feels the air, its movements, temperature and humidity as it envelops the body. The warmth of the Reef has long been attractive to visitors seeking to escape the cold wet winters of southern Australia, but the tropics are often significantly warmer than anticipated. Many of the early holiday expeditions were scheduled for the Christmas holidays – the northern Wet Season – typically the warmest and most humid time of year at the

52   Visitor experiences Reef. The heat could be stifling especially as visitors had little shelter from the environment, and physical exertion was required for many everyday activities. The wearying nature of the heat is captured in this description from the Low Isles Expedition: [A]s men of flesh and blood they sank slowly into a sort of melting decay under the savage heat of a humid summer. About 9 o’clock in the morning one begins to feel on Low Island as though one’s spine is being slowly boiled away. Sydney people would call it hot. On Low Island they say: “It’s cool yet, but I suppose it’ll get warm afterwards.” Burning sand It does. It continues to warm until, at 10  o’clock, the temperature stands between 90 and 95 degrees. The humidity varies from 78 to 80. The trade winds have passed months ago. Everything is still and quiet, unreal, with the quality of a mirage. Only the heat moves. It bursts up in tangible waves from the sand. If a man wants to walk twenty yards across the beach he has to run the last fifteen. He goes out in sandshoes hoping for some relief. The heat melts through those, and standing about on the torrid ground he feels like a fakir doing the cinder pavement trick and forgetting the magic formula halfway through. The air wraps him round in stifling veils of heat, till he feels as though he is tangled in curtains of heavy velvet. Warm in the water too On shore a bathing costume makes him think he is wearing sealskin in a Turkish bath. He escapes into the water. The sea is like a neutral bath. Sometimes its temperature rises to 82 degrees Fah. Night is notable, because the temperature falls a few degrees. Still the lightest exertion melts the body into perspiration. The day’s work done, one may fill in an hour or two by lying in the lagoon. People do that at 9 o’clock in the evening sometimes. Anyway, one escapes in the darkness the glare of the sun which cuts at the eyes with brazen blades of torturing light. There is never more than just enough fresh water. Often it is very scarce. Of course, one does not find water on coral islands. A launch brings 800 to 1,000 gallons from the mainland, and the whole party settles down to row it ashore, 200 yards across the lagoon and carry it in kerosene tins up a beach sloping 12 feet in 60. What that means in such a climate is easy to imagine. The job occupies two and a half hours once each week. Luxurious 45 deg. [f.] What is happening to the butter and the jellies during all this? Thank heaven for a refrigerator, say the Low Islanders, for it enables them to achieve the luxurious temperaturte [sic] of 45 degrees, and

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   53 make possible many amenities which otherwise the party could not expect. (Sydney Morning Herald 1928, 29 November) It wasn’t only the workers who endured these conditions. Visitors also had to labour to maintain basic living conditions. As coral islands have no natural sources of freshwater, carting drinking water was frequently necessary, and without jetties or similar infrastructure, it required hard physical labour, made even more burdensome by the heat. We watered at this island, and as the tide was on the ebb, we had a rather tiresome job, that was not improved by the tropical weather. (Watson 1935, pp. 12–13) Islands with freshwater were sought out for holiday camps, and the turtle factory on North West Island quickly became a sought-­after destination. Very important to us were the several water tanks which collect the rain water falling on these buildings, for this is the only fresh water obtainable on these coral islands unless one takes a supply from the mainland – a laborious undertaking for a large party making a stay which may be prolonged by bad weather. (Pollock 1926b) Sea water The heat brought discomfort but also significant pleasures. Bathing in the sea was a necessity, but the warm ocean was a novelty and source of enjoyment. Crosbie Morrison recorded in his diary that he “[h]ad a bathe in the dark before tea. The sea was beautifully warm and the bathe very pleasant” (Morrison 1925a). Bathing in the sea was itself a novelty. Modesty in the earliest era of Reef tourism meant that visitors often remained fully clothed even while fossicking and netting fishes (Figure 3.3). Mediated by clothing they nevertheless enjoyed contact with the warm water: “On the reef parties quested around, thrilled at every pace with the bounteous life as soft warm waters laved their limbs” (McNeill 1932). The sensation could be an enticement to get in the water despite being dressed: By this time one of the girls in her excitement has slipped, and all her clothes, shorts, shirt, and even sun hat have been soaked. This is merely an invitation to the others to do like-­wise, and the coral insects, anemones, demoiselles, and other beautiful creatures of the deep are undoubtedly admiring their fierce but charming attackers. (Collins 1933)

54   Visitor experiences

Figure 3.3 Nicholson and Party netting fishes at Masthead Island 1910. Source: Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXE 1252).

Swimming became an activity that visitors particularly sought out, and when Mont Embury first leased Hayman Island in 1932, a swimming enclosure was among the first amenities to be constructed (see Photographic Essay). Being in the water exposed visitors to a range of sensations distinct from the everyday, and this continues to be an appealing aspect of a Reef holiday. Snorkelling and diving on the Reef, in particular, have become commonplace and even people who are usually unwilling or weak swimmers readily take the plunge off one of the vessels or platforms on the Outer Reef (see Chapter 7). However, many visitors find saltwater unpleasant when it dries and it can feel particularly sticky in the tropics. Bathing or rinsing in freshwater was an unusual luxury in early Reef experiences: A sudden tropical downpour yesterday started the drainpipes from the roofs of the tin huts surrounding the turtle factory spouting out torrents of water. It was our first chance of a freshwater bath since our arrival, and nude figures suddenly appeared, soap in hand, beneath the jets to take advantage of the opportunity. But the deluge ceased as suddenly as it had started, and one of the party was left lamenting bitterly

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   55 that he had got all lathered up and had been left with the supply of fresh water cut off before he could rinse himself. (Wigmore 1931) Insects Heat brings with it additional haptic discomfort. Tactile sensitivity is mediated by clothing. More clothing exacerbates the heat, and long sleeves and trousers are quickly discarded in the tropics. More skin is exposed to the environment, which is cooler, but also leaves the skin vulnerable to the predation of insects. In the warm temperatures a proliferation of insects is especially annoying to visitors living outdoors. Mosquitoes and sandflies, in particular, bothered Reef visitors from the earliest times. In 1843, Jukes recorded how a camp had to be moved to avoid the clouds of mosquitoes and sandflies (Jukes 1847, p. 26). They also kept the party from sleep: Compared to these pests, savage men or ferocious beasts are really slight evils, since they may be guarded against or overcome, while these plagues render life miserable, and paralyze all one’s energies by continual irritation and long want of sleep, without either the dignity or excitement of danger. (Jukes 1847, p. 41) It is telling that the danger and excitement associated with Reef navigation is preferable to the suffering imposed by mosquitoes. It emphasises the way in which the dangers of Reef navigation are valued. And this is reiterated more than eighty years later by Maurice Yonge, who uses the exact same phrase in writing about the suffering caused by insects “without dignity or excitement of danger” (Yonge 1930, pp. 36–7). Insects pestered camping holidaymakers relentlessly, and on the first Embury expedition to Hayman Island in 1933 sandflies were the most annoying of all: “A suddent [sic] descent during a breathless day by sandflies and mosquitoes left a trail of woe and drove many from shorts into long trousers” (Wigmore 1933). Mosquitoes were not very bad and I did not have occasion to use my mosquito net, but a plague of March flies, which lasted about a week, worried us very much, as also did the sand flies, the worst pest of all. (Marks 1933, p. 6) Most of the girls have brought with them some outsizes in sandfly bites which were given as a parting reminder of their stay in the North. They were not troubled with the little winged pests until the day before they left. (Telegraph 1933, 20 January)

56   Visitor experiences The persistence of insects was such that when they were absent it was worthy of comment. A newspaper account of a trip to Masthead Island reported that: “The climate they found salubrious, and they were absolutely undisturbed by mosquitoes or other insects, or by reptiles” (Brisbane Courier 1904, 4 November). Annoyances from insects weren’t limited to mosquitoes and sandflies. During the “Voyage of the Cheerio” “a wasp took a violent dislike to one of the young men and provided us with some amusement at his expense” (Pizzy c.1935), and other party members were stung when a nest of green ants was disturbed by a campfire. Other ants caused different problems for the scientific research at Low Island in 1928: Nobody is ever lost on Low Island. It has an area of only three acres, has about nine palms, six or seven other trees, and some low scrub, and one may walk around it briskly in two and a half minutes. Fortunately it has no mosquitoes – because it has no water – and very few flies. But its little red ants often make nuisances of themselves. For example, when somebody did at last manage to develop some photographic plates, an operation the heat makes almost impossible, and put them up to dry, the ants came and chewed off the emulsion. Twenty scientists are living on that island for a year. It is not a rest cure by any means. But there are such a lot of delightful things to be collected in the place that they put up with the inconvenience. (Sydney Morning Herald 1928, 29 November) This last observation is common among Reef visitors who often observed that discomfort and danger were the price of pleasure. The physical costs and discomforts complemented, and therefore heightened, the pleasures of being at the Reef. Despite this, the physical discomfort of camping on tropical islands was a more extreme and noticeable haptic experience, and so these negative descriptions were not uncommon. Addressing these discomforts became an increasing priority as Reef tourism was formally promoted through government agencies like the Australian National Travel Association (ANTA). Charles Holmes, long-­term director of ANTA, initially suggested: “No one advocates palatial hotels. Camping accommodation, with good meals, would be attractive, but larger boats for transport, cruising, and fishing, are imperative” (The Telegraph 1936, 13 August). Despite these early comments, the discomfort of heat, humidity, insect bites and stings drove greater persistent changes, and eventually palatial hotels were indeed built on some of the islands. Almost every resort and large tour has taken full advantage of air-­conditioning so that it is possible to visit the region at any time of year without being unduly bothered by the environment. While air-­conditioning cushions visitors from many negative sensations, it also reduces many characteristic sensations – tactile, auditory and olfactory – of being in tropical air.

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   57 ­ ourists are similarly able to avoid tropical seas. Swimming in the ocean T has become optional as almost all resorts have swimming pools. These are an attractive option during the Wet Season, from November to May, when life-­threatening Irukandji jellyfish (Carukia barnesi) and deadly box-­ jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri) are present in Reef waters (CRC Reef 2002; Seymour 2002b, 2002a). However, even in the winter or Dry Season many more guests use resort pool facilities than the beach or ocean. At Hamilton Island Resort, for instance, six resort pools stretch along the immediate beachfront. Far from being the novelty of the Royal Hayman pool when it opened in 1950, swimming pools have become ubiquitous. Tourists no longer use the ocean for washing or swimming, and even after snorkelling or diving on the Outer Reef it is possible to take a freshwater shower on board catamarans or pontoons.

Reef sounds Sound is an evocative and central element of human experience, and closely associated with what and how we see and feel (Ingold 2000). Many of the sounds distinctive of holidays at the Reef in the early twentieth century come directly from living and sleeping outside. At night, especially when going to sleep, these sounds were most noticeable, presumably because visitors were themselves quiet and the diminished light oriented all their senses to less-­ visual cues: “We turned in on the first night with the thrilling noise of rain drumming on a canvas tent lulling us to sleep, and I think the beginning of our state of supreme contentment dates from that moment” (Stainton 1933). Naturally, many notable sounds emanated from being at the coast, and those that signified the tropical location were emphasised the most. The lagoon seas are generally calm and there are seldom breaking waves. Several Reef campers remarked on the gentler sound of coral fragments swishing on the shore. A diary entry by Crosbie Morrison recollects the sound of the swell and backwash, crabs in the sand and the cry of sea birds at night (Morrison 1925a, 25 August). The sounds were sufficiently memorable to be relayed in a letter to his parents three days later: [A]nd so to Green Island, where we put in the night sleeping on the Sand [sic] with the moon and stars above, the long waves swishing on the shore, and behind, a thick grove of palm trees silhouetted against the sky. It was queer to hear immediately beneath your pillow the sound of crabs burrowing in the sand. (Morrison 1925b, 28 August) Sighing She-­Oaks One of the most distinctive and prominent sounds identified in historic sources, is the sighing of she-­oaks, or casuarinas (Pocock 2002). Casuarinas

58   Visitor experiences are a colonising tree of coral cays that fringe the beaches of Great Barrier Reef islands. In the wind these trees produce a distinctive sound that gives them their common name, she-­oak. Early Reef visitors recall the sound of casuarinas as deeply impressive and characteristic. EJ Banfield, a celebrated writer who lived on Dunk Island, described them as “ever-­sighing beech oaks” (Banfield 1908, p.  9). Mel Ward, a naturalist who spent many months at the Reef, referred to casuarinas often, describing them as haunted (Ward 1935) and separately of being “[l]ulled by the music of the sea and the sighing trees” on Lindeman Island (Ward 1939). For Ward, the sound of the casuarinas was evocative and integral to being at the Reef: The … casuarinas at first appeared drab and even bedraggled in the daylight – their forlorn foliage hanging in shreds but at night they seemed to become imbude [sic] with some mystical spirit at first scarcely definable but as the inevitable nights followed each other, this nameless presence claimed the imagination. (Ward 1939) The presence of casuarinas is apparent in numerous newspaper, promotional and personal photographs in the early part of the twentieth century (see Box 2 Photographic Essay), and noted in written descriptions of island vegetation: “Later, after a hot meal and a good warming before the blazing kitchen fire, we were introduced to our little tents sheltering under a grove of tropical trees – wild magnolias, glossy-­leaved wild plum and drooping casuarinas” (Stainton 1933). But it is the sound of she-­oaks that is most evocative for visitors and long-­time residents of Reef islands. Captain Tom McLean, a tourism operator in the Whitsundays from the mid 1940s to the 1980s, recalled the sound in his memoir some years after he had left: From afar [the Reef islands] are outlines of green apparently suspended above the sea. On closer approach they resolve into wooden humps indented with bays from which shine curving crescents of white sand, often with the touch of a few coconut palms that most people expect on a tropical island. The palms are not an essential part of the enchantment for many a beach is shaded by the pine-­like casuarinas known as she-­oaks in Australia. These have their own magic in the soft sigh the wind makes through them, a sound infinitely more subtle than the rustle of palm fronds. (McLean 1986, p. 2) Birds Sounds become significant through both exposure and awareness. Like many senses, people can become habituated to particular sounds and cease to notice them. Visitors, as outsiders, can be keenly aware and alert to new

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   59 environments and the associated senses because they are distinct from their own habituated everyday experience. Their keenness to observe particular phenomena makes them particularly conscious of observing new sounds. Bird watching was one such activity at the Reef. Although the name suggests it is watching and seeing that is most important, bird song is an integral part of this popular activity (cf. Ingold 2000). Holidaymakers at the beginning of the twentieth century were frequently included in ornithological investigations, as they were in other types of Reef research. Dr William MacGillivray was a key participant on several expeditions, including the Pollock excursion to North West Island in 1926 (Pollock 1926a, 1926b), and the later Embury expeditions that it inspired. An amateur-­turned-expert ornithologist, MacGillivray taught holidaymakers how to count, ring and observe birds. The richness of birdlife had long been established as a key attraction of visiting the Reef. As early as the 1840s the density of birds on the outer islands was depicted in paintings of Edwin Augustus Porcher who accompanied the voyage of the H.M.S. Fly (see, for example, Porcher 1843, 1844). Particular islands became renowned for the concentration of avian life, and Reef trips were organised to take advantage of the phenomenon. A silent Noel Monkman film from one such excursion to Hoskyn, North West and Masthead Islands (Monkman 1931) captures such an extraordinary mass of birds that it is possible to imagine and even feel the overwhelming sound described by Morrison when he visited a similar bird habitat a few years earlier: The first we saw of the cay on the horizon was a dark cloud (of birds) – then, as we got nearer, the sand showed up, and approaching closer and closer we heard their noise – first like the swishing of dry leaves on a windy day; then like the sound of fish frying briskly; and finally, when we got amongst them, it was like a continuous shower of stones falling into a stone crusher with squeaky bearings. Speech was impossible on the island. Every step brought you on top of a speckled egg laid on the sand without the suspicion of a nest or hollow. (Morrison 1925b, 28 August) The density of bird life and the sounds it induced are reported privately and publicly. The birds are a physical presence that impacted many visitor experiences. The following newspaper account vividly portrays the profusion of birds on North West Island during an expedition in 1931: Birds, birds, birds – everywhere. The sky is full of their wheeling battalions; the ground is haunted beneath your feet with black, somnolent shapes; and around your head their anxious cries set up a stupefying din. When night falls, nothing accentuates the strange stillness more than the gentle murmur of the surf, and the eerie cries of the mutton birds in their earthy catacombs, often so uncannily like the wail of a

60   Visitor experiences newly-­born child that one of our doctors imagined for a moment that she was back at a children’s hospital in Sydney. Out to sea The first glimmer of dawn is a signal for the gathering of the mutton birds preparatory to the day’s fishing. The black-­garbed figures come scrambling from their murky dungeons, and the pisonia forest is alive with the rustling of the birds hopping and running through their highways and byways to the assembly grounds – open spaces in the bush upon which they can conveniently converge. The very ground seems to be moving, so thickly is it covered by the jostling, chattering crowd, raising above them a cloud of dust like sheep on a hot day at a saleyard. In the half-­light of dawn, this strange rally of literally millions of inhabitants of an islet less than three miles in circumference creates an eerie sensation among the few human beings who have risen early enough to be the spectators. Now and then there is a flutter and a swirl as some disturbance breaks out; but order is swiftly restored, and the seemingly inexhaustible stream flows on. A swift run and a glide once they are clear of the trees, and the first batch is sailing out to sea. Another and another follow, wave after wave, until by the time the sun has flushed the sky the migration is complete, and the black battalions are soaring and dipping over the seas in a cloud like motes of dust in a beam of sunlight. (Wigmore 1931) The islands are heavily populated by birds, such as North West and Masthead Islands and others in the Capricorn group, were noisy, day and night. Considerable flocks of mutton birds and sea gulls camp on the island during night; the former make a weird sound which resembles at times the cry of a child, and again the howl of a dingo. They are to be found on parts of the beach and inland burrowing into the sand, and can be easily caught, as they do not fly at night, being apparently unable to see in the dark. During the day these birds traverse the ocean for miles, and return in the evening. (The Queenslander 1925, 26 December) The wooing of the petrels was the most remarkable scene. They generally assembled in open patches in the moonlight. The male (naturally enough – among birds) seemed to be the most active during courtship – an extremely noisy ceremony. After singing to the female in various murmuring notes he terminated his song with a frightful cat-­howl. The pandemonium created is beyond the imagination of all who have not heard it. Try to think of a million cats “chorusing” together, and you may get a broad idea of the dreadful din. (Gilbert 1925)

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   61 … the mutton birds, attracted by the light at the camp created so much noise that lectures were disturbed and camp concerts interrupted. (Sydney Morning Herald 1932, 6 July) Away from nesting island “the call of the birds was the alarm clock” for most 1930s campers (Anderson c.1935), and bird song continued to permeate even the more substantially constructed resorts that followed: During recent years the Whitsunday Passage and islands have been glamourised by the erection of the luxurious hotel on Hayman Island, the Hotel Royal Hayman. I recall to mind a delightful sojourn spent there during the “winter” of 1955. Each morning I was awakened by a reveille no human beings could emulate. It came direct from an orchestra of birds. (Lock 1955, p. 13) The variety and curiousness of bird sound attracted visitor attention. As Urry (1990) has argued that the tourist gaze originates in looking at something distinct from the everyday, sound can also mark out difference in locality and inform touristic experiences. Visitors arguably have a keen awareness of Reef sounds, particularly where they contrast with their everyday experiences. The love song of the mutton bird is about as weird a sound as can well be imagined.… (Pollock 1926a) [W]eird call of the curlew, created quite an eerie effect. (Watson 1935) Many birds abound in this paradise, and we saw numerous bee eaters, Caterpillar eaters fantails pigeons, etc. and heard the curious bubbling call of the Swamp phesant [sic]. (Morrison 1925a, 29 August) There were limited means of recording sound in the past, and even now it can be hard to capture the full cacophony of a flock of birds or forest of cicadas on a mobile device. Early visitors largely relied on writing about these experiences, and the large flocks of birds are recorded in paintings, film and photographs. Like casuarinas, birds were a conspicuous and remarkable aspect of being at the Reef. Bird watching continued to be promoted well into the twentieth century and was still featured in tourism brochures for Heron Island in 1950 (Queensland Government Tourist Bureau 1950). While birdwatching is not promoted as a mainstream tourist activity, tourists continue to interact

62   Visitor experiences with birds. This is largely with species that thrive in modified environments, and resorts are favoured by parrot species like lorikeets and cockatoos. At Hamilton Island, sulphur-­crested cockatoos have become a nuisance. They fly onto the towering hotel balconies, and break their way through unlocked hotel rooms and into the bar-­fridges. Bird feeding attracts highly coloured rainbow lorikeets, and at designated times the air is filled with their raucous squawks: The Whitsundays and South Molle Island are … a haven for birdlife. Some of the species you’re very likely to see here include: Osprey, Sea Eagles, Brahminy Kites, Kookaburras, Sulphur-­Crested Cockatoos, Currawongs, Pheasant Coucal, Australian Scrub Turkeys, Bridled Terns, Rainbow Lorikeets and Eastern Curlews. The most noticeable of these are the Rainbow Lorikeets, which are fed every afternoon by the Golf Club and the Eastern Curlews, which are the long-­legged ground dwellers you will see around the resort area, which are responsible for the loud screeching noise, often known as “the cry of the lost sailors”. (South Molle Island 2002) Although a diversity of birds thrives in the surrounding bushland, only a few species feature in visitor experiences. As tourists have become relatively sedentary, they tend to only interact with the species that come into the resort areas. Those who do stray from the confines of the resorts, are rewarded with a distinctive array of bird calls: Eventually an excess of sun drove me to seek the cool of the forest of eucalypts, rare indigenous red coondoo, and scaly ash trees, full of the liquid calls of honey-­eaters and the whistles, sudden squawks, and raucous screeches of squabbling lorikeets. (Baker 1998–2001) When we exited the plane, we immediately noticed all of the common (white-­capped) noddies nesting absolutely everywhere. The whole [Lady Elliot] island was a rookery, and most of the tree-­areas were off­limits to humans.… There were obviously plenty of noddies around making plenty of noise. (micktravels.com 2001) Whistling sand The sound of the white sand at Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsunday Islands is one of the most distinctive and enduring auditory experiences for visitors to the Great Barrier Reef. In 1925, Crosbie Morrison wrote to his

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   63 parents of “Whitehaven Bay, a beach of ‘Whistling Sand’ – white and 11 miles long” (Morrison 1925b, 5 August). And during the “Voyage of the Cheerio” the holidaymakers visited Whitehaven and commented on the texture and sound of the sand in their accounts of the beach: We saw many fine vistas on the way … and were agreeably surprised by the white, whistling sand at Whitehaven. (Pizzy c.1935) At Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island there is sand so fine and white that it feels like the softest powder, and whistles as one walks. This beach is 7 miles long, but the atmosphere is so clear, and still it is impossible to realise distance, and it was hard to believe one could not walk its length in half an hour. (Stainton 1933) The following day we all went aboard for a trip around the eastern side of Whitsunday Island to Whitehaven beach. We saw many fine vistas on the way, stopping at Border Island for lunch and were agreeably surprised by the pure white “whistling” sand at Whitehaven, which is, I believe, the finest grained sand known. (Watson 1935) A number of different types of tours continue to make stops at Whitehaven Beach. While the beach is renowned for its dazzling white sand, none of the tourism brochures publicising Whitehaven mention the sound of the sand. It nevertheless forms part of a tourist experience, and ironically this is sometimes afforded through restrictions imposed on tourists. On a large catamaran tours to Whitehaven, passengers were explicitly told not to walk the length of the beach as there was insufficient time to do so. In contrast, in the past holidaymakers almost always walked the length of the bay. Tourists were also instructed not to walk into the scrub behind the beach – a patch of characteristic island vegetation. And finally passengers were asked to remove their shoes and disembark barefoot so as not to bring sand back on board. Visitors were therefore confined to, and in direct physical contact with, the strip of fine white sand between the ocean and the scrub. This intensified the experience of the sand, and the fine texture of the sand was apparent to every person who stepped onto the beach. On the dry sand, each footstep or movement produces a squeak that one tourist described as “a very satisfying noise” as she stomped deliberately through the soft sand. Other tourists arrived at Whitehaven via seaplane. As these trips are marketed as romantic excursions, the seaplane patrons were overwhelmingly young heterosexual couples, and most likely honeymooners. Each tour was bracketed by the departure of the previous couple and the arrival

64   Visitor experiences of the next. They were brought to shore with a champagne hamper for less than half an hour before returning by air. While catamaran visitors had some ability to wander along the beach, seaplane tourists were severely restricted; anyone who walked even a short distance was immediately shepherded back to the seaplane landing area by company ground staff. Given the brevity of these visits and the controlled space and movement of tourists, there was limited opportunity to experience the location. Rather, the occasion was focused on creating photographs of activities which they had no time for. Tourists gazed dreamily across the bay, the pose held for the briefest moment so that the camera could frame and capture the illusion that they had enjoyed a lazy unhurried day. In the almost frenzied activity of recording these photographic moments, the sensuousness of Whitehaven sand was almost certainly a secondary encounter. The experience of Whitehaven as part of a small-­scale ecotour of the Whitsunday Islands, offered a very different experience. The vessel arrived via the northern end of the bay and travelled the length of the beach before anchoring in the southern corner. The skipper and guide provided the group of fifteen tourists a brief environmental history, including a description of the fine silica sand, its texture and sound. Everyone was encouraged to touch, look and listen. The qualities of the sand are striking and would be readily apparent to all but the most oblivious visitor. Nevertheless, this information was important in shaping people’s experience because only a short time was spent at each location. On the other tours the preoccupation with photographs was on occasion quite bizarre as when, for instance, a seaplane tourist took a close-­up photograph of the white sand – an image that would almost certainly have been blank. This focus on visual amenity is echoed in promotion for the region. In spite of the importance of the sound of the sand in both historic and contemporary visits to Whitehaven, a survey of visitor experiences (Ormsby and Shafer 2000) failed to recognise or address this as part of visitor perceptions. In the survey, sound is only assessed as “noise” and this confirms the view that smell and sound tend to be assessed as polluting or unwanted (Porteous 1985, p. 373; Porteous and Mastin 1985, p. 170). The survey by Ormsby and Shafer (2000) used a quantitative approach without any basis in qualitative understanding of visitor experiences. As a result, an important aspect of visitor knowledge is ignored within the management regime. It is less usual for tourists to camp on Reef islands now and most resort accommodation is air-­conditioned and insulated, shielding visitors from outdoor sounds. Observation at Whitsunday resorts suggests that most visitors stay within the confines of the resort and travel by fast transport. Air-­ conditioning, music and other amenities mask or obliterate sounds of the environment. This “lo-­fi” sound, characterised by a large amount of noise in which few discrete sounds are distinguishable (Rodaway 1994, pp.  88–9; Schafer 1977, 1985), has led to the loss or lessening of auditory tourist experiences distinctive of the Reef environment. This is particularly noticeable in

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   65 relation to the sound of she-­oaks, which while present on many beaches, have all but disappeared from contemporary tourist experiences (Pocock 2002). While casuarinas continue to hold significance for local residents, the louder rustle of palm fronds has obscured the sighing she-­oaks in tourist encounters.

Smelling the Reef Smell is a strongly evocative sense, but often a problematic one. It seems unlikely that the “distinctive fertiliser smell of the true coral cay” (Love 2000, p. 20) would ever be used to promote tourism at the Barrier Reef, and yet this smell is an integral part of being at the Reef. The smell of guano that Love refers to was pervasive on many islands used by visitors in the first part of the twentieth century. Likewise, the particular odour of the ocean and the exposed reefs: “The general brown appearance of the reef, faint odour of things of the sea, and crepitation of moving molluscs, gives it a very special character of its own” (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 1926, p. 19). The islands themselves are also characterised by particular odours. At the beginning of the last century, EJ Banfield, long-­term resident of Dunk Island, wrote of the different smells of the island in its various seasons and moods: Many a time, home-­returning at night when the black contours of the island loomed up in the distance against the pure tropic sky tremulous with myriads of unsullied stars has its tepid fragrance drifted across the water as a salutation and a greeting. It has long been a fancy of mine that the island has a distinctive odour, soft and pliant, rich and vigorous. Other mixtures of forest and jungle may smell as strong, but none has the rare blend which I recognize and gloat over whensoever, after infrequent absences for a day or two, I return to accept of it in grateful sniffs. In such a fervid and encouraging clime distillation is continuous and prodigious. Heat and moisture and a plethora of raw material, leaves, flowers, soft, sappy and fragrant woods, growing grass and moist earth, these are the essential elements for the manufacture of the ethereal and soul-­soothing odours suggestive of tangible flavours. (Banfield 1908, p. 14) Like sound, awareness of smell tends to diminish with habituation (Rodaway 1994, pp.  67–71). Hence odours are most noticeable to outsiders (Porteous 1985) or, as in the case of Banfield, someone who returns to a familiar place after an absence. Smell is therefore particularly conspicuous to visitors in new landscapes, either for the first time or as returning holidaymakers. And for short-­term visitors smells of the islands were an important part of Reef experiences:

66   Visitor experiences The vivid scarlet fruit of the wild plum lay scattered in profusion on the soft, rich loam – soil that would make the eye of a true gardener glisten with joy. We never tired of that long trek from the dining hall each night to our own tents on the far right wing of the little colony; the springy feel of trodden earth, the leafy smell of luxuriant vegetation, the brilliant stars winking through the dense foliage and the enormous shadows of our striding legs cast upwards towards the tree-­ tops by the warm yellow light of the swinging hurricane lamps. (Stainton 1933) In modern resorts, odours from the sea and islands are overpowered or displaced by new commercial products, particularly sunscreen and fried food. The beaches are cleared of debris and it is only in walking away from the resort areas that one encounters any ocean smells. Beaches not far from the clean white sands in front of the resorts, are covered in seaweed, and vegetated with pandanus and casuarinas. A comment by a tourist suggested this is an “unpleasant” smell, but it is essentially a smell originating in the seaweed, tide and vegetation of the location. Perhaps, too, the smell seems pungent because it has largely been eliminated from resort areas and visitors are not habituated to it. The smells of contemporary resorts stem not from the surrounding environment, but from particular human activities and are primarily generated by imported products. In other words, the odours do not originate from the vegetation and other physical elements of the locality. In contrast, the extremely popular historic activity of collecting shells and corals produced distinctive, if unwelcome, smells around the camps and on the return homeward journey. Branches of various corals were taken ashore, boiled and bleached, while to camp were brought shells of many kinds, in varying stages of decomposition, causing at least some variety to the disagreeable odour of the guano from the seabirds. (Pollock 1926b, 23 January) There are wonderful shells out on the reef, which have to be taken alive, when the color [sic] is gorgeous – purple, orange, and yellow. They are called spider shells, and you cannot find them unless some kind person puts you wise where to look. When you have gathered all you want, you boil them for 10 minutes, and then dig the inside out with a button hook or a bit of wire. It is amusing to see little groups of people, each with their own little camp fire boiling their day’s collection of shells, using petrol tins, fruit tins, or jam tins. If you don’t boil and clean your shells, very soon the whole camp knows about it and then uncomplimentary remarks are made about the people who keep “smellers” on the premises. (Carr 1933, 9 January)

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   67 There is much to interest one, and those whose purse or time permitted them only a four days’ holiday were regretful that time passes so quickly. They consoled themselves by carrying from the island enoiled [sic] shells or pieces of coral, causing fellow travellers on the Canberra to wonder what was the cause of the peculiar odor [sic] in the cabin. (Collins 1933, 10 January) In the 1960s workers at island resorts could smell the vessels returning from the Reef before they saw them. The huge collections of coral and shells could be smelt a considerable distance across the sea (Barbara Mair, former housekeeper at South Molle, pers. comm.). This rate of collecting is unsustainable, and shell and coral collecting is now prohibited within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. When people do take shells away as souvenirs, they are purchased cleaned and polished from retail stores. It is not even clear that the shells come from Australia or the Reef itself; the smell of the Reef and its associated life and death are no longer familiar odours for visitors. The smells of decay on the Reef are particularly pungent because of the heat, and largely regarded as negative. As a consequence these odours have been masked or deliberately removed from tourist environments, and the sanitized tourist landscapes no longer contain characteristic odours of the islands.

Tasting the Reef Taste and smell are so inextricably linked in human senses that some suggest they should be considered as part of the same sensory system (cf. Rodaway 1994). This does not necessarily hold true for the way in which people recall and recount experiences of the Reef. Taste is seldom mentioned as something distinctive, and with few exceptions catering for visitors past and present has largely relied on foods brought from elsewhere. For early holidaymakers, food in the larger camps like those of the Embury expeditions was “quite good and well cooked but rather monotonous” (Marks 1933, p.  8). However, for very active “reefers” like those on the “Voyage of the Cheerio”, a healthy appetite rendered all food delicious and desirable as evidenced in the frequent references to Archie the cook. While there was abundant seafood in the surrounding waters, people were slow to appreciate local fish. In the late 1800s Saville-­Kent lamented: [The Great Barrier Reef ’s] waters abound with shoals of fish akin to the European herring, mackerel, anchovy, and pilchard, which run to waste. And yet, with these indigenous supplies swarming at their doors, Queensland and all the neighbouring Australian colonies, import vast stores of tinned, smoked, and salted fish, from the lordly salmon to the lowly sprat, from Europe and America. (Saville-­Kent 1893, p. 311)

68   Visitor experiences However, for those people camping on the Reef islands, without much fresh food, Reef fish was particularly important. Fishing was, and continues to be, a highly prized activity, and any catch was a welcome source of food. A variety of scale fish was caught line fishing, including Spanish mackerel, bonito, coral trout and other large species. Fishing was occasionally shore based, but more typically people fished from boats. And shellfish gathered during reef foraging activities at low tide provided another culinary treat: “Mrs. Cole is an ardent shell collector, both practically and scientifically. On the practical side, the several dishes of oysters which found their way into camp were mainly due to her energy on the reef ” (Gilbert 1926). Until as recently as 1969, visitors were encouraged to eat oysters directly from the reefs (Trans Pacific Enterprises 1970). Photographs of fishers with large and plentiful fish abound in the records. Fishing is a somewhat specialised area of Reef tourism and an area that is deserving of study in its own right. Some old-­fashioned and smaller Reef tours still offer participants the opportunity to fish but generally fishing was not offered on any of the larger tours. Like many other activities, fishing has been replaced by the more passive activity of watching. Watching fish is now the prevalent means of engaging with these species. Turtle Turtles were once a source of both recreational pleasure and food for Reef visitors. Animals trapped for eating were also used for the recreational pursuit of turtle riding (Pocock 2006b, 2006a). Like fish, turtle was another rare fresh food in camps that lacked refrigeration. A newspaper account of an expedition to Masthead Island reported that “[f]or fresh food the expedition had to depend largely upon turtle, which were very plentiful” (The Brisbane Courier 1904, 4 November). More than just a necessity, turtle was also regarded as a unique culinary opportunity: “And there will be real turtle soup, and turtle steaks cut from any turtle that happens to be wandering near the cookhouse” (Sun 1931, 8 December). Turtles were particularly common on North West Isle where Embury first based his expeditions, and as such turtles gained prominence in Reef experiences. Their abundance also saw the establishment of turtle soup canneries on both North West and Heron Islands in the early 1920s. Several expeditions visited North West while the factory was in operation (Figure 3.4). Some visitors were obviously moved by the treatment of the turtles: Mrs. Lowe … is keenly interested in wild life generally … her keen sympathy with dumb creatures was more than once evidenced by her carrying buckets of water to throw over green-­back turtles which had been turned on their backs by turtle-­hunters and left in the broiling sun on the beach. (Gilbert 1926, 5 January)

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   69

Figure 3.4 Holidaymakers behind a pile of bone at the turtle soup factory on North West Island, 1910. Source: Reproduced from Dene Fry Collection with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXE 1252).

The methods of turtle hunting certainly appear cruel by today’s standards and concerns for turtle conservation, but many holidaymakers were more than happy to eat turtle: I tasted some soup straight from the tank & thought it delicious. That morning for breakfast, we had turtle steak. I can best describe it as looking like fried fish and tasting like veal. An enterprising firm would probably find use for many of the by-­ products, such as bones which are at present thrown away, &, in my opinion, the turtles should be allowed to lay their eggs before being turned over for killing. Soup of the evening – beautiful, beautiful soup. (Whitley 1925) Turtle soup was a luxury, but it was also an acquired taste and not everyone enjoyed it. [Turtle soup] has been made for six or seven years in the Capricorn Islands. There is a constant demand for the production, mostly abroad.

70   Visitor experiences A tin of the soup, containing enough for four people, is sold for 1s 6d. The soup is thick, brown and heavy, and needs breaking down. The majority of people have not acquired a palate for turtle soup, possibly because of its heaviness. (Whampoa 1930, p. 21) Consumption of fresh turtle meat and turtle soup was nevertheless a distinctive experience for those who visited these islands. The smell of both turtle and fish must have been pungent on the islands, particularly from the industrial turtle cannery, but these odours are not recorded as significant. Several visits were during the off season when the cannery was closed, but it is also likely that visitors were quite quickly habituated to the smell. While some were pleased to see the demise of the turtle industry, eating turtle remained a valued experience. When Embury moved his expedition base from North West Island to Hayman Island, a newspaper reported how “[m]embers of advance party see whales, enjoyed turtle soup and turtle steaks” (Wigmore 1933). Turtle is now protected within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and there are few non-­Indigenous people who eat it. Rather, anecdotes suggest that eating turtle is now regarded as a form of desecration and it seems inconceivable that tourists would even contemplate it. Tropical flavours The tropical climate of the Great Barrier Reef region is conducive to growing exotic tropical fruits like papaya, pineapple and bananas that are strong signifiers of the tropics. These were particularly valued in the first part of the twentieth century when it was more difficult to transport soft fresh fruit. The romance of these fruits is captured in the following fictitious account of a Reef island: Let’s assume we’ve landed from the launch. After the romance of being on an island has faded a bit, we look for inner sustenance. What do we expect? I’ll tell you. Our minds and stomachs are all lined up for tropical fruits, fish[,] oysters. If we want a change then we’ll alter the precedence of the menu and put it oysters, fish, tropical fruits. What do we get? I don’t know what’s on the bill of fare. But I do know the oysters are there in countless millions, just waiting to tickle palates; I do know fish, of the sweetest variety, swim lazily through the coral on the search for a hook and bait; I do know that pineapples and fruit of that kind ripen while you look at them and beckon with their delicacy. Much has been written about the charm of the papaw. I agree with every superlative. In addition, as this is my day for giving free advice, I’ll tell you something about the hidden virtue of that thing as a pick-­me-up. (Rechner 1948, p. 22)

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   71 Similarly, introduced coconut palms are particularly symbolic of the tropics (Pocock 2005) and drinking coconut milk was an experience sought out by many. Newspaper articles and private photographs and films show people climbing coconut trees (Figure 3.5), picking the fruit and drinking the water, also known as milk or juice (Figure 3.6). A photograph from the Daily Telegraph in 1937 shows three women consuming coconut milk, with the caption: “Plenty of free drinks were available to members of the Australian Museum expedition to the Great Barrier Reef, although it was not so simple as in a Sydney milk bar! The travellers had to adapt themselves to coconut techniques” (Daily Telegraph 1937). While another from Tropics magazine in 1975 is captioned “Sydney Actress Anna Bowden samples fresh coconut – one of many delights to be found on North Queensland beaches” (Tropics 1975, p.  26). Through the late 1960s and early 1970s the Whitsundays Island Festivals featured coconut husking and oyster eating competitions. Despite a proliferation of palms, fresh coconut has become rather rare as coconuts have been removed from trees within tourist areas to minimise debris and potential injuries. By 1970 advertisements show cocktails served in artificial coconut shells (Trans Pacific Enterprises 1970), and by the end of the century cocktails were made with imported canned coconut milk.

Figure 3.5 Climbing coconut palms on Brampton Island. Source: Berryman 1933. Reproduced with permission of the National Library of Australia.

72   Visitor experiences

Figure 3.6 Drinking from a coconut, Green Island 1966. Source: Commonwealth of Australia. Reproduced with permission of the National Archives of Australia (1200, L53221).

Coconuts were occasionally observed for sale at markets in Cairns or other centres along the Queensland coast, but never in the island resorts. The activities of climbing palms, husking coconuts, cracking the nuts and drinking fresh coconut water are all but absent. Tropical fruit continues to be an important signifier, and it is a ubiquitous element of meals served in resorts and on Reef tours. However, these pre-­prepared and packaged foods are largely brought from elsewhere and stored in refrigerators, which reduces the intensity of flavour and aroma.

Merging senses and movement It is apparent in many of the above quotes and descriptions that the dissection of senses into separate categories is artificial and even misleading in

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   73 representing visitors’ sensuous experiences. Birds, for instance, produce a sense of movement, sound and smell; they are visually pleasing in their diversity of colour, size, shape and texture; and display distinctive personalities in interacting with each other, the environment and humans. Movement of air and sea; breezes, wind, waves, ripples and storms, are sensed by the skin, transformed into the sound of trees and shorelines, and carry fragrances to our noses. Kinaesthesia thus reconnects movement, sight, touch, sound, smell and taste to build a sense of place. This is illustrated in the following example of the connection between vision and tactile sensation. In the narration accompanying a 1952 documentary, haptic experiences complement the visual film footage to suggest: “Soft corals are abundant over the whole area of the Great Barrier Reef. They are for the most part ugly and repulsive; their texture being leathery and they’re slimy to the touch” (Cine Service Pty Ltd 1952). In contrast, a later description of soft corals suggests: “While soft corals contribute in only a small way to the formation of the limestone structure of the reef, they play an important role in reef ecology. They are also a beautiful, diverse and colourful element of the reefscape” (CRC Reef 2001). In the latter description, a focus on visual aesthetics alone creates a particular shift in appreciation. Without the experience of touch the aesthetics of the soft corals are reappraised from feeling repulsive to appearing beautiful. Human encounters are always embodied, and Reef tourists continue to be exposed to a range of sensations. However, many of these have been tamed, controlled or even globalised. Whereas tourists were once immersed in the surrounding landscapes, they are now cushioned from this environment by resort infrastructure. Sounds of casuarinas and even palm trees, birds and tides are swamped by music filtered through speakers hidden in trees. The aromas of commercial kitchens have replaced the smell of seaweed, guano, exposed corals and freshly caught fish. Sand and saltwater are mitigated by concrete paths and swimming pools. Even the balmy tropical air, sought out as a refuge from southerly winters, is rejected in favour of the cool, dry air of air-­conditioning. This sensuous knowledge of place is no longer characteristic of the locality, the kind of local knowledge described by Casey, but is instead divorced from a distinctive Great Barrier Reef experience as discussed in Chapter 5. In the absence of these unique encounters, tourists increasingly rely on visual experiences to create a distinction from their everyday. The previous chapter suggested that visitor experiences have become increasingly focused on isolated points, and that tourists are no longer aware of the connections that form lines of intersecting journeys. Beyond this loss of orientation, this chapter suggests that sensuous engagement within particular locations is poorer in comparison with the past. Despite the focus on isolated points, experiences within them are diminished as a result of increased visitor comfort and a growing conservation agenda since the second half of the twentieth century. As illustrated above,

74   Visitor experiences c­ onsideration of visual amenity in isolation allows for particular interpretations and denies other knowledge and senses of place. All senses contribute to a corporeal knowledge of space, from which people draw their knowledge and understanding of particular places, and cannot be considered in isolation if we are to fully comprehend and value a sense of place. These particular descriptions and skills in experience have direct implication for how the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area is conceived and valued as discussed in Part II. The way in which these sensuous encounters are transformed into a cultural and social knowledge of place, through the transmission of histories, narratives and knowledge between individuals and over time, is the subject of the next chapter.

References Anderson, Jean c.1935, “An Ideal Holiday. The Great Barrier Reef of Australia. By Miss J. Anderson – Sydney Office”, Manuscript, Australian Museum Archive, Papers of F.A. McNeill, AN 90/72, Book 5. Auckland Star 1943, “Pacific shellfish which can inflict venomous bites”, Auckland Star, Wed, 27 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72 Book 4. Baker, Christopher 1998–2001, Whitsundays: Gateway to the Barrier Reef, Guidebookwriters.com, viewed 3 December 2002. Banfield, Edmund 1908, The confessions of a beachcomber, Angus & Robertson, Sydney. Berleant, Arnold 1997, Living in the landscape: Toward an aesthetics of environment, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. Brisbane Courier 1904, “Scientific expedition: Masthead Island explored: interesting results”, Brisbane Courier, Friday, 4 November, p.  5. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Byrne, Denis, Brayshaw, Helen and Ireland, Tracy 2001, Social significance: A discussion paper, Research Unit, Cultural Heritage Division, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Sydney. Carles, José, Bernáldez, Fernando and de Lucio, José 1992, “Audio-­visual interactions and soundscape preferences”, Landscape Research, vol.  17, no.  2, pp. 52–6. Carr, WF 1933, “A glorious picnic – the ‘Woy Woy’ excursion – the lighter side”, The Mackay Daily Mercury, Monday, 9 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Casey, Edward S 1996, “How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time: Phenomenological prolegomena”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of Place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, pp. 13–52. Cine Service Pty Ltd 1952, The Great Barrier Reef, Documentary film. Collins, CM 1933, “On Hayman Island – Embury Expedition – beauties of the Barrier Reef ”, The Mackay Daily Mercury, Tuesday, 10 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 1926, “Great Barrier Reef Committee. Proposed expedition to Great Barrier Reef from London”, National Archives of Australia, A8510 (A8510/1), 201/8.

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   75 CRC Reef 2001, Soft corals, CRC Reef, viewed 8 October 2003, www.reef.crc.org. au/aboutreef/coral/softcoral.html. CRC Reef 2002, Irukandji jellyfish, CRC Reef, viewed 17 October 2002, www. reef.crc.org.au/aboutreef/coastal/irukandji.html-­2. Daily Telegraph 1937, “Nature’s milk bar”, Daily Telegraph, Saturday, 7 August. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 6. Daly, Rita 1933, “Fun on the Barrier Reef ”, Sun, 3 December, Sunbeams. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 3. Feld, Stephen 1996, “Waterfalls of song: An acoustemology of place resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of Place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, pp. 91–135. Film Australia 1990, Great National Parks of Australia, Television documentary, P Humfress, Lindfield, N.S.W. Fletcher, HD 1935, “The island of desire”, Bank Notes, vol. 17, pp. 14–15. Gilbert, PA 1925, “Wild life on a coral island”, Sydney Mail, Wednesday, 30 December, pp. 8–9. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Gilbert, PA 1926, “Women naturalists on North-­West Island”, The Australian Woman’s Mirror, 5 January, p. 9. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Grace, Helen 1996, Aesthesia and the economy of the senses, Faculty of Visual and Performing Arts. University of Western Sydney, Nepean., Kingswood, N.S.W. Ingold, Tim 2000, “Stop, look and listen! Vision, hearing and human movement”, in T Ingold (ed.), The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, Routledge, London, pp. 243–87. Ingold, Tim 2011, “Worlds of sense and sensing the world: A response to Sarah Pink and David Howes”, Social Anthropology, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 313–17. Jones, Siân 2017, “Wrestling with the social value of heritage: Problems, dilemmas and opportunities”, Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, vol.  4, no. 1, pp. 21–37. Jukes, J Beete 1847, Narrative of the surveying voyage of the H.M.S. Fly, commanded by Captain F.P. Blackwood, R.N., in Torres Strait, New Guinea, and other islands of the eastern archipelago, during the years 1842–1846: together with an excursion into the interior of the eastern part of Java, T & W Boone, London. Lamond, Henry George (“U.9.L”) 1948, “An island holiday”, Cummins & Campbells Monthly Magazine, vol. 24, no. 4, April, pp. 19–22. Lock, Arnold Charles Cooper 1955, Destination Barrier Reef, Georgian House, Melbourne. Love, Rosaleen 2000, Reefscape: Reflections on the Great Barrier Reef, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, Australia. Manilla Newspaper Co. 1932, “Ninth Embury Scientific Expedition: Whitsunday Passage, Cumberland Islands and Great Barrier Reef ”, Manilla Newspaper Co. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72 Book 2. Marks, Hilda Violette 1933, A Christmas Holiday on the Great Barrier Reef, 1932–1933, Harris & Sons, Sydney. McLean, G Tom 1986, Captain Tom, Boolarong Publications, Mackay. McNeill, FA 1932, “ ‘North West Islet: Island of desire’ ”, Unsourced magazine article, Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72 Book 1, Sydney. micktravels.com 2001, Mick Travels Australia: Great Barrier Reef, viewed 2 December 2002, www.micktravels.com/australia/great_barrier_reef/-lady_elliot.

76   Visitor experiences Monkman, Noel 1931, Birds of the Barrier Reef., Documentary film, Australian Educational Films. Distributed by EffteeFilm Productions. Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925a, “Papers: Diary/Notebook”, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/2. Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925b, “Papers: Great Barrier Reef – Letters home”, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/8. Ormsby, Jayne and Shafer, Scott 2000, Visitor experiences, values and images of Whitehaven Bay: An assessment of perceived conditions, Research Publication No. 62, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville. Pizzy, Alec c.1935, “The cruise of the ‘Cheerio’ ”, Unpublished manuscript, Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 5. Pocock, Celmara 2002, “Sense matters: Aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef ”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 365–81. Pocock, Celmara 2005, “ ‘Blue Lagoons and Coconut Palms’: The creation of a tropical idyll in Australia”, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol.  16, no. 3, pp. 335–49. Pocock, Celmara 2006a, “Tourists riding turtles”, Australian Zoologist, vol.  33, no. 4, pp. 425–35. Pocock, Celmara 2006b, “Turtle riding on the Great Barrier Reef ”, Society and animals, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 129–46. Pocock, Celmara 2015, “Nostalgia and belonging: Henry George Lamond and the Whitsunday Islands”, Queensland Review, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 49–61. Pollock, EF 1926a, “Expedition to the Capricorns: Birds and turtles. No. 1”, The Australasian, 16 January. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Pollock, EF 1926b, “The Naturalist: Expedition to the Capricorns: birds and turtles. No.  2”, The Australasian, 23 January, p.  227. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Porcher, Edwin Augustus 1843, “Australia, Sandbank on the Great Barrier Reefs”, watercolour, National Library of Australia, PIC Drawer 3521. Porcher, Edwin Augustus 1844, “Australia, Raines Islet on the Great Barrier Reef ”, Watercolour, National Library of Australia, PIC R5709 Loc 3521-D. Porteous, J Douglas 1985, “Smellscape”, Progress in Human Geography, vol.  9, no. 3, pp. 356–78. Porteous, J Douglas and Mastin, Jane F 1985, “Soundscape”, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 169–86. Prime Minister’s Department 1967, “Letter from Queensland Premier to the Australian Embassy, Brussels”, Letter in National Archives of Australia, Canberra. Queensland Government Tourist Bureau 1950, Isles of the sun, Queensland, Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, Brisbane, Brochure. Queenslander 1925, “Mast Head Island: Interesting study of bird life”, Queenslander, 26 December, p. 11. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Rechner, Delys 1948, “Palm Island and its people”, Cummins & Campbells Monthly Magazine, vol. 24 and 25, no. 10 and11, August, pp. 22–3; 5. Rodaway, Paul 1994, Sensuous geographies: Body, sense, and place, Routledge, London and New York. Saville-­Kent, William 1893, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia: Its products and potentialities, WH Allen, London. Schafer, RM 1977, The tuning of the world: Toward a theory of soundscape design, Knopf, New York.

Visitors’ sensuous experiences   77 Schafer, RM 1985, “Acoustic space”, in D Seamon and R Mugerauer (eds), Dwelling, place and environment: Towards a phenomenology of person and world, Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, pp. 87–98. Seymour, Jamie 2002a, Jellyfish responsible for causing irukandji syndrome, James Cook University, viewed 17 October 2002, http://cnsfse01.jcu.edu.au/schools/ tropbio/irukandji.pdf. Seymour, Jamie 2002b, Stingers in the north, James Cook University, viewed 17 October 2002, http://cnsfse01.jcu.edu.au/schools/tropbio/cubo.pdf. South Molle Island 2002, Resort information, viewed 3 December 2002, www. southmolleisland.com.au/frame_resort_info.htm. Stainton, D. 1933, “Holiday impressions of a tropic isle”, Bank Notes, June. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 3. Sun 1931, “Tropic Isle – Far from madding crowd – who’ll go?”, Sun, 8 December. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Sydney Morning Herald 1925, “The Capricorns. Coral Reefs. Science Party”, Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, 16 December. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Sydney Morning Herald 1928, “On a coral isle. – not all romance – British scientists’ discomforts”, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Sydney Morning Herald 1932, “Natural history: Life on the coral islands”, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July, Natural History. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Taussig, Michael 1993, Mimesis and alterity: A particular history of the senses, Routledge, New York and London. Telegraph 1933, “Barrier Reef Lecture”, Telegraph, 1 November. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 3. Telegraph 1935, “Death-­sting of live sea-­shell”, Telegraph, Friday, 9 August. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 4. Telegraph 1936, “Poor facilities for seeing Reef ”, Telegraph, 13 August. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 5. Trans Pacific Enterprises 1970, Dunk Island: Barrier Reef paradise, Television advertisement, Trans Pacific Enterprises, Canberra. Distributed by ScreenSound. Tropics 1975, “Sydney Actress Anna Bowden samples fresh coconut – one of many delights to be found on North Queensland beaches”, Tropics, vol.  10, no.  5, p. 26. Urry, John 1990, The tourist gaze: Leisure and travel in contemporary societies, Sage, London. Urry, John 1992, “The tourist gaze ‘revisited’ ”, Amer­ican Behavioral Scientist, vol. 36, pp. 172–86. Ward, Charles Melbourne (Mel) 1935, “The grinding trees”, Sunday Sun and Guardian, 10 February. Australian Museum Archive, AMS230, Box 12 (96). Ward, Charles Melbourne (Mel) 1939, “Papers of Mel (Charles Melbourne) Ward”, Notebook, Australian Museum Archive, AMS 358, Box  3, Notebook 31. Watson, Eric D. 1935, “The cruise of the ‘Cheerio’ ”, The Australian Banker, 2 October. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 5. Whampoa 1930, “The Great Barrier Reef: Mrs. Turtle”, Bank Notes, vol.  12, pp. 34–5.

78   Visitor experiences Whitley, Gilbert 1925, “Nor-­West Islet 1925”, Notebook, Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Wigmore, Lionel G 1931, “Black hordes – island subterranea – call of dawn – Sydney people on the Reef (No. 2) – Nor’West Islet”, The Sun, January 2. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Wigmore, Lionel G 1933, “Call of the coral: Whitsunday Passage explorers – expedition on Hayman Island – civilisation arrives by radio and liner”, Daily Mail, 14 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Wilkinson, D 1932, “Coral islands: A trip to North West Isle, Capricorn Group, May, 1932”, Lux: Magazine of Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School, vol. xxix, no. 2, June, pp. 29–34. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72 Book 1. Yonge, Maurice 1930, A year on the Great Barrier Reef: The story of corals and of the greatest of their creations, Putnam, London.

4 Sharing experience of the Reef with the world

Visitors anticipate and remind themselves of their experiences through reflection and storytelling. It is through the retelling and representation of distant places that a wider audience comes to know places they have never visited. And objects taken from those places become aides-­mémoires through which experiences of distant localities are conveyed to those who remained behind, and through them visitors maintain a form of physical contact with the places they have visited. In this way souvenirs taken from the Reef enable visitors to preserve their associations of being there and communicate some of its sensuous qualities to others. This chapter explores how the range of sensuous knowledge of the Great Barrier Reef is communicated and shared in developing a sense of place. While this is often an imagined encounter, contact with the original plays a significant role. The sharing of the Reef beyond those who have experienced it directly plays a crucial role in World Heritage listing, particularly the idea of universal value and its implied global “ownership”.

Contact and copy Human knowledge is intertwined with spatial characteristics of place and reflects the capacity of place to gather animate and inanimate entities together (Casey 1996, pp. 24–6). These contents of place take the form of experiences, memories, histories, language and thoughts as well as objects or physical elements. They are not arbitrarily amassed in place, but are ordered through human experience in a way that allows the (re)presentation of places to be controlled and understood. The particular ordering of these elements allows people to build associations and their own particular sense of place from the same location. This ordering of contents also makes it possible for people to return to the same place. Such content is an essential part of the place and without it place ceases to exist (Casey 1996, pp. 25–6). An essential element of social reproduction is the way in which stories, memories and thoughts are transmitted within and between generations, and through which particular places may come to be valued as heritage. The way in which elements of a place are collected, ordered and

80   Visitor experiences transmitted therefore plays an important role in people’s construction and understanding of particular places. Significantly, memories, experiences, histories and thoughts are no less real than the fabric of the environment (Byrne, Brayshaw and Ireland 2001, p.  52). This has been recognised through a number of UNESCO programs and declarations culminating in the adoption of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Harrison and Rose 2010; Kirshenblatt-­Gimblett 2004; Ruggles and Silverman 2009; Smith and Akagawa 2009; UNESCO 2003). Previously, conservation emphasised fabric as something observed and objectified, distant and distinct from the self, and failed to recognise the practices, experiences and embodied knowledge that constitute heritage places. However, the shift to intangible heritage may also be problematic. If place is constituted through the interaction between the intangible and tangible, and is inseparable from the physical location in which it exists (cf. Casey 1996, pp.  24–6), then the recognition of intangible heritage as distinct, and separate, from physical content or location threatens to undermine the interconnection of locality and sociality (cf. Kirshenblatt-­Gimblett 2004). Casey suggests that memories are kept in place; that they are not just part of thought but held by the place. This raises questions about how content or knowledge of place can be understood beyond the physical context that gives it meaning – whether that be for people who remember their own encounters, or those who have never been there. In other words, how are ideas and knowledge of a place maintained out of place, and what can be done to effectively represent them? Visits are by definition temporary, often one-­off occurrences, experienced by only a select group of people. Transmission of cultural information relies on effective forms of representation that enables knowledge and association to be shared with others, and thus extend a sense of understanding and association. Taussig’s (1993) exploration of the sensuous suggests that contact is an essential element of effective representation. He argues that the relationship between the original and copies is dependent on a sensuous connection between the perceiver and that which is perceived. He thus argues that copy and contact are different instances of the same sensory experience and that sensory experiences are themselves instances of contact and copy (Taussig 1993, p. 21). In this argument emissions from an object (the original) are received by the body (contact) to reproduce signals (copies) that are understood as equivalent to the original. He suggests that contact underlies the capacity of copies to effectively replicate the original and is more important than likeness. Indeed, Taussig suggests that a lack of likeness in a copy can be compensated through contact, because it is through contact that copies mimic the power of the original. Significantly, this mimicked power is maintained long after the initial physical connection is broken. Hence souvenirs, as copies or parts formed through contact, have the capacity to retain the significance of the

Sharing experience with the world   81 original. Contact between the original and copy, is likewise an essential element in the power of photography. Both Sontag (1973) and Taussig (1993, pp. 200–1) argue that contact is a critical element in the capacity of photographs to act as effective and meaningful copies of the original. Sontag suggests that much of modern experience is gained through photographs and that the acquisition of images has become more important than the experiences themselves. However, she argues that it is not the quality of the image, but the capacity of the viewer, that determines the effectiveness of photographs to evoke memories or affects (Sontag 1973, p.  164), Hence, photographs are an important means of conveying information about places beyond the bounds of being there, but it is the perception of contact that determines their effectiveness. The continuing association between the original and the copy is facilitated through a perception of contact between the subject and the photograph. This chapter explores the variety of techniques used to capture, record, represent and reproduce the Reef; providing a way for people to communicate their experiences of the Reef to others. Reproductions of the Reef are an important means through which the region is understood and valued by a broad range of people including those who have never been there and those whose experiences are limited by technology, tides, inclement weather, or physical capacity. Secondary representations play a particularly pertinent role in how the Reef is understood and appreciated as a World Heritage site – a place of “universal” significance.

The means of capture The ways in which people have recorded the Reef include the acquisition and display of physical fragments taken from the Reef itself, as well as a range of symbolic representations, most notably written descriptions and pictorial interpretations. The means available for sampling, recording, relaying and describing different Reef experiences have evolved alongside a range of technological inventions. Technology directly effects which senses and experiences are portrayed and the extent to which they are represented. What tourists capture is therefore a reflection of both what is important in the marketing and consumption of the Reef (cf. Urry 1990), and what is possible to capture in a secondary form. As outlined in Chapter 3 visual experiences are significant in the perception of the Reef, and this is apparent in the ways that people have sought to create and record their understandings of the region. Verbal and written description The predominant portrayals of the Reef at the beginning of the twentieth century are in the form of words. While many works of art, posters, brochures and photographs and a few segments of film footage date to this

82   Visitor experiences period, reproduction was relatively expensive and uncommon. Writing about the Reef was by far the most available and flexible means of describing the region, and visitors wrote in many forms about their observations, experiences and feelings. In the historic period, journeys to the Reef were longer and people tended to write more. Without telephones, email and other rapid communication tools, letters and diaries were an important means of sharing and reflecting on personal experiences in the early twentieth century, while some newer forms of digital communication such as internet web pages, blogs, email and social media have reinvigorated writing as a means of communicating from and about the Reef. Consequently, written accounts of the Reef are found in private and published form, including diaries, notebooks and letters, books, newspaper, magazine and journal articles, and increasingly on the internet. Descriptions are also contained within formal documents such as government administrative archives and research reports. These necessarily differ in the degree of passion, style and detail they provide, but despite these differences, there are strong consistencies in how the Reef is portrayed. The spoken words of the past are generally inaccessible to contemporary researchers. The many private conversations and stories that contribute to the construction and portrayal of the Reef are especially fleeting. However, archival records include references to public lectures and talks about Reef experiences, suggesting these were relatively common. However, short newspaper articles provide little more detail than the venue, time, speaker and topic for particular events. In a few instances some of the content is summarised in news articles reporting on the lecture itself. Lectures and lantern slide evenings were a central part of Reef holidays in the 1930s. In addition to general publicity and education about the Reef, scientists who participated in excursions gave lectures to holidaymakers on location. This was not always based on prepared materials but was an opportunity for everyone to share in the day’s research. This practice was an important way in which visitor expectations were shaped and their experiences explained within an existing paradigm. Through the presentation of this scientific framework, lectures ensured that the Reef was portrayed and perceived consistently by a range of visitors. This Christmas the ninth venture will be by far the most ambitious Embury Expedition to be set afoot. A new permanent headquarters is being established on Hayman Island, some 16 miles out of Bowen. Vessels which will accompany the expedition will enable visits to be made to some dozens of other islands in the vicinity and a special 17 mile trip to one of the reefs of the Outer Great Barrier Reef is also in the itinerary. Dr Macgillivray will deliver lectures, and its hoped that Messrs. McNeill, zoologist, and Fletcher, assistant palaeontologist, will accompany the expedition and also deliver lectures. (The Education Gazette 1932, 1 November)

Sharing experience with the world   83 Lectures and presentations were also important after the conclusion of the visit. Public lectures were most often delivered by scientists returned from a particular expedition. However, the public lectures often doubled as reunions of “reefers” and provided an opportunity for holidaymakers to exchange and recall their experiences, thus reinforcing and maintaining recollections of their Reef experiences. For instance, there were three such reunions in Sydney during 1933, and at the January meeting: “Members took along their collections of photographs and snapshots, and enjoyed the exchange of reminiscences” (Daily Telegraph 1933, 28 January).  The Reef was also spoken of in radio broadcasts, and a small number of scripts that have survived in family papers provide insight into public representations about the Reef. Similarly, oral descriptions survive as an accompaniment to film footage. While the earliest films, particularly private home movies, were silent, sound was recorded on at least one occasion as early as 1930 (Anonymous 1930). Oral recordings provide more than written words, in that they capture emotion, emphasis and elucidation. One of the most predominant characteristics of these narratives is the focus on scientific interpretation and appreciation. Many of the participants in the Embury Expeditions were schoolteachers, and it might be assumed this knowledge was, in turn, transmitted to children in classrooms across the country. Thus, an understanding of the Reef through marine science was prevalent for visitors and those who could only imagine it. This continues to be true, with many Reef guides today having marine biology qualifications and underwater documentaries shaping many visitor expectations. Collections Holidays and science in the early twentieth century were closely linked experiences of the Reef, with holidaymakers assisting and emulating the activities of scientists. Collecting and fossicking on the exposed reefs involved intimate physical interactions with Reef life and fostered a range of sensuous knowledge. Early visitors, scientists and holidaymakers, collected vast quantities of shells, corals, fish and other organisms. These were pickled, dried, boiled, oiled and otherwise preserved for taking away and provided a connection with the Reef far beyond the time and space of the visit. While many shells and corals made their way into the homes of visitors, others were gathered and collected for more public display. These displays were intended to depict the Reef to potential visitors and to represent the Reef in a way that could be shared. Fantastic crabs, whose colouring varies with the weather; blue starfish, a foot wide; coloured, curiously-­shaped shells; and coral fragments of beautiful colour and shape are among the marine wonders of the Great Barrier Reef included in a collection displayed by the Queensland Tourist Bureau in its show window in Martin Place [Sydney].

84   Visitor experiences Their exotic colouring, suggesting the glamour of the tropics, and their beautiful or bizarre shapes fire the imagination.… (Sydney Morning Herald 1933a, 15 November) While the activities involved in collecting were prominent features of early Reef visits, the collections gained significance in their own right. This is reflected in the enormous number of shells and corals that were gathered and maintained by private individuals. A home movie from 1945 devotes almost as much footage to the ordered collection of shells that are displayed at home as it does to footage of the visit to the Reef (Hall 1945). In this film, scenes of the Reef are interspersed with images of the collected specimens. There are literally thousands of shells shown. They are displayed according to a classificatory system and laid out in patterns: alternating species in concentric circles around a large central shell; others in rows, some in clusters, some arranged in fanning shapes. The care and patterning is deliberate and considered for size, colour and pattern. The footage also shows close ups of particular parts of the display: polished trochus, cowries in multiple rows of colour and size. The film makes the collection seem endless. The collection is obviously as important as collecting and being at the Reef. The same film also shows shells that have been modified into various items of use or decoration. A baler shell is shown as both a footrest and a vase. However, the decorative use of these shells appears to have been secondary to the collections themselves and most shells remained unmodified even if cleaned, enhanced and carefully curated. As parts of the Reef they are a direct form of contact with the original, and as displays they are copies that played an important role in communicating experiences of the Reef to others. The collections were not only for scientific purposes, but were a means of promoting the region as a tourist destination. The data collected from the study of the fauna, flora, and marine life will be used by members of the expedition for the purpose of lectures with the idea of turning the attention of tourists to the wonderful possibilities of a holiday in this region. (Daily Mail 1932, 23 December) While shell collecting is a recognised and widely practiced hobby, it performed particular functions in relation to understanding the Reef. In the early twentieth century there was very limited access to the underwater. In the absence of diving equipment, viewing the underwater relied on a number of innovations like the waterscope, and later underwater viewing chambers. But in the earliest period, fossicking and collecting shells and coral enabled visitors to get a closer view of underwater life that was otherwise impossible. A number of large collections were displayed on Reef islands so that visitors could view varied specimens.

Sharing experience with the world   85 Uncle Tom, a genuine Embury Uncle – Tom Scott originally from Gundagai. He was a Chef by profession, for many years employed in Dining Rooms on Sydney Central Station. He acted as our chief Chef for some years, then later returned to Hayman, establishing himself in one of the huts which he nameplated “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Tom had an extensive collection of Reef Shells which he obtained chiefly from the Island crews of the Japanese fishing luggers which occasionally called at Hayman. (Embury 1981, pp. 1–2) The significance of collecting is that it is an embodied and emplaced, and very direct form of contact. However, some elements of the large public displays of shells are not local to the area or even from the Reef more broadly. A shell collection amassed by George Sax was an enduring display at South Molle Island.1 Comprising both local and exotic shells, it was described in Walkabout Magazine as “one of the finest in Australia”: The shells have come from all over the world, but particularly from the Barrier Reef area. Over a beer in the island bar George mentioned them, and, when I showed interest, he took me off to the old cottage and showed me the wooden trays and boxes, stacked ceiling high, which house his collection temporarily. It took us four hours to look through the collection; and for the most part it was a fairly quick look. … In the eight years of collecting, George Sax has accumulated what he roughly estimates as 20,000 shells of 3,500 species. He did not gather them all himself, but has trawler crews and fishermen all over Australia and the islands looking out for him. He also exchanges shells with collectors and museums in twenty-­five different countries, including India, South Africa, Persia, Canada, U.S.A., Brazil, Hawaii, England, Spain, Mauritius, Mexico and several central Amer­ican countries. Before being mailed overseas, the shells have to be cleaned up and polished. Then they are carefully packed in newspaper inside boxes and sent duty-­free, labelled as museum specimens of no commercial value. After collecting the shells, George gets rid of the animal inside, then uses a caustic soda bath to clear off the limey skin. Hydrochloric acid and water bring out the natural colour and lustre. Some of the shells are gloriously coloured, in bright pinks, oranges, yellows, even tartans. The patterns could give inspiration to many fabric designers in search of a contemporary line. When on display, the shells will be, as many of them are now, scientifically grouped on trays lined with cotton wool or velvet. (Lane 1957, pp. 36–7)

86   Visitor experiences The impact of such extensive collecting by individual collectors and the sheer number of tourists taking their own specimens raised conservation concerns. Beautiful and rare corals and shells are disappearing from the more accessible parts of the Great Barrier Reef owing to looting by visitors. In the interests of science this must be checked, declares Mr. F.A. McNeill, zoologist at the Australian Museum, just returned from the reef with the Embury expedition. (Sun 1932, 31 January) Coral is protected over the whole length of the reefs and if it is desired to collect, it is necessary to obtain a permit. All marine life associated with Heron and Wistari reefs is protected and permits are necessary for collecting.… There is no difficulty in bona fide research workers obtaining permits. … of recent years there has been much collecting, especially of mollusca, from reefs for sale to collectors and some reefs including Low Isles have been virtually swept clean. For this reason, it would be better, if possible, to arrange any collecting to be done from “outer” reefs. We are considering ways and means of trying to control collecting for commercial purposes, but it is a very difficult matter in so large an uninhabited area. (Prime Minister’s Department 1966, 24 May) The impacts of collecting became one of the key issues for activists who advocated for the establishment of a Great Barrier Reef marine park (Wright 1977), and increased restrictions on collecting and fossicking led to what is now effectively a ban under current management regimes. Today, visitors are warned of penalties for removing even fragments of dead coral washed up on the shoreline. While collecting is prohibited, replication of Reef experiences through imagery has increased exponentially. Images Images have always been an important element of representing the Reef. Slides and pictures were used to illustrate public talks, newspaper and magazine articles and advertisements about the Reef, as well as presentations delivered to visitors while they were at the Reef. Mr. Frank McNeill, zoologist of the Australian Museum, College Street, supplied enough information to more than satisfy the most curious concerning marine life, etc., and all through the long journey to Gladstone, Queensland, and the sea trip to the island, jealously

Sharing experience with the world   87 guarded the lantern slides with which he illustrated his evening lectures on the specimens gathered by the party during the day. (Weaver 1932, 12 June) There is an extraordinary array of scientific and commercial depictions of the Reef, ranging from artworks such as the nineteenth-­century watercolour landscapes by Porcher (1843, 1844), iconic travel posters (see, for example, Lambert c.1950; Northfield c.1930b, c.1930a; Sellheim c.1939; Trompf 1933), mid-­century fabric designs by Olive Ashworth (1957, 1977) and late twentieth century abstracts (see, for examples, King 1983a, 1983b, 1984; Mategot c.1968). Tourism imagery is particularly rich and varied, including stylised travel posters and greeting cards, postcards and colour glossy travel brochures. Above all else, the Reef is recorded in photographs, and these images hold particular significance in how visitors experience, capture, recall and share their perceptions. All images are created through the selection and manipulation of particular elements to present a particular idea, and this is the same for photographs of the Reef. Photographs are not simply realistic images of the original or signified but are created by the photographer. Photographs are increasingly malleable in the digital era, and almost anyone can alter an image and reconstruct compositions to include or exclude particular elements. Despite this, photographs are perceived as much more immediate and accurate representations than drawings or other depictions (Sontag 1973, p.  153), and it is inevitably assumed that they represent an external reality. This allows the presentation of “pristine” or “natural” landscapes, or even imaginary conceptions of the environment, to be made real. Scientific exploration of the Reef and the development of photography have strong chronological parallels with the result that the history of the Reef and the development of photography are both well documented. While photographic reproduction increased through greater affordability, availability and sophistication throughout the twentieth century, the Reef has always been well represented in photographic images. These images reflect how people experienced the Reef and how it has been communicated among visitors, scientists, and the public and between generations. The historical significance of photography is attested to by a number of images of photographers in action (Figures 4.1), and in diaries and letters that note when and where photographs were taken during Reef visits. The importance of photography in science (Taussig 1993, p. 25) and the focus of science in interpreting and understanding the Reef, has meant that the region has been documented extensively through this medium. Photography is also important for tourists and during the earliest expeditions visitors went to significant efforts to photograph the islands, reefs, people and activities that were part of their holidays. The Embury expeditions are comprehensively recorded in photographs that are reproduced in many different collections and contexts, including private albums, newspapers and several different magazines, including National Geographic. Arch

88   Visitor experiences

Figure 4.1 The photographer of Figure 3.3 is photographed in action, 1910. Source: Reproduced from Dene Fry Collection with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXE 1252).

Embury, Mont Embury’s photographer brother, recalled many years later that he “went along with [Mont] and did a lot of camera work, mainly for publicity and to please the tourists” (Embury 1981). It was not only professional photographers who took pictures. Amateurs took a keen interest in photographing the Reef, and the significance of photography in Reef holidays is suggested by the care with which albums were compiled. As photography became increasingly sophisticated, it became possible to photograph not only still objects, but to capture moving ones, to film underwater and even to make motion films. The development of colour film provided a means to record visual dimensions that had been previously inaccessible. These developments together with an increasing availability of the technology meant that the Reef was visually captured and portrayed by more and more visitors. Visual reproduction was no longer within the control of only a few individuals, but had become a commonplace activity available to and used by almost everyone by the end of the twentieth century (cf. Sontag 1973, p.  176) and is now a pervasive and almost continuous activity in everyday life. New technologies allow instantaneous sharing of images with distant friends and family through social media, email, mobile phones and the internet. The desire to take

Sharing experience with the world   89 ­ ersonal photographs endures despite the more perfect imagery produced p by professional photographers because it offers that more direct form of contact that underscores the power of the image.

Transmission of experience The capacity of words, objects and images to represent and transmit knowledge varies according to sensuous experience. Visual experiences are most readily reproduced, and this is a reflection of sensuous bias and technology. The focus on sight is particularly noticeable in tourist contexts. Mimetic technologies are equally influenced by a focus on visual reproduction with much invention and creativity oriented to capturing what is visible. This predominance of visual reproduction, in turn, reasserts visual experience as the predominant form of communicating the significance of the Reef. These technologies were not always as capacious or effective in the past, and consequently visitors turned to other forms of capture to record their experiences. However, as visual reproduction has improved and become more affordable and accessible, other means of recording, and the senses they capture, have been side-­lined. In this regard, visual reproductive technologies effectively shape and focus visitor experiences towards the visual and highlight the visual in heritage assessments. The panoramic view Visitors have tried to capture many of their Reef experiences through photography. Most striking in early photographs is the predominance of panoramas and other scenic images of the islands and seas (Figure 4.2). In the absence of underwater cameras, photography was restricted to island, land and seascapes. The activity of viewing the reefs from raised vantage points was an important experience as outlined in Chapter 2, and visitors frequently recorded these vistas in photographs. Views of islands and panoramas are still important, particularly in promotional materials and postcards, but to some extent they have been surpassed by satellite imagery and aerial photography that produce particularly striking birds’ eye views of the Coral Sea. In contrast with earlier panoramas, however, these aerial scenes are dissociated from personal tourist experiences. These are no longer personal creations, but images produced by unknown photographers or even photographer-­less cameras. The panorama is thus experienced in the same way regardless of whether the viewer has visited or not (Pocock 2009). The underwater world The underwater life of the Reef has not always been readily accessible (see Chapter 6) and it has been equally difficult to depict. Early visitors usually viewed the underwater from the surface, peering at the exposed reef at low

90   Visitor experiences

Figure 4.2 View of Tyron Island with corals visible beneath the water surface c. 1932. Source: Otto Webb. Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXA642, 7a).

tide, through clear still water in small pools, or through a waterscope. But it was difficult to photograph these experiences. By dint of diving we managed to get up a couple of pieces of coral, but the reef was not one of the most beautiful of the Barrier. Still, it was a sight I shall never forget to look down through a water glass and see the glorious colours, and to find sudden deep holes full of beautiful fish. I tried to take some snaps, but fear they will be very poor indeed. (Morrison 1925b, 14 November) The success of taking such photographs was dependent on achieving very particular timing and weather conditions. Saville-­Kent’s (1893) The Great Barrier Reef is renowned for its exquisite photographic plates. Love (2000, p.  103) observes that his photographs capture the reef “at exceptional moments of low tide and dead-­calm weather” and that “[f]ew visitors see the reef like this”, and goes on to say that: As a scientist Saville-­Kent was well aware that the flip side of reef beauty on the windward side of the reef, the conditions under which

Sharing experience with the world   91 corals grow at their best, was large bare patches of reef rubble on the leeward side, the conditions under which dead coral helps build coral islands. As photographer he framed beauty in such a way that it proved – not deceptive, exactly – but scientifically misleading. (Love 2000, pp. 103–4) Love argues that this photography was realer than real and suggests that Saville-­Kent was one of the earliest travellers in hyper-­reality. This seems a bold assertion given the technological constraints of the time, but photo­ graphy, including that of Saville-­Kent, has blurred the distinction between the original and copy in understanding the Reef as a place (Chapter 7). Without very careful framing, early photographs were either uninformative because movement of the water surface obscured the view, or unfocused because living creatures moved too quickly. A common solution was to photograph marine creatures out of water, a practice that spelt doom for most. Mr. F.A. McNeill, of the Sydney Museum, captured several excellent specimens, some of which have been preserved in spirits. Others are still more or less enjoying life in a tank on the vessel, not to mention a thorny sea-­urchin who presides over a little domain all his own. Some of the fish died on the trip down the coast, but Mr. McNeill is living in hopes of getting some of the specimens to the museum. (Telegraph 1933, 20 January) Without cameras that could penetrate the water surface, or film and shutter speed capable of capturing moving specimens, early photographs of marine animals depict creatures that are dying or are dead. Marine creatures were brought to the surface to be photographed, especially reef fish that rarely stay still and which are better viewed side-­on. As a result, creatures were usually killed in order to be photographed. So, while photography is now regarded a less invasive form of souveniring, this was not necessarily the case in the past. Dead animals were the focus of both photographs and motion film, and many photographs and films show animals taken out of their habitat in order to be captured by the camera. Then the boy got a three foot six shark, and there was no more fishing that night from the boat. Soon after Stanley took a female, slightly longer. Both played well in the water and were shot when they came to the surface. We left them aside to photograph in the morning. (Morrison 1925a, 28 July) Although I did not locate Morrison’s photographs, there are many others depicting visitors with dead sharks, including film footage from a 1929 Embury Expedition showing a group of women bouncing up and down on the back of a shark beached on the sand (O’Sullivan 1929).

92   Visitor experiences The development of underwater cameras was a major breakthrough. Significantly, the invention preceded diving as a popular Reef activity, meaning that it was through photography that people first experienced an underwater view. Arch Embury and Mel Ward were some of the earliest innovators and adopters of underwater photography: The Scientists came mainly from the Australian Museum. They included Frank McNeill, Bill Boardman, Joyce Allen (Museum Artist), Melbourne Ward. Mel Ward was deeply involved with the Scientific side of the Expeditions.… On one occasion Mel, Mont and I carried out some of the earliest Australian attempts at Underwater Photography. Mel intended going on a Lecture Tour in America and required underwater Reef Pool shots for his slide series. I got together what was one of the earliest underwater cameras by building a plate glass fronted case, inside which my camera was fitted with lens pointing through the glass front. Our method of operation had Mel swimming around the bottom of a pool probing amongst the rocks with his prospectors pick & on one occasion wrestling with a turtle! I leaned out over the pool, poked the glass front of the case under the surface and worked the shutter, while Mont’s job was to hang back onto a strap around my waist to prevent me going headfirst into the pool with Mel. We got quite a good series of pictures. (Embury 1981, p. 3) This innovation was a success and reported quite widely in the press, along with a number of the reproduced images. A photograph used to illustrate an Embury brochure is captioned: “This study was made through ten feet of water” (Manilla Newspaper Co. 1932). Another is captioned: Amazing photograph taken with special camera through a depth of several feet of water. Mr. Mel Ward, of the Australian Museum, wearing special water goggles which enable one to view clearly the wealth of life in the coral pools. (The World 1932, 17 October) The image (Figure 4.3) of a bare-­chested Mel Ward wearing shorts and gaiters, with geopick in hand was remarkable. Even though the image is slightly blurred, it was reproduced many times in different journals. Notwithstanding this early experiment, underwater cameras did not become commonplace for some time. There were, however, a number of exciting developments in photographic technology, including motion film, that were quickly adopted by Reef visitors: Some Cinema men took a photo of us starting off from Alligator Creek, and this will probably be shown in Melbourne at the end of

Sharing experience with the world   93 October. However, if you can arrange a time, you can have a private view of it at the film Censor’s office.… (Morrison 1925b, 28 August) Motion film gave visitors the opportunity to demonstrate the technology and the liveliness of marine creatures. For the benefit of film, otherwise inactive animals were prodded into movement. Living shells were staged upside down and out of water to force the creatures from their casing; the movement offered a direct contrast to static displays of shell collections. The demonstration was important not only to show the animal movements but to demonstrate the capacity of technology to capture such movement. One of the most significant breakthroughs in photographing the Great Barrier Reef was the introduction of colour emulsion. Prior to this, the colours of the underwater Reef which were so important in visitor experiences (Chapter 3) were difficult or impossible to reproduce. Brilliant colour is considered synonymous with Reef images today, but in the first part of the twentieth century it was only possible to know it through direct experience. Photographs of the Reef and its islands were in black and white, and

Figure 4.3 Photograph of Mel Ward diving in a coral pool taken with early experimental underwater camera c.1932. Source: Arch Embury. Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXA 642, 102).

94   Visitor experiences the colours of the underwater world difficult to communicate. In spite of people’s apparent capacity for writing copiously and speaking frequently about the Reef and its loveliness, many suggest that what they have seen is beyond words. In writing of the living corals in the 1930s, Mel Ward (n.d.) commented that the “colours are elusive and frequently indefinable”, and in her reminiscence of a Reef holiday, Hilda Marks remarked that “[n]o words can describe what we saw” (Marks 1933, p.  14). The Reef is frequently described as indescribable: “I shall never again have any hesitation in applying to coral the most lavish description that I can conceive,” declares Mr. F.A. McNeil [sic], zoologist at the Australian Museum. “Its caverns, caves, and gardens are beautiful beyond the power of words”. (Wigmore 1933, 21 January) Great brilliantly-­coloured fish were the components of a picture which Mr. McNeill said was beyond his power to describe. (Sydney Morning Herald 1933b, 4 February) I won’t try and describe these colours. I couldn’t. You wouldn’t believe me if I could. I’ll say a cubist artist in the throws [sic] of a nightmare never splashed paint more recklessly than did Mother Nature when on her loving job of adorning the Passage. (Rechner 1948) It was here that the best-­dressed fish apparently held their gayest fashion parades. The fish were innumerable and most of them, indescribable. (Telegraph 1933, 20 January) The diversity of form, texture and size of corals and shells could be represented through collections, as discussed, and in the case of shells collections also provided a sense of colour. Miss Chase is demonstrator and lecturer in zoology at Sydney University. The wealth of animal life on North-­West Island kept her fully occupied, especially that which abounds on the coral reefs. At low tide collecting claimed most of her attention, and many rare and beautiful specimens found their way into her collecting-­bag. At high tide most of her time was taken up with preserving and fixing the form and color [sic] in the organisms collected. (Gilbert 1926, 5 January) However, this was not the case for corals. The colour of coral is largely produced from the living polyps of living hard corals, and when taken

Sharing experience with the world   95 from the water these animals quickly die. The coral subsequently loses its colour, and as it dries out only the white skeleton remains. These were sometimes hand painted for displays of coral to recreate the living colours: In Bowen there are several collections of coral formations coloured in semblance of their gorgeous natural hues. In the Bowen School of Arts’ display are included orange and lilac, mauve with white centre, white flowering coral with pale green heart, buff and blue branching coral, and specimens of pink with yellow tips, and white blushing to rose pink. (Queensland Government Tourist Bureau c.1930) Film and photographs were equally incapable of representing the colours of the Reef, and accompanying text or narration points to this limitation, by referencing that which cannot be reproduced: “Here is a garden of coral. The picture does not record the wonderful colours of this most marvellous coral growth” (Anonymous 1930). Black and white photographs were occasionally hand tinted in an attempt to portray colour, but these pale pastel washes only approximated the colours of the Reef (Figure 4.4). In writing to the Commonwealth Government in support of her own skill in recreating the colours of living

Figure 4.4 Holidaymakers fossicking on Lodestone Reef. The coral foreground, sea and sky of a black and white image were hand coloured to create this postcard c.1920. Source: Reproduced with permission of the National Museum of Australia.

96   Visitor experiences forms, coral artist Shirley Keong provided colour slides of her own work (Figure 4.5) and stressed that: [O]verseas displays of coral should not be of the “icing sugar” colourings, that have been sent in past years, (to me it has been the worst form of false advertising in relation to one of the worlds [sic] Greatest Wonders). (Keong 1965, 20 December) The reproduction of colour remained elusive for a large part of the twentieth century, and even today it remains difficult to reproduce brilliant underwater colours in photographs without sophisticated lighting and other equipment. Nevertheless, by the end of the twentieth century full colour images enhanced by filters and night diving equipment as well as fully immersible and moving cameras brought a brilliantly coloured and moving world to viewers on the surface.

Representing a multi-­sensuous Reef People’s efforts to tell the story of Reef experiences have required more than words. In seeking to maintain and transmit these experiences to

Figure 4.5 A coral and shell display arranged and painted by Shirley Keong to represent the underwater Reef, 1965. Source: Commonwealth of Australia. Reproduced with permission of the National Archives of Australia (A463/50).

Sharing experience with the world   97 others, visitors have resorted to taking souvenirs or, more particularly, items that were once part of or in close contact with the Reef. The most immediate physical or tangible form was through collecting and fossicking. These activities simultaneously replicated the activities of legitimate researchers – or people with rights to the Reef – and provided visitors with a tangible part of the Reef, and thus provided a link between the original and the copy that is so significant in maintaining a relationship with, and a sense of control over, the original (Taussig 1993). As restrictions were placed on these activities, and through the limitations of such collections, other means of taking the Reef home were developed. The two principal forms of copy are aquariums and photographs, which emphasise the visual through the underwater world and panorama. However, the success of these sophisticated technologies privileges particular sensory experiences – notably visual ones – at the expense of others. The emphasis on visual qualities is an upward spiral in which the development of new technologies reflects a bias towards visual amenity, and in recording and furthering these visual experiences, visual dominance continues to grow and comes to dominate not only visitor experience but heritage significance. Photographs provide a means by which people can acquire knowledge and experience (Sontag 1973, pp.  155–6), and the emergence of new photographic technologies has shaped how people experience and understand the Reef. The highly regarded visual aesthetics of the Great Barrier Reef, in particular, are closely linked to the capacity of the camera. The advent and improvement of colour film and underwater cameras have focused aesthetic appreciation on particular visual qualities, and a strengthening conservation ethos has turned attention to the less invasive, but visually preoccupied, collection of photographs. New technologies enable visual experience to be enhanced with sound, colour, and movement and recorded in diverse environmental conditions. These are ultimately combined in film, which has a capacity to create multidimensional views of the same phenomenon and evoke the interrelationship between senses. Significantly, however, photographic visual experiences are frequently divorced from other sensory experiences that contribute to a sense of place. Embodied activities are an essential aspect of developing knowledge of place, and the ability to record these effectively depends on maintaining that sensuous connection beyond the immediate encounter. Contact is a particularly significant aspect of maintaining the power of the original. Haptic experiences at the Reef have been severely curtailed with the decline of fossicking and collecting, changes to infrastructure and conservation measures. This has also decreased the level of contact between the original and copy. Aquariums, as simulacra of the Reef, have “touch pools” and other activities that facilitate multi-­sensuous experiences. However, like shells and corals that can be purchased as souvenirs, there is no direct connection between the Great Barrier Reef and the copy. Collections of dead and living Reef creatures are now divorced from the embodied experiences

98   Visitor experiences of the Reef itself, and souvenir shops and aquaria tout objects that could be from any tropical waters. Part of the success of photography is its capacity to maintain a sense of contact between the original and the copy (Taussig 1993, pp.  21–3). Photography might even be regarded as a form of extended touch (cf. Rodaway 1994). This enables people at a distance from the original to imagine and recall landscapes, whether they have experienced them directly or not. While vision is dominant in representations, it is the underlying contact and its associated haptic experiences that render the images powerful. More specifically, when contact exists, the power of the Reef is communicated through photographs. So, while the visual might be dominant, it is the haptic and its associated senses of touch, sound and taste that render a place meaningful. The increasing complexity and sophistication of photography has the capacity to create greater likenesses in its portrayals of the Reef, but the same sophistication, especially the capacity to digitally manipulate images, risks the loss of contact, and this diminishes the effectiveness of representation. Without a definitive connection between the Reef and the captured form, whether that be personal photographs, writing or shell and coral collections, there is a shift to the hyper-­ real because the connection with the original or “real” is no longer relevant to the experience. The way in which the Reef has been captured and transmitted to others has changed during the twentieth century, but despite the sophistication of technology, the element of contact that links the original and the copies has been diminished. To this extent, copies no longer represent the original but instead make reference to the sign. As such, copies of the Great Barrier Reef no longer represent a place but rather capture a generalised image of a “tropical reef ” that is reminiscent of the hyper-­real (cf. Eco 1986).

Note 1 A portion of the George Sax collection was exhibited in an original display case at South Molle Island Resort in 2001, but the devastation wrought by Cyclone Debbie in 2017 (Bavas 2018) is likely to have destroyed it.

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Sharing experience with the world   99 Byrne, Denis, Brayshaw, Helen and Ireland, Tracy 2001, Social significance: A discussion paper, Research Unit, Cultural Heritage Division, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Sydney. Casey, Edward S 1996, “How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time: Phenomenological prolegomena”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of Place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, pp. 13–52. Daily Mail 1932, “Untitled”, Daily Mail, 23 December. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Daily Telegraph 1933, “Embery [sic] Expedition reunion – moving pictures and slides shown”, Daily Telegraph, 28 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Eco, Umberto 1986, Faith in fakes: Travels in hyper-­reality, Vintage, London. Embury, Arch 1981, “Rough copy of letter written to Marion Mahon by Arch Embury March 1981”, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, PXA 642, 187. Gilbert, PA 1926, “Women naturalists on North-­West Island”, The Australian Woman’s Mirror, 5 January, pp. 9, 41. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Hall, HS 1945, Jewels of the sea, Home movie, ScreenSound Australia (8045). Harrison, Rodney and Rose, Deborah Bird 2010, “Intangible heritage”, in T Benton (ed.), Understanding heritage and memory, Manchester University Press in association with the Open University, Manchester and Milton Keynes, pp. 238–76. Keong, Shirley 1965, “Letter to Prime Minister”, National Archives of Australia, A463/50; 1965/4559. King, Grahame 1983a, Barrier Reef, National Gallery of Australia, lithograph printed in colour from five stones/plates. King, Grahame 1983b, Barrier Reef II Spanish lady, National Gallery of Australia, lithograph printed in colour from five stones/plates. King, Grahame 1984, Barrier Reef forms III, National Gallery of Australia, lithograph printed in colour from three stones/plates. Kirshenblatt-­Gimblett, Barbara 2004, “Intangible heritage as metacultural production”, Museum International, vol. 56, no. 1–2, pp. 52–65. Lambert, Ron c.1950, The Anglers’ Paradise, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, Brisbane, Colour poster. Lane, Helen 1957, “Building a Barrier Reef aquarium”, Walkabout, vol. 23, 1 February, pp. 36–8. Love, Rosaleen 2000, Reefscape: Reflections on the Great Barrier Reef, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, Australia. Manilla Newspaper Co. 1932, Ninth Embury Scientific Expedition: Whitsunday Passage, Cumberland Islands and Great Barrier Reef, Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2, Brochure. Marks, Hilda Violette 1933, A Christmas Holiday on the Great Barrier Reef, 1932–1933, Harris & Sons, Sydney. Mategot, Mathieu c.1968, Great Barrier Reef, ram’s head and Sydney Opera House tapestry, National Library of Australia, France, Wool tapestry. Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925a, “Papers: Diary/Notebook”, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/2.

100   Visitor experiences Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925b, “Papers: Great Barrier Reef – Letters home”, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/8. Northfield, James c.1930a, Australia. Great Barrier Coral Reef. Particulars at Shipping and Travel Offices., Australian National Publicity Association, Melbourne, Poster: colour lithograph. Northfield, James c.1930b, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland: Australia. Particulars at Government, Shipping and Travel Offices., Australian National Publicity Association, Melbourne, Poster: colour lithograph. O’Sullivan, Alf 1929, Great Barrier Reef island holiday featuring fancy dress beach party; other segments, Home movie, ScreenSound Australia (62530). Pocock, Celmara 2009, “Entwined histories: Photography and tourism at the Great Barrier Reef ”, in M Robinson and D Picard (eds), The framed world: Tourism, tourists and photography, Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 185–97. Porcher, Edwin Augustus 1843, “Australia, Sandbank on the Great Barrier Reefs”, watercolour, National Library of Australia, PIC Drawer 3521. Porcher, Edwin Augustus 1844, “Australia, Raines Islet on the Great Barrier Reef ”, Watercolour, National Library of Australia, PIC R5709 Loc 3521-D. Prime Minister’s Department 1966, “Letter to Maurice Yonge from Jones, Chair of Great Barrier Reef Committee”, Commonwealth Government records, National Archives of Australia, A463/32, 1966/4565. Queensland Government Tourist Bureau c.1930, Bowen and Whitsunday, Brisbane, Brochure. Rechner, Delys 1948, “Palm Island and its people”, Cummins & Campbells Monthly Magazine, vol. 24 and 25, no. 10 and11, August, pp. 22–3; 5. Rodaway, Paul 1994, Sensuous geographies: Body, sense, and place, Routledge, London; New York. Ruggles, D. Fairchild and Silverman, Helaine 2009, “From tangible to intangible”, in DF Ruggles and H Silverman (eds), Intangible heritage embodied, Springer, New York, pp. 1–14. Saville-­Kent, William 1893, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia: Its products and potentialities, W.H. Allen & Co., Limited, London. Sellheim, Gert C 1939, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland: Australia, Australian National Travel Association, Melbourne, colour lithograph. Smith, Laurajane and Akagawa, Natsuko (eds) 2009, Intangible heritage, Routledge, New York; London. Sontag, Susan 1973, On photography, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. Sun 1932, “Rare coral looted – Barrier Reef and vandalism”, Sun, 31 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Sydney Morning Herald 1933a, “Barrier Reef: Marine wonders on view”, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 November. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 3. Sydney Morning Herald 1933b, “Coral wonders – Whitsunday Passage – marine zoologist’s trip”, Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, 4 February. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Taussig, Michael 1993, Mimesis and alterity: A particular history of the senses, Routledge, New York and London. Telegraph 1933, “Island paradise – seabirds, sharks and a storm – Embury expedition returns – aquatic specimens and sandfly bites”, Telegraph, Friday, 20 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2.

Sharing experience with the world   101 The Education Gazette 1932, “The Embury Expedition to the Great Barrier Reef ”, The Education Gazette, 1 November. Australian Museum Archive, 90/72, Book 2. The World 1932, “Exploring the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef ”, The World, Monday, 17 October. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Trompf, Percy 1933, The Marine wonders of the Great Barrier Coral Reef. For particulars & bookings apply Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Frederick Phillips, Government Printer, Brisbane, Colour poster. UNESCO 2003, Intangible heritage, viewed 19 September 2003, www.unesco.org/ culture/heritage/intangible/html_eng/index_en.shtml. Urry, John 1990, The tourist gaze: Leisure and travel in contemporary societies, Sage, London. Ward, Charles Melbourne (Mel) n.d., “Papers of Mel (Charles Melbourne) Ward”, Australian Museum Archive, AMS230, Box 12 (93), Sydney. Weaver, Edith 1932, “Back to nature on reef: Party of civilised folk who loved simple life”, Sunday Sun and Guardian, 12 June. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Wigmore, Lionel G. 1933, “Among the birds and fishes of the Barrier Reef ”, Daily Mail, Saturday, 21 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Wright, Judith 1977, The coral battleground, Twentieth anniversary commemorative edition 1996 edn, Angus & Robertson, Sydney.

102   Visitor experiences Box 4a  Photographic Essay Changing Environments and Holiday Facilities on Great Barrier Reef Islands during the Twentieth Century

Figure 4a.1 Ornithologists Camp, Masthead Island 1910. Source: Reproduced from the Dene Fry Collection with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXE 1252).

Figure 4a.2 Lindeman Island Camp Site 1928. Source: Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXA 642, 135).

Sharing experience with the world   103

Figure 4a.3 Embury holidaymaker at her tent, North West Island c.1930. Source: Embury. Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXA 642, 116).

Figure 4a.4 View from hill looking to the newly constructed Hayman Island resort and swimming enclosure c.1932. Source: Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXA 642, 121).

104   Visitor experiences

Figure 4a.5 Grass huts for holidaymakers, Lindeman Island 1930s. Source: Australian National Travel Association. Reproduced with permission of the National Archives of Australia (M914/1, 4187).

Figure 4a.6 Holiday huts, Hayman Island c.1940. Source: Reproduced with permission of the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.

Sharing experience with the world   105

Figure 4a.7 Hayman Island Resort Accommodation 1950s. Source: Private collection.

Figure 4a.8 Hayman Island Resort Pool c.1961. Source: Private collection.

106   Visitor experiences

Figure 4a.9 Hayman Island Resort c.1970. Source: Murray Views Postcard. Reproduced with permission of the Centre for the Government of Queensland.

Figure 4a.10 Hamilton Island Resort 1984. Source: © Gale Ngaire. Reproduced with permission of the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.

Sharing experience with the world   107

Figure 4a.11 South Molle Island 2001. Source: Photograph by the Author.

Figure 4a.12 Cluster of palm trees indicates the location of the resort on Long Island 2001. Source: Photograph by the Author.

108   Visitor experiences

Figure 4a.13 Hayman Island Resort, 2018. Source: © Intercontinental. Reproduced with permission.

Part II

Cultural constructions of the Great Barrier Reef

5 Reef islands as signifiers of paradise

The Great Barrier Reef is experienced through both the underwater sphere and the landscapes of islands, cays and coastlines. This chapter explores how visitor experience and knowledge of the islands have changed over time and how their knowledge of place has accordingly changed. The ideal of a paradise on earth has been particularly influential in achieving the physical changes to island environments. The changes are such that landscapes are no longer perceived as characteristically Australian but as imagined, generic and displaced. While the World Heritage property is regarded by many as an “Australian icon”, it has become a place where visitors rarely enjoy an Australian experience.

Australian landscapes of the Great Barrier Reef Australian native vegetation thrives on the islands of the Great Barrier Reef and is managed and maintained as part of the World Heritage values. However, the environments frequented by tourists have been significantly modified. Tourism activity is heavily focused in the coastal and offshore areas of Cairns and the Whitsundays with 95 per cent of tourism activity focused in just 5 per cent of the Marine Park (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority 2014, pp. 112, 4; Wachenfeld, Oliver and Morrissey 1998, p.  93). The central tourist destinations are well serviced by a range of hotels and resorts. While native vegetation continues to flourish in close proximity, and even within view of major resorts, most tourists stay in accommodation surrounded by highly manicured gardens comprising exotic plants. The difference between these landscapes and those experienced by visitors in the early twentieth century are striking. During the earliest holiday excursions, tents were pitched on island fringes (see Figures 4a.1–4a.3), and communal dining areas and laboratories were makeshift structures often simply using the shelter of larger trees (Figure 5.1). The facilities were rudimentary, but in living and working outside, these early holidaymakers were exposed to a range of sensory experiences including those of native vegetation. At the same time, visitors spent longer at particular

112   Cultural constructions

Figure 5.1 Mess tent set under trees on North West Island c.1928. Source: Mel Ward. Reproduced with permission of the Australian Museum (230/87).

l­ocations, and travelled to more places on the Reef than they usually do today. Their experiences of particular Reef locations and of their relationship to each other were therefore more intense. People were subject to a greater range of sensations than contemporary visitors, and while many of these were uncomfortable or even dangerous, they provided the backdrop against which the Reef itself was celebrated. In some instances, the adversity heightened the pleasures of their experiences. While accounts are full of rapture about marine life, island environments also made deep and lasting impressions on visitors. Analysis of photographs from the early part of the twentieth century suggests that the vegetation in areas frequented by Reef visitors was distinctly Australian. Many images are quite small and the vegetation is indistinct, but it is nevertheless apparent that the vegetation is largely unmodified and “Australian” in character. Other photographs show the island vegetation more clearly, and it is possible to identify pandanus, eucalypts, hoop pines, she-­oaks, tournefortia and pisonia trees. These species were abundant on all the islands where visitors walked, watched birds and climbed hills; they also surrounded camps where visitors slept, ate and amused themselves. It was at first decided that the camp should be pitched in an open but sheltered space, the tents being placed side by side, but it was soon evident that the heat would be too great, and so the tents were dotted about here and there, some under the shelter of the Pisonia trees and

Signifiers of paradise   113 others among the more open Sophora bushes. It was afterwards discovered that a much better camp site could have been found half a mile away among the Pandamus [sic] palms, which afford a more grateful shade than the other trees on the island. A large fly was erected over a deal table – lent to us by the canning factory – and became our dining-­room, while close by an open galley was improvised by the cook. (Pollock 1926) Consequently, early holidaymakers came to know and appreciate the form of many species; their foliage, smells, appeal to particular bird species, and even some edible fruits. Among these sensory experiences and knowledge, the sound of she-­oaks was noted as an integral and evocative element of the Reef islands (Pocock 2002). Several written accounts give praise to the beauty of native species, but it is the photographs that really bear witness to their abundance in the landscape. Photographic images capture, deliberately and incidentally, the prevalence of the bush setting. The forms of particular species are used to frame photographs and lend texture and shape to black and white images. Striking silhouettes of pandanus or screw palms create bold photographic compositions of twilight, and she-­oaks add delicate fringes to images used to promote the Reef in the first half of the twentieth century (Figures 5.2 and 5.3). She-­oaks are also incidentally captured in photographs of outdoor science laboratories and other Reef localities. Their needle-­like branches peep around the edges of tents and are scattered on the ground and among coral compositions (Figures 4a.1, 4a.3, 5.4 and 5.5). Early photographs make it apparent that the vegetation of Reef islands is characteristically Australian. Prior to visiting the Great Barrier Reef themselves, people had access to photographs through magazines, newspapers and private collections. However, the number of images was quite small. Photographic technology was less prolific and the same images were reproduced in different formats and publications, over a number of decades. In addition, the limitations of photography meant that publicly available images were black and white stills taken from above the water surface. These were most often images of islands in which native vegetation abounds. The photographs used in advertising brochures were likewise black and white images of Australian bush landscapes. While promotional images were also produced from drawings and other creative pictorial representations, photography was a particularly powerful means of presenting the Reef (Chapter 4). Anyone who saw an image of the Great Barrier Reef region prior to visiting would have been aware of the bush setting. Despite this, visitors yearned for something else. The vast majority of early holidaymakers were Australian for whom the bush landscapes of the Reef were not particularly distinctive. On a train journey from Victoria to Queensland, Crosbie Morrison observed in his diary: “General scenery very similar to Victoria – main

114   Cultural constructions

Figure 5.2 Commonwealth Government promotional image for Heron Island used Pandanus, a native species, to frame the visitor experience, c.1950. Source: Australian National Travel Association. Reproduced with permission of the National Archives of Australia (M914/1, 5566).

bush is Eucalypt – mainly Maculata and Corynocalyx, with later a number of fine specimens of E. Alba [sic]” (Morrison 1925a, 20 May). His diary entry for the next day continues his observations of the vegetation: At Mackay The Pioneer River is crossed, and the country settles down to become fairly uninteresting. The only features of interest are Canefields and a pineapple field. Pandanus continues to be a feature of the Creek beds, and in two cases beautiful slender palms in flower were seen. (Morrison 1925a, 21 May) The only vegetation he finds interesting is that which suggests the tropics, and he reiterates this sentiment in writing to his family: [The vegetation is] very similar to that of Victoria because of the gum trees which form the forest tree from Tasmania to Cape [York].

Signifiers of paradise   115

Figure 5.3 Casuarina branches soften the edges of black and white promotional images of Reef islands c.1950. Source: Commonwealth of Australia. Reproduced with permission of the National Archives of Australia (M914/1, 5476).

[From Rockhampton] the tropical flora starts, since Rockhampton is actually in the tropics. In all Creek beds are found a curious branching palm – the screw pine or Pandanus, – called by the natives Bread fruit – although it is not at all like the true bread fruit from the South Sea Islands. Another botanical curiosity – a tree-­fern-like thing called Cycads – is also found along the line, together with grass trees very similar to those on Kangaroo Island. (Morrison 1925c, undated) Notable in Morrison’s response is that vegetation similar to that elsewhere in Australia is uninteresting. He is much more drawn to sugar cane, pineapple, palms and pandanus or breadfruit. Interestingly, while the latter is native, he suggests that pandanus is not authentic. For Morrison, pandanus are only substitutes for breadfruit which is strongly symbolic of the South Pacific. Morrison like other visitors, sought the exotic, and that which offered a different view to the everyday (cf. Urry 1990). That desired

116   Cultural constructions

Figure 5.4 Dene Fry working in an outdoor laboratory on Masthead Island 1910. Source: Dene Fry. Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

view was a preconceived idea of a tropical location. What he did not want, or expect, to see was the Australian bush.

Australian bush as the everyday As an iconographic landscape of attachment, the Australian bush is most typically portrayed as harsh, dry, inland rural country. It may appear that the bush is not an everyday experience for Australians because Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world and the majority of its residents live on the urban coastal fringe of the continent. History has also shown that colonial Australians have systematically replaced the Australian bush with cultivated plants from Europe to reduce their sense of alienation in the Australian landscape (Brook 2003; Franklin 1996, pp. 39–56; Hogan 2003; Trigger and Head 2010). The importance of the Australian bush in the construction of Australian national identity is widely debated (see, for example, Davison 1978; Kapferer, B 1988; McGrath 1991; Schaffer

Signifiers of paradise   117

Figure 5.5 Coral composition set among casuarina branches on Masthead Island, 1910. Source: Dene Fry. Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

1989; Spillman 1997; Waterhouse 2000; White 1981). However, as Judith Kapferer (1996, p.  52) has argued, attempts to undermine Australian myth-­making have little impact on the way Australians see themselves, and this is demonstrated in how the bush continues to be evoked in symbolic events such as the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and in marketing Australian tourism (ABC Television 2001; Rowe 1998, pp.  76–7). Despite awareness in intellectual and public discourse that the bush image is questionable, it continues to hold a central place in how communities in Australia assert themselves, and how they are perceived by others. The bush therefore continues to play a powerful role in the portrayal of Australia and its people, and although it may not form part of everyday experiences for many Australians, it is the imaginative norm.

In pursuit of paradise The Australian National Travel Association was established in 1929, when it was realised that tourism could make a significant contribution to the

118   Cultural constructions Australian economy. Tourism was also regarded as a means to attract potential immigrants. The most lucrative overseas markets and those with desirable immigrants, was the United States of America (Prime Minister’s Department 1927). The Great Barrier Reef was a key drawcard, but the travel industry recognised that the Amer­ican market would demand a different standard of accommodation and transport. Several reports recommended a series of changes (see, for example, Department of the Interior 1957; Queensland Tourist Development Board 1947) that were implemented through the development of resorts over the following decades. While driven by pragmatics, the changes made to Reef infrastructure were strongly influenced by European idealisation of tropical islands. Western European fascination with the tropics has its origins in a search for the Garden of Eden, and in both mediaeval Europe and Arabia the creation of botanical gardens was a way of recreating an earthly paradise (Grove 1995, pp.  21–4). During the ensuing centuries the increasing demand for resources drove colonists to new lands. At the same time there was a growing curiosity in scientific explanation that made exotic lands with their unfamiliar animals and plants particularly attractive. Nowhere appeared more abundant in life than the tropics, and these regions came to represent an actualisation of the idealised garden (Grove 1995; Sheller 2001; Smith 1992). Islands drew particular attention because they served as self-­contained units in which natural processes could be delineated and clearly observed (Grove 1995) – a taxonomic and spatial ordering that established new ways of conceiving the landscape (Sheller 2001). These economic and naturalist concerns were paralleled by a deeper psychological interest in islands, and a yearning for paradise. Social discontent in Europe encouraged people to imagine a Utopia, free of the burdens of their societies, and the tropical islands described by explorers promised the social refuge they desired. Such islands, partly described by travellers and partly imagined, became a rich source for popular European literature, particularly in France from the 1600s, and the tropical island fantasy became entrenched through fictional works like Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island (Grove 1995; Sheller 2001). These works influenced popular thought about exploration, and most importantly shaped the colonial nature of tourism. Appreciation of Robinson Crusoe had a resurgence in the late nineteenth century and was influential in a time that saw a shift in landscape preference from the cultivated to the romantic and wild. Sheller (2001) has argued that this influenced the conception of the tropical landscapes, particularly those of the Caribbean, as a natural Eden even though the landscapes had been vastly modified by human use. It was the reports from Tahiti that most particularly captured the European imagination, rather than the lives of Australian Aboriginal people or Patagonians that were perceived as much tougher. European colonial exploration most frequently highlighted the harshness of the Australian continent (White 1981, pp.  11–14). In contrast with descriptions of the

Signifiers of paradise   119 Pacific, Australian Indigenous peoples and the environment, flora and fauna of the continent are often described in derogatory terms (Douglas 2008, pp.  8–10). Accounts of the time more often emphasise a lack of water and infertility of Australian soils; there is a focus on dangers and “weirdness” that stems from a time before the continent was “discovered” by Europeans (Langton 1996; Ryan 1996, pp.  105–11). Although Ryan has argued that the inverted world of the antipodes placed Australia in a pre-­existing paradigm, it was not one in which the perfection of the Garden of Eden is recognised. Rather it placed the Australian continent firmly at the extreme edge of the world where all that is perverse and strange resides (Ryan 1996, pp.  105–11). The alienation felt by the new colonists led them to modify the Australian environment to recreate the landscape aesthetic of Britain as a way of making it feel more like home (see, for example, Brook 2003; Franklin 1996). However, by the nineteenth century the bush was regarded by Australians as home, and for many painters and writers it served as “an imaginative refuge” (White 1981: 102). The bush developed a much deeper iconography within Australian society that led to the link between national identity and the bush. At the Whitsunday Islands, locally owned resorts were gradually replaced by ones controlled by non-­local entrepreneurs (Barr 1990, pp. 33–45). This was at least partly because the tourism industry challenged some Australian cultural values. Sheller (2001) has argued that the Caribbean was a place where labour was done by others, creating a setting for abandon and indulgence. In order to replicate this at the Reef, local operators were challenged in how they thought about themselves. The provision of a labour-­free environment was only partly true of the Australian context. Although Aboriginal labour was used on the islands, Aboriginal people were largely invisible in the Great Barrier Reef tourism industry (Pocock 2014). The early tourist industry relied more conspicuously on the hospitality of local pastoral families. Barr (1990, pp. 21–32) suggests that there was considerable resistance to the development of a tourism industry around the Whitsundays as it came at too high a social cost. The money was not worth the breakdown of the egalitarian status that Australians liked to maintain about themselves (cf. Kapferer, B 1988). This is apparent in Henry Lamond’s comment from 1931: “I wasn’t going to have my children dictated to by any half crown tourist” (cited in Barr 1990, p. 10). Lamond’s comment suggests that tourists expected hosts to assume a subservient role; an idea that does not sit well with the Australian idea of themselves as egalitarian. In spite of local resistance, purpose-­built tourism facilities began to appear on a number of islands. Among the first were the facilities constructed for Mont Embury’s first expedition on Hayman Island in 1932. This included sleeping accommodation in addition to the usual camping: Members are to state whether they prefer a tent … to a bed on the verandah of a community room. There will [be] such community

120   Cultural constructions rooms for either men or women. The community room with bed on verandah is recommended as most suitable for the climate. (The Australian and New Zealand Traveller’s Gazette 1932, October) Huts have been erected on Hayman Island, and for those who prefer them, there will be tents. (Daily Mail 1932, 23 December) On Lindeman Island in the 1930s, accommodation comprised grass huts (Figure 4a.5) described as being of Torres Strait style (Sunday Sun and Guardian 1935, 20 January). From the 1940s onwards accommodation was increasingly surrounded by planted gardens, filled with exotic palms and hibiscus, and lined with white painted stones. This transformation occurred at different rates at different locations, but generally the resort accommodation became more substantial and the scrubby grass and bush all but disappeared in the immediate vicinity of tourist facilities. The Australian bush was no longer so invasive (see Photographic Essay). These changes were encouraged by the tourism bureaux and Australian National Travel Association (ANTA), and local operators were encouraged to construct more substantial accommodation and provide a greater variety of activities and entertainment. Beyond the amenities, however, there was a less explicit, but concerted effort to change the physical landscapes associated with the Great Barrier Reef. In a submission to ANTA, Theodore Roughley, a strong advocate of Reef tourism, said: I consider an ideal plan would be to choose a mainland island, on which a capacious modern hotel could be erected, and to run in conjunction with it one or more coral islands where comfortable thatch-­ roofed cabins could be disposed in such a way that the natural beauty of the island is enhanced and not spoilt, as so often obtains at present.… Most people have a mental picture of a coral island in a tropical setting of palm trees, of the crystal-­clear water of a lagoon where multi-­hued fish and other forms of colourful marine life abound, and where life may be idled away with the cares of the world forgotten. Every effort should therefore be made to present this picture to the tourist in actual reality, otherwise he [sic] may leave the Reef disappointed by his [sic] experience, with consequences that will be anything but fruitful. (Roughley 1947, p. 97) The implication of mental picture of a that “[e]very effort the tourist in actual

Roughley’s statement that “[m]ost people have a coral island in a tropical setting of palm trees” and should therefore be made to present this picture to reality” is that, not only is the accommodation to be

Signifiers of paradise   121 of a particular standard, but that the presentation of the physical landscape also had to change. Roughley’s statement indicates that in an unaltered state, the Reef did not fulfil the ideal tropical destination that many people expected. In its native state the Great Barrier Reef islands could therefore be a source of disappointment for visitors. The incongruity between the imagined and experienced environment was reported in a newspaper article about the British expedition to Low Isles in 1928. Palm trees, turquoise lagoons, sand-­like gold filings, cobalt skies, purple shadows, the lisp of the sea, staring moons – … In light fiction, yes; in practice, as the British scientists on Low Island are finding it, scarcely so alluring. (Sydney Morning Herald 1928, 29 November) And in 1933, another newspaper article reported the disillusionment of the holidaymakers on Hayman Island. The newcomers experienced the inconveniences and discomforts attendant upon settling into a newly-­formed camp. Others who were visiting these languorous latitudes for the first time looked in vain for the blue lagoons and coconut palms, the turtles and mutton birds of fame and fiction. Picnic make-­shifts and at first a rather uncertain dining schedule, were a new and disturbing experience for many.… This was not what they expected.… (Wigmore 1933, 14 January) This expectation of blue lagoons and coconut palms was not simply drawn from advertising because, as noted, this often featured black and white photographs that clearly showed native vegetation surrounding the camps. The idealised landscape could, however, be introduced through creative images. Palm trees were sometimes sketched alongside text and photographs in brochures, and artistic impressions of the Reef created for travel posters included underwater views and tropical island landscapes that were not necessarily available to visitors. A 1947 report to the Queensland Tourist Development Board recommended that advertising be controlled to avoid misleading promotion. The report notes that the Great Barrier Reef, in particular, was the subject of deceptive advertising in Victoria and New South Wales. This was highly unsatisfactory for tourists (Queensland Tourist Development Board 1947, pp. 50–1). Although it does not specify what exactly was misrepresented, the concern was serious enough to make it a major recommendation, and it can be assumed that it related, at least in part, to the facilities and access to the Reef. This is suggested by a conversation that author and journalist Arnold Lock had with a southern visitor at a Townsville hotel:

122   Cultural constructions “I came to the tropics to play bowls – something you can’t do in the winter where I come from – and to explore the Barrier Reef. There’s a bowling green,” he pointed across the road, “but where’s the reef?” “Out there,” I nodded towards the east, “forty miles away.” “I thought it was closer than that. How do you get there?” “You don’t, as a rule,” I replied. His face assumed a quizzical expression. “I don’t understand you. I came up here expecting to spend about half my time out on it, studying it and collecting shells. What about these advertisements you read, and the posters you see plastered up on railway stations about big game fishing on the Barrier Reef and all that?” I explained that whilst Barrier Reef advertisements flamboyantly depicting the fishing, beauty and marvels were not exaggerated, in some respects they are grossly misleading. They convey the impression to the intending tourist that it is as easy to travel from the mainland to the reefs, as it is to go from Circular Quay to Manly [Sydney] or from the bridge across the Yarra to St. Kilda [Melbourne]. One advertisement I had recently read invited tourists to “Come and play on the coral islands”, but no mention was made how inaccessible they are, or how limited the accommodation. (Lock 1955, pp. 38–9) This suggests that as late as the mid 1950s visitors experienced difficulties actually getting to the Reef. People who travelled a considerable distance from southern cities and towns could find themselves confined to mainland towns without ever reaching an island or reef (Lock 1955, p. 39). It is also possible, however, that the problems with misleading advertising might have related to the comparisons of the Reef to other islands of the Pacific. The South Pacific had become synonymous with an idealised paradise since the time of European colonial expansion, and tourism promotion consciously inserted the Great Barrier Reef into this paradisiacal paradigm. In spite of the fact that the South Pacific was itself a construct and experiences of places like the Caribbean could be just as disappointing (Sheller 2001), the Reef was frequently compared to the Pacific in brochures, newspapers and magazines. In 1934, the Telegraph newspaper captioned a photograph: “the Great Barrier Reef, where every year more Australians go to seek the glamour of the South Seas” (Telegraph 1934). And in 1950 a brochure for the Whitsunday Islands proclaimed that “Queenslanders need not go so far afield as Polynesia for romantic coral-­girt isles” (Queensland Government Tourist Bureau 1950). These aspirations were increasingly reflected in the physical landscapes of the Reef. As part of the upgrading of accommodation and facilities, a Pacific theme was introduced into island resorts, and increasingly the Reef islands were portrayed as a Pacific destination. Photographs show an escalation in the generic Pacific

Signifiers of paradise   123 elements in the resort landscaping as well as in architecture and decoration. Resort accommodation, meals, decor, dress and entertainment symbolic of Hawaii or an imagined Pacific were fairly standard by the 1960s and 1970s (Figures 5.6 and 5.7) and persist into the early twenty-­first century.

The coconut palm as signifier of paradise found Long before resorts were built on the islands, tourists searched for paradise at the Reef. Their search was not always in vain. Tourists and other visitors, and the tourism industry, found elements of the tropical ideal they were looking for. Coconut palms, in particular, played an important role in meeting visitors’ expectations of a tropical location. There is some

Figure 5.6 Honeymooners at Hayman Island in 1960. In spite of the Australian setting, the woman wears a hula skirt representative of the tropics. Source: Commonwealth of Australia. Reproduced with permission of the National Archives of Australia (M914/1, 7129).

124   Cultural constructions

Figure 5.7 Brochure for Hayman Island shows women posing with leis, c.1959. Source: Reproduced with permission of the Centre for the Government of Queensland.

debate as to whether Cocos nucifera is native to Australia (Buckley and Harries 1984). Its apparent absence from islands and coastlines at the time of Captain Cook’s voyage suggests that it may have arrived in Australia by human agency after European colonisation rather than by floating across the oceans (Cribb and Cribb 1985, pp. 88–9). Even those who suggest it is possible that some coconuts were able to be naturally dispersed to the Australian coastline, concede that they were uncommon or rare prior to European colonisation (Buckley and Harries 1984). Early photographs from the Great Barrier Reef region support this and show coconut palms to be quite unusual on Reef islands. Where they are present at all, they are growing around settlements and are much more noticeable in places like Low Isles where the lighthouse had been established since 1878, some time before the British Expedition was based there. The introduction of coconuts in these locations is usually attributed to mariners who planted coconuts and introduced goats to the Barrier Reef islands as a source of food for those using the Inner Route and working on ships in the region. Henry Lamond suggested that the coconut was not only introduced, but that it continued to be scarce in the Barrier Reef for some time after European invasion.

Signifiers of paradise   125 I remember my father telling me, during a trip along the coast, that the government of the day, in the early ’nineties, had put goats and rabbits, planted coconuts on many of the islands as an aid to shipwrecked mariners. The wrecks never came; the goats jumped ahead and prospered; the rabbits never survived a second generation; the coconuts took hold and grew where it suited them – which wasn’t in many places and on few islands. (Lamond 1948) Despite the scarcity of coconut palms, early tourists expected to see them on Great Barrier Reef islands. Wherever encountered, tourists rushed to capture them in photographs. They also engaged with the traditions of climbing the slender trunks to reach the fruit, opening the hard shells and drinking the milk. Photograph captions and first-­person accounts show that visitors are usually excited to see coconut palms for the first time. The relative dearth of the trees was enough to make recording singular specimens worthwhile, and in extolling the beauty of Whitehaven beach in 1933 a holidaymaker wrote that “Whitehaven also possesses a stately cocoanut palm” (Stainton 1933). This suggests that while the trees were uncommon, they were nevertheless significant in visitor experiences. Consequently, coconut palms are over-­ represented in photographs relative to their actual presence. Promotional photographs deliberately employ symbolic elements that are subsequently recaptured in personal images, so that the symbolic elements are made real by reportage of the photograph (Albers 1992; Watts 2000). The coconut palm is a particularly conspicuous signifier of a tropical location and employed to denote the romance of the tropics. For instance, a photograph of author Edmund Banfield’s bungalow on Dunk Island (Barrett 1935, p. 36), is dominated by a coconut palm in the foreground. The building is secondary as is the native vegetation surrounding. Without the palm there is nothing to indicate that this is an image of life on the Great Barrier Reef, or even that it is on a tropical island. Wherever they were found, coconut palms became a focus of tourist attention. As signifiers of the tropics they were carefully framed by tourists’ cameras. So, in spite of their relative scarcity on Reef islands in the historic period, photographs containing palm trees are quite numerous. In these images, however, it is possible to observe that the surrounding vegetation is much more prevalent and that symbolic tropical vegetation, including palms, is unusual (see Figures 5.8). Individuals and tourism organisations focused their attention on those parts of the Reef that met preconceived ideas of tropical islands. The following description from the Queensland Tourist Development Board in 1947 describes such an idyllic location. For 50 miles our twelve-­ton launch dipped and rolled into the swell of the Pacific. A speck appeared on the horizon – Heron Island in the

126   Cultural constructions

Figure 5.8 Tourist poses against a palm trunk holding a coconut while casuarinas and Australian scrub dominate the background. Source: Berryman 1933. Reproduced with permission of the National Library of Australia.

Capricorns. About an hour later we reached a tiny tropic isle, just a few giant handfuls of coral thrown up some fifteen or twenty feet above the reef, a thousand vivid green trees and palms jumbled together in riotous luxuriance, and there was your island paradise where the white coral shores are washed by the warm waters of the Pacific. (Queensland Tourist Development Board 1947, p. 23) The attention given to the palm appears to distort how people recall their experiences. A collection of photographs from a trip to Heron Island in 1953 (Love 1953) and the aerial photograph published in a book by Dakin in 1950, suggest that the description of Heron Island is reasonably accurate. However, it is impossible to discern any palm trees, native or otherwise, in any of the images. Palms may have been present, but they were not conspicuous, and the description of “a thousand vivid green trees and palms jumbled together in riotous luxuriance” suggests not only exaggeration, but a preoccupation with particular symbolic elements. Throughout the tourism history of the Great Barrier Reef, visitors are fascinated and drawn to the coconut palm. In 1925 Crosbie Morrison accompanied a scientific expedition to the Reef and spent considerable time on the adjacent mainland. His account of the beauty of Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission, south of Cairns, is directly linked with the presence of coconut palms: “The Mission Station is a picturesque place with lots of

Signifiers of paradise   127 Coconuts [sic] and grass houses, and a white jetty and white cross” (Morrison 1925a). His descriptions of other locations on the Reef also focus on imagery of palms, including in an earlier quote when he praises the “thick grove of palm trees silhouetted against the sky” (Morrison 1925b, 28 August). So too, for the participants in the “Voyage of the Cheerio” palm trees were clearly significant. Eric Watson wrote “[t]he setting was extremely beautiful; the tide came right up to the camp, while a full moon enhanced the tropical effect of the cocoanut palms” (Watson 1935). Palms were drawn into early brochures, posters and postcards, and planted in ever increasing numbers as tourism grew at the Reef. By the 1960s and 1970s the idyllic tropical island had become a reality. Although coconut palms were no longer unusual, they continued to attract attention and were critical in realising an imaginary place. The mature trees appeared in almost all Reef promotion, and the resorts themselves conformed to the imagined landscape. In visiting Green Island in 1975, Marjorie Bradsworth recorded in her diary that “Green Island … certainly lives up to its name. A real tropical island with its palms and thick undergrowth and trees set in the very blue ocean which pales to a bright green in the water surrounding the island” (Bradsworth 1971, 8 July 1975). Thus, Reef resorts have become what earlier tourists expected to see, and Green Island has become a “real tropical island”. For Marjorie Bradsworth this is signified, above all, by the palm tree. Early photographic images available of the Reef, as I have shown, depict an environment rich in Australian flora. In spite of this, people expected to find another landscape when they visited the tropics. The strength of the Pacific island fantasy was such that the desire to see coconut palms was expressed in disappointment when they were not found, and they generated considerable pleasure when they were. People seek out these trees because they symbolise being somewhere different. More than this, however, they represent paradise and have been used in this way in other contexts (see, for example, Watts 2000). The coconut palm and local knowledge Locals who understand the Reef on the basis of long-­term relationships and experiential knowledge, and those who have worked and lived on the Reef for significant periods of time find the palm and the ideal it represents misleading and unnecessary. For them, attachments are developed through a range of sensory and personal experiences that are independent of fantasy (Pocock 2002). Whitsundays tour operator Captain Tom McLean found palms to be a poor replacement for casuarinas. In his opinion, the sound of she-­oaks was “infinitely more subtle” than palms (McLean 1986, p. 2). They also provided a welcome source of shade from the heat of the day. Captain Tom’s sentiment is echoed by the people of Proserpine, a small rural town on the Australian mainland coast adjacent to the Whitsunday passage. The Proserpine community has long resisted the growth of

128   Cultural constructions tourism in the region (Barr 1990, pp.  21–32); even though their attachments to the Reef are largely drawn from their own holidays and work experiences in the region. Nevertheless, they dislike what the Reef has come to represent, and in 1994 the president of the Proserpine Historical Museum Society expressed her sense of loss of the Australian landscape at the Reef: “Hundreds of palms have been planted at various islands – sure this makes them resemble Tahiti, but where are the trees natural to the locality? In the days of the Embury expeditions, scientists called Hayman “a botanists’ Paradise” (Price 1994). By the end of the twentieth century, every resort in the Whitsundays conformed to the ideal. Imitated cultural symbols prevailed in ubiquitous Hawaiian style shirts of staff, thatched roofs and umbrellas. This was particularly noticeable at South Molle Island where hibiscus motifs, thatched roofing and Polynesian dance nights were highlights of the resort. Resort photographers on both South Molle and Long Islands were employed to wander among the guests to capture their portraits. They carried a suite of props including leis made of artificial frangipani and other tropical flowers to ensure their subjects would be portrayed within the tropical illusion. Most Reef visitors stay in international-­style resorts with lush planted gardens; the environment is highly manicured and the way in which people interact with it is highly controlled. While the vegetation that characterised early Reef photographs persists through the management and protection regimes of the World Heritage Area, the dominant landscaping of island resorts comprises green lawns and neatly trimmed palms, hibiscus and frangipani. The predominance of palm trees within resort areas is unmistakable, and on disembarking at tourist islands, it is clusters of palm trees that indicate where the resort is located (Figure 4a.12). It is these environments that are most commonly encountered and remembered by tourists. For the most part, the space around resorts is highly controlled with distinct areas for staff and maintenance activities, and pathways and roads that steer and confine tourists to particular parts of the islands. While native vegetation remains abundant, right to the edge of resort properties, it is much less conspicuous in the immediate vicinity of accommodation, eating facilities, popular beachfronts, poolside or in other public areas most frequented by tourists. Contemporary promotional materials use exotic vegetation to frame tourist experiences, so that both image and the experience become characterised in the same way.

A tourist gaze for Australian visitors The comparison between historic sources and observation of contemporary tourist locations suggests that the Great Barrier Reef became increasingly idealised and less reflective of its Australian location over the course of the twentieth century. The exotic has been sought out and propagated. Although native vegetation persists in abundance on Reef islands and cays

Signifiers of paradise   129 today, it is largely absent in the locations presented to visitors. The Australian bush has been removed from typical visitor encounters at the Reef and is no longer a central image of the landscape. Some essential characteristics of the region have changed and consequently fewer people are exposed to a characteristically Australian landscape at the Reef (Pocock 2002). In other words, the Reef is experienced by the majority of visitors as somewhere that could be anywhere. The changes to the landscape of the Reef have implications not only for the conservation of Australian flora, but also for commercial interests of tourism. Increasingly, overseas visitors want to experience something that is more particular of place (Rowe 1998), and generic tropical islands can be found more cheaply in locations outside Australia. Native flora and fauna of the Reef distinctive of the region and Australia may offer a touristic experience to overseas visitors. Regrettably, these resorts offer such features as Bamboo decor, Polynesian and “Aloha” evenings with dancers in grass skirts. Australians must learn to create their own particular image, not copy that of other countries. Overseas visitors come here to see Australia and do not appreciate a false imported atmosphere. (Bennett n.d.) Bennett’s claim that overseas visitors “do not appreciate a false imported atmosphere” perhaps overlooks the fact that it has been created because it is distinct from the landscapes found elsewhere in Australia. The exotic that tourists seek is not necessarily one contrasting with the everyday, but a difference previously imagined and known through existing paradigms. This is true for all visitors, but especially the many Australian visitors to the Great Barrier Reef islands for whom the native vegetation is not sufficiently distinctive. Historic photographs show that early Reef holidays were essentially bush camps not dissimilar to those on mainland Australia that continue to be popular today (Davidson and Spearritt 2000, pp. 171–2; Garner 2013; Harper 2017). Knowles has argued in relation to families camping in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area that these activities are an important aspect of local identity. The interaction with the bush is much more than one of admiration “as you drive through it”, but rather is “meant to be ‘felt, smelt and experienced with the senses’ ” (Knowles 1997). In the early period, tourists who visited the Reef were primarily Australians and holidays on the Reef were similar to bush camping on the mainland. Without the ready access to the Outer Reef, or the underwater world of contemporary Barrier Reef tourism, visitors spent as much time exploring land as they did reefs and the bush was indeed “felt, smelt and experienced with the senses”. Longer and slower journeys provided a strong sense of orientation and these experiences contributed significantly to the knowledge

130   Cultural constructions v­ isitors built of the region, and through which they developed a strong sense of place. The symbolic importance of the bush in constructions of Australian identity is sufficient to make the bush an everyday experience for Australian people, so that Australians do not regard going bush as a tourist activity, but as one that (re)establishes identity. For many, then, camping or going bush does not construct a tourist gaze that is distinct from the everyday. The Australian native vegetation is therefore incapable of constructing the tourist gaze and does not offer a desirable tourist experience for Australian visitors. In contrast, the idealised tropical islands presented at resorts of the Great Barrier Reef allow Australian tourists to believe that they are somewhere else. Anticipation and imagination are important factors in modern consumerism, and Urry (1990, p.  13) argues that these are constructed through advertising and the media. The barrage of visual promotion associated with Reef tourism is certainly dominant in consumers’ experience and knowledge, regardless of whether they have visited the Reef or not. However, promotion alone is not responsible for the way in which the Reef has been imagined and anticipated, or how those forces have effected physical transformation of its landscapes. The expectations that early visitors had of the Great Barrier Reef region could be regarded as unpredictable within their temporal context. Black and white photographs dominated by Australian scrub cannot have been entirely responsible for people’s expectations. The strength of the expectation that left visitors looking “in vain for the blue lagoons and coconut palms”, or caused them excitement when they saw a coconut palm, suggests that this ideal was more deeply entrenched. People’s desire to find a tropical ideal at the Reef is a strong force in the changes to landscapes of the region. This desire is fuelled by the mental image of an idyllic Pacific island vitalised by fiction and adventure writing. The ideal of Pacific islands was fostered and grown within a European tradition of romance about tropical islands described and depicted in the writings of Daniel Defoe and Robert Louis Stevenson, and in paintings by artists such as Paul Gauguin. Dating back to the fourteenth century in Europe, this ideal has been renewed and reinvented in colonial contexts. Not all Pacific locations met the idyllic image that people had constructed, and eighteenth-­century travellers to the Caribbean sometimes felt disappointment at the landscapes they found there (Sheller 2001). They were nevertheless able to select particular elements of the scene to reconstruct an experience that mirrored that which was presented through popular literature and art. Unlike the Caribbean, the Australian continent was characterised by Europeans as harsh and strange. In spite of this, Australian landscapes became familiar to colonists and ultimately this harshness became an important characteristic in national identity. The Great Barrier Reef offered an opportunity for Australian tourists to construct a paradise that was distinct from their everyday experience. This was not only an

Signifiers of paradise   131 image consumed and desired by tourists, but one that the fledgling tourism industry shared. They truly believed that the recreation of this landscape would ensure the burgeoning of tourism in the region, and they have not yet been proved wrong. The evidence provided by personal accounts of early Reef visitors suggests that the way in which the Reef is imagined and dreamed of parallels and possibly precedes any major advertising. At the same time, personal experiences of the Reef mimic those of advertisers. The Reef is therefore not experienced as “new” but as a place that meets pre-­existing ideals. Unlike the explorers of the Australian mainland who sought a pre-­ constructed blank, the Great Barrier Reef is already filled with elements of the tropical ideal before it is ever physically colonised and stands apart from its continental affiliation. McGrath (1991, p. 123) has suggested that Australian tourists who now visit the outback “imagine that they are explorers” and live out the Australian myths through a kind of historical re-­enactment. Early visitors to the Reef express a similar interest in going to the unknown and orienting themselves in the landscape. However, whereas the outback myth creates a distinct past which is central to Australian nation creation, the Reef provides the elusive promise of escape from the everyday. As such, the region forms part of a larger mythical paradigm of a utopia free of the problems of society. Although the Pacific has become synonymous with paradise, the utopian landscape is no truer of any other part of the Pacific than it is for the Barrier Reef. As such the paradisiacal paradigm is essentially placeless. The deliberate construction of a Pacific landscape is created because it meets the expectations of a preconceived and therefore familiar and controlled “other”. The generic Pacific is thus a copy of something that has never existed and can be seen as a final-­stage simulacrum in which the copy has no relation to an original and hence is hyper-­real (cf. Baudrillard 1983). Unlike the outback that provides an Australian colonial nationalism, the Reef fulfils another colonial vision: that of the generic and familiar other. While tourists who are predominantly of middle-­class affluent backgrounds demand a gaze that contrasts with their everyday experiences, they also want those differences to be comfortable and non-­threatening. The palm is an example of the exotic made familiar, typical and therefore non-­ threatening and an attraction for visual consumption (Watts 2000, p. 248), and the coconut palm is a forceful emblem of the idealised tropical island. The palm is not an isolated element, but part of a broader image creation of a Pacific ideal that includes tropical fruit, hibiscus and frangipanis and stylised architecture. The desire to find paradise at the Reef, however, is particularly expressed as a search for palm trees and recording them in photographs. It is the lack of palm trees that are commented on, and expressed as disappointment in the early part of the twentieth century. It is also the palm tree that reinforces and satisfies people that they are in fact in the tropical location. This is not necessarily a Great Barrier Reef

132   Cultural constructions l­ocation, but it is a tropical fantasy. The essential element in tourists’ imaginative attachment to the Reef islands in the twentieth century is the palm. The coconut palm is a prolific and, importantly, apparently “natural” element of the landscape. It is also easily recognised in shape and form, and readily reproduced in gardens, photographs, drawings and cartoons. It is a striking motif in the earliest images of the Pacific, and as such is a powerful synecdoche of an imagined tropical paradise. The changes to the tourist landscapes of the Reef are influenced not only by a visually prolific industry, but also by a colonial imagination. The human imagination is a powerful force and, in the case of the Reef, an abstraction has been given a physical presence. In creating an alter experience, tourism draws heavily on imaginative imagery and fantasy which underlies the power of the representations (Barthes 1957, pp.  74–7). The tourist gaze of the Great Barrier Reef that is created as alter through production of an imaginary ideal is a copy of a copy, or a simulacrum with no reference to the real. This produces a quintessential modern holiday in which the Reef is perceived and experienced in the same way as any other tropical holiday destination. The articulation of fantasy that is captured in this paradigm remains both a construct and a spectre, and therein lies its continuing dominance in tourist imagery. This dissociation from the character of the location has implications for authenticity in heritage management. Maintaining the authenticity of heritage properties is one of the cornerstones of heritage assessment and conservation practice, and yet the example of the Great Barrier Reef suggests that tourists may not experience authentic characteristics of the heritage sites they visit. Visitors are always likely to have more populist expectations, experiences and understandings of heritage than professionals or experts. However, when public presentation of heritage properties aligns most closely with an imaginary, there is little or no opportunity for public understanding of what is significant and in need of protection.

References ABC Television 2001, Selling Australia, viewed August 2001, http://abc.net.au/­ sellingaustralia/episodes.htm. Albers, Patricia C. 1992, “Postcards, travel and ethnicity: A comparative look at Mexico and the Southwestern United States”, in Meetings of the Amer­ican Anthropological Association, San Francisco. Barr, Todd 1990, No swank here? The development of the Whitsundays as a tourist destination to the early 1970s, Studies in North Queensland History, James Cook University, Townsville. Barrett, Charles 1935, “Dunk Island days”, Walkabout Magazine, vol. 1, no. 12, pp. 33–6. Barthes, Roland 1957, Mythologies, Vintage, London. Baudrillard, Jean 1983, Simulations, Foreign Agents Series, Semiotext(e), New York.

Signifiers of paradise   133 Bennett, Isobel n.d., “Papers [manuscript]. 1944–2000”, Manuscript. Text for slide show on Great Barrier Reef, National Library of Australia, MS 9348; Box 6, Series 6, Item 18, Canberra, Finding aid www.nla.gov.au/ms/findaids/9348.html. Bradsworth, Marjorie 1971, “Diaries”, State Library of Victoria, VSL: MS 12539. Brook, Isis 2003, “Making Here Like There: Place Attachment, Displacement and the Urge to Garden”, Ethics, Place & Environment, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 227–34. Buckley, Ralf and Harries, Hugh 1984, “Self-­sown wild-­type coconuts from ­Australia”, Biotropica, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 148–51. Cribb, AB and Cribb, JW 1985, Plant life of the Great Barrier Reef and adjacent shores, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia. Daily Mail 1932, “Untitled”, Daily Mail, 23 December. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Dakin, William J 1950, Great Barrier Reef and some mention of other Australian coral reefs, The Australian National Publicity Association, Melbourne. Davidson, Jim and Spearritt, Peter 2000, Holiday business: Tourism in Australia since 1870, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Davison, Graeme 1978, “Sydney and the bush: An urban context for the ­Australian legend”, Historical Studies, vol. 18, no. 71, pp. 191–209. Department of the Interior 1957, “Australian National Travel Association A.N.T.A.”, National Archives of Australia, A6895/1, N57/34. Douglas, Bronwen 2008, “Foreign bodies in Oceania”, in B Douglas and C Ballard (eds), Foreign bodies: Oceania and the science of race 1750–1940, ANU Press, Canberra, ACT, pp. 3–30. Franklin, Adrian 1996, “Australian hunting and angling sports and the changing nature of human-­animal relations in Australia”, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 39–56. Garner, Bill 2013, Born in a tent: How camping makes us Australian, NewSouth. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority 2014, Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2014, GBRMPA, Townsville, http://hdl.handle.net/11017/2855. Grove, Richard 1995, Green imperialism: Colonial expansion, tropical island Edens and the origins of environmentalism, 1600–1860, Studies in environment and history, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; New York. Harper, Melissa 2017, “Locating histories of bush-­based recreation in Australia”, History Compass, vol. 15, no. 4, p. e12377. Hogan, Trevor 2003, “ ‘Nature Strip’: Australian suburbia and the enculturation of nature”, Thesis Eleven, vol. 74, no. 1, pp. 54–75. Kapferer, Bruce 1988, Legends of people, myths of state: Violence, intolerance, and political culture in Sri Lanka and Australia, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Kapferer, Judith 1996, Being all equal: Identity, difference and Australian cultural practice, Berg, Oxford. Knowles, Joan 1997, Traditional practices in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area: A study of five communities and their attachment to the area, Unpublished Report for the Steering Committee of the Traditional Practices in the World Heritage Project, Hobart, Tasmania. Lamond, Henry George (“U.9.L”) 1948, “An island holiday”, Cummins & Campbells Monthly Magazine, vol. 24, no. 4, April, pp. 19–22. Langton, Marcia 1996, “Art, wilderness and terra nullius”, in Northern Land Council (ed.), Ecopolitics IX Conference, Northern Territory University, Darwin, pp. 11–24.

134   Cultural constructions Lock, Arnold Charles Cooper 1955, Destination Barrier Reef, Georgian House, Melbourne.  Love, AH 1953, “Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland”, Photograph Album in Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville. McGrath, Ann 1991, “Travels to a distant past: The mythology of the outback”, Australian Cultural History: Travellers, journeys, tourists, no. 10, pp. 113–24. McLean, G. Tom 1986, Captain Tom, Boolarong Publications, Mackay. Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925a, “Papers: Diary/Notebook”, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/2. Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925b, “Papers: Great Barrier Reef – Letters home”, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/8. Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925c, “Papers: Great Barrier Reef – Letters home”, Personal letters, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/5. Pocock, Celmara 2002, “Sense matters: Aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef ”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 365–81. Pocock, Celmara 2014, “Aborigines, islanders and hula girls in Great Barrier Reef tourism”, The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 170–92. Pollock, EF 1926, “Expedition to the Capricorns: Birds and turtles. No.  1”, The Australasian, 16 January. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32. Price, Zena 1994, “President’s Letter”, Proserpine Historical Museum Society Inc. Newsletter, no. 14, March. Prime Minister’s Department 1927, “Australian National Travel Association. Part I.”, Commonwealth Government records, National Archives of Australia, A458 (A458), AJ392/3 PT1. Queensland Government Tourist Bureau 1950, Isles of the Sun, Queensland, Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, Brisbane, Brochure. Queensland Tourist Development Board 1947, Report on the Tourist Resources of Queensland and the Requirements for their Development, Government Printers, Brisbane. Roughley, TC 1947, “The Great Barrier Reef as a tourist attraction”, in Queensland Government Tourist Bureau (ed.), Report on the Tourist Resources of Queensland and the Requirements for their Development, Government Printers, Brisbane, pp. 95–8. Rowe, David 1998, “Tourism, ‘Australianness’ and Sydney 2000”, in GA Lawrence and D Rowe (eds), Tourism, leisure, sport: critical perspectives, Hodder Headline, Sydney, pp. 74–85. Ryan, Simon 1996, The cartographic eye: How explorers saw Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; New York. Schaffer, Kay 1989, Women and the bush: Australian national identity and representations of the feminine. Working Paper Number 46, Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, London. Sheller, Mimi 2001, “Natural hedonism: The invention of Caribbean islands as tropical playgrounds”, in S Courtman (ed.), The Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference, vol. 2. Smith, Bernard 1992, Imagining the Pacific, in the wake of the Cook voyages, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Spillman, Lyn 1997, Nation and commemoration: Creating national identities in the United States and Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Signifiers of paradise   135 Stainton, D. 1933, “Holiday impressions of a tropic isle”, Bank Notes, June. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 3. Sunday Sun and Guardian 1935, “Lonely island: Lindeman, which supports itself ”, Sunday Sun and Guardian, 20 January, p. 3. Sydney Morning Herald 1928, “On a coral isle – not all romance – British scientists’ discomforts”, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Telegraph 1934, “This Side of Paradise …”, Telegraph, Tuesday, 29 May, p. 12. Australian Museum Archive, AMS230 Box 12 (96). The Australian and New Zealand Traveller’s Gazette 1932, “The Great Barrier Reef: Nature’s masterpiece – Xmas expedition to Hayman Island”, The ­Australian and New Zealand Traveller’s Gazette, October. Australian Museum Archive, 90/72, Book 2. Trigger, David S and Head, Lesley 2010, “Restored nature, familiar culture: Contesting visions for preferred environments in Australian cities”, vol.  5, no.  3, p. 231. Urry, John 1990, The tourist gaze: Leisure and travel in contemporary societies, Sage, London. Wachenfeld, DR, Oliver, JK and Morrissey, JI 1998, State of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area 1998, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville, http://hdl.handle.net/11017/2807. Waterhouse, Richard 2000, “Australian legends: Representations of the bush, 1813–1913”, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 31, no. 115, pp. 201–21. Watson, Eric D 1935, “The cruise of the ‘Cheerio’ ”, The Australian Banker, 2 October. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 5. Watts, JA 2000, “Picture taking in paradise: Los Angeles and the creation of regional identity, 1880–1920”, History of Photography, vol.  24, no.  3, pp. 243–50. White, Richard 1981, Inventing Australia: Images and identity 1688–1980, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney. Wigmore, Lionel G 1933, “Call of the coral: Whitsunday Passage explorers – ­expedition on Hayman Island – civilisation arrives by radio and liner”, Daily Mail, 14 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2.

6 Controlling the underwater Reef through cultivation of coral gardens

Cartographic mimesis: control over the other The unique qualities of the Great Barrier Reef have been highlighted in many accounts of the region since European colonisation. An important element of this uniqueness is the other worldliness of the underwater phenomenon. A sense of otherness that emerges from the separation of culture and nature (Fullagar 2000; Glacken 1999; Lowenthal 2000) is heightened in encounters with nature that are perceived to be threatening or inhospitable to humans. People are essentially terrestrial beings, and although we can swim and dive, human life cannot be sustained underwater, and this makes underwater encounters potently confronting and enchanting. Submarine human experience is restricted by the physical limitations of the human body and, despite advanced technologies, time spent underwater is always finite, and the underwater world remains removed from everyday experience. As such the underwater remains largely alien to human phenomenological knowledge, and the underwater world is constructed as a colonial frontier. The earliest documented European encounters with the Reef are characterised by bewilderment and fear, a perception enhanced through its geographical position in the antipodes (see, Langton 1996; Ryan 1996, pp.  105–6; White 1981, pp.  1–15). Early navigators perceived that the dangers of the Barrier Reef lay within its sheer physicality; the imagined and actual perils emanated from the labyrinth of coral reefs and the confusion of underwater formations that threatened to wreck or entrap their ships. Navigators who charted the seas depended on a clear distinction between land and sea (Ryan 1996, p. 120), but the Reef constantly challenged this delineation through the myriad of corals and shoals, and the labyrinth that confounded them was largely invisible from the surface. In the 200 years following British colonisation, charting the Reef was a continuing concern. In the earliest period navigators used extensive sailing directions and made charts, maps and drawings to aid their progress through the coral maze and eventually to enter and leave the lagoon through the outer wall. European cartography is conducted within a scientific

Cultivation of coral gardens   137 discourse that ignores the social construction of maps. Within this discourse, maps are regarded as reflections of the real and are also confused with the real (Ryan 1996, p. 101). It is from this perspective that charts of the Reef were constructed as both mimetic reflections of the Reef and as copies through which the original could be controlled. The navigational threats were mitigated or eliminated by the establishment of a familiar route through the Reef facilitated by charts. In other words, the maps and charts made by navigators were copies of the Reef through which its dangers could be controlled. Although a sense of fear continues to be associated with the navigation of the Great Barrier Reef today, for the most part it has been overcome through cartographic mimesis. Baudrillard (1983) has suggested that simulacra represented by maps are not reflections of a reality, but reflections of an abstraction. He has argued that the abstraction is now at the point where the map precedes the territory and creates the territory (Baudrillard 1983). Furthermore, he suggests that simulacra are now defined by their significance as more real than the real, that is the hyper-­real. While early navigators may not have confused the reefs and shoals with charts of the Reef, the ability of the simulated version to convert the unknown into familiar conventions is integral to how these copies operated as a powerful means of controlling the physical phenomenon. In the way that Ryan (1996) illustrated how explorers drew on pre-­ established conventions, charts created the Reef through European maritime conventions. Mapping the Reef depended on reading and interpreting existing signs and using panoramic and controlling vantage points characteristic of Western cartography. In drawing on the Jorge Luis Borges fable, Baudrillard reflects how when the map finally rotted away, the original landscape felt foreign and unfamiliar to the people. This mirrors cartographic histories of the Great Barrier Reef, as early navigators charted it and each generation of navigators adjusted the recordings of their predecessors. The resultant maps are problematically employed to manage human interaction with the Reef. Maps and charts are a central component of the management of the World Heritage Area. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority seeks to control not only the physical Reef, but also the way it is perceived and used by people, through provision of zoning maps that sanction and prohibit particular activities and define approved navigational routes. Human interaction with and experience of the Reef is not so easily captured and transformed through cartographic mimesis. Rather, mapping sets up a site of resistance or creates the capacity for human interactions to go unnoticed (cf. de Certeau 1984). Maps are created through a static Cartesian construction whereas technologies have allowed people to expand their experiences beyond the panoramic. Human interactions with the Reef change more rapidly than maps, and while the simulacrum of the map provides a comfortable place from which managers seek to control the Reef, an historical exploration of visitor experiences at the Reef suggests that human experience is antithetical to this type of surveillance.

138   Cultural constructions Historically, then, maps and charts of the Great Barrier Reef operated as copies that allowed control over the original. Maps also depend on an aerial, strategic view that is controlling and panoptical. Although charts were partly constructed through the use of soundings which gave navigators some sense of the sea floor and its composition, charts themselves operated from the surface. However, the underwater world remained inaccessible to direct human experience and continued to be perceived as a sphere of chaos and danger.

Out of control: a return to otherness As the superficial navigation through the coral shoals and islands became more familiar and people gained control over the Reef through mapping, modern developments offered a different view of the Reef that threatened to destabilise this position of power. According to Baudrillard, the simulacrum is a more comfortable place for (post)modern experience than the real world, and even in historic times cartography offered a means of building a simulacrum that created the familiar within the unfamiliar. However, initial interactions with the underwater world of the Reef initially plunged people back into the “real” world. There was no equivalent to the cartographic simulacrum for them to experience the Reef at an intimate scale. Science and technology facilitated and encouraged the opening up of an underwater frontier that was distinct from the surface and cemented the Reef as definitively different and other. Scientific observation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries paid greater attention to the life of the Reef itself, and thus began the human journey into the world beneath the sea. Scientists made observations in the coral pools on the exposed Reef at low tide where observation depended on still weather conditions and favourable tides. Holidaymakers routinely mimicked these scientific activities so that this surface perspective was the predominant way in which the Reef was experienced by visitors in the early twentieth century. Like the scientists, these visitors peered opportunistically into clear water pools left by the receding tide. Here they could see life underwater, but it was a mercurial view through the water surface. The scene was quite capricious, and any disturbance of the surface excluded and stranded the viewer from the scene. A clear view of the corals could not be guaranteed: “Incautiously you move for a better view, when suddenly the world of brilliant fish-­gems vanishes, like some illusive spectre, into the shade of the coral” (Gilbert 1925). Looking at the corals from above the surface excluded observers from participation in the world of the other, because traversing the surface expelled the viewer. Access to the underwater world was ephemeral, and the encounters chance-­like and thrilling. The experience was voyeuristic with the scene observed by non-­participant outsiders. Even though collecting marine specimens facilitated sensuous interactions, it

Cultivation of coral gardens   139 removed animals from their habitat and placed them in the surface world, making engagement in the living marine world impossible. Observation of the underwater corals and reefs from the surface maintained the Reef as distinctly other. The characteristic view of coral pools was that of something distinct from the self – the view of an outsider or even omnipotent being. These glimpses gave people their first idea of the particular nature of the underwater world. Without an equivalent simulacrum of charts and maps, human experience was challenged and overwhelmed by the excursions into the real, which was an uncomfortable space. In 1925, an Australian Museum scientist recorded that “[t]he first glance into a coral pool is bewildering” (Gilbert 1925). Some early technological developments enabled more reliable visual access to the underwater. The waterscope was a relatively simple contraption composed of a sheet of glass cemented into the base of a paraffin tin, or other cylindrical object. The glass end could be submerged just below the surface, allowing the viewer to peer through the cylinder to the scene below the surface, becoming a kind of peephole into the underwater. This equipment allowed people to view the subsurface at high tide, on windy days and from the sides of boats (Figure 6.1). Access was no longer dictated by the ebb and flow of the ocean and clement weather. The greater access afforded by waterscopes, and later glass-­bottomed boats, crossed the frontier of the underwater. People observed and compared landscapes above and below the surface. Like many colonial descriptions of new places, particularly the antipodes (Langton 1996; Ryan 1996; White 1981), descriptions of life on the Great Barrier Reef are characterised by a sense of the other, through adjectives such as “bizarre”, “weird”, “odd” and “astonishing”: “Altogether the impression one of teeming life, altering in

Figure 6.1 Tourists viewing coral through waterscopes from the side of a row boat, Lindeman Island c.1931. Source: Reproduced with permission of the Queensland State Archives (Item ID 1040532).

140   Cultural constructions the course of centuries by an infinite amount of tiny efforts, one of the strangest features on the face of the earth” (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 1926, p. 19).  Although people used the sea to bathe, and there were a few early experiments with diving, the vast majority of Reef holidaymakers had to settle for a view from the exposed reef, or through a waterscope or glass-­ bottomed boat. There was a detachment in these views from the surface not always perceived in the immersion of the modern diver. Confinement to the surface positioned the viewer as an outsider, the alter, and from this position stems a desire to engage sensuously with the other (cf. Taussig 1993). Visitors expressed frustration at being excluded and separate from the underwater and sought to get closer to experience it from within, in multi-­dimensional and multi-­sensuous ways. The limitations of the surface view compelled some visitors to plunge themselves fully dressed into the water, while others recorded their sense of alienation: Alice should certainly have extended her adventures in Wonderland to Nor’-West Islet. It is a matter for distinct regret that not even the doctors in the party are able to devise a potion to enable us to shrink sufficiently to go for a ramble in the burrows of the mutton birds, and to enjoy an occasional tea party with the crabs, instead of poking a clumsy forearm or forefinger into their haunts and receiving only a sharp nip by way of communication; and the fascination of a leisurely swim and the intricacies of the coral fronds, with their gaily-­colored [sic] population of fishes and sea-­stars and eels and animalculae, finds its nearest substitute in some fleeting glimpses through diving goggles or a water-­glass. (Wigmore 1931) This produced a tension between the need to maintain a controlling cartographic view, and the desire to engage in a multi-­sensuous way with the living Reef. Sensuous engagement is less strategic and, hence, life observed below the water appeared strange and confronting. In contrast, the strategic view of the Reef offered by maps and charts enabled navigators to steer around dangers that threatened ships on the surface. However, they did not provide a strategy to control the living threats of the hidden depths. In fact, in the early years of Reef encounters, there was as yet no comparable simulacrum of underwater life. As people acknowledged the complexity of the environment beneath the surface of the sea, new perceptions of danger emerged. People were forced to confront the real Reef in a way that maps had mitigated from a strategic vantage point. Many creatures that are now regarded as benign and passive were once characterised as malevolent. Here one has to pick one’s way carefully to avoid stepping into the quickly but forcefully closing mouth of a giant clam, or knocking one’s

Cultivation of coral gardens   141 shin against the poisonous knitting-­needle-like spikes of black echinoderms or sea-­urchins, made especially evil looking by their points of light. (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 1926, p. 19) Clams, in particular, were regarded as killers, and there are few accounts of the Reef from the first part of the twentieth century that fail to mention the risks of becoming trapped by the giant molluscs. Modern science has disclosed that certain dangerous animals do exist on the Reef, but many historical fears have been declared unfounded, including the threat of being trapped by giant clams. Contemporary conservation ethics render the natural world benign and fragile, in contrast with the threat it was thought to pose to earlier generations (see for example, Knowles 1997; Lowenthal 2000). In spite of this, fear continues to be an important element in the perception of the Reef. Fear enhances the alter state of the Great Barrier Reef and stages it for control and conservation. While many Reef dangers were alleviated through the construction and explanation of maps and science, first encounters with the underwater continued to be marked by surprise and disbelief. The exclusion of surface turbulence meant that the scene through a waterscope was sometimes in stark contrast with that on the surface. Groups of visitors who used this simple but effective tool gave out “[e]cstatic cries of wonder and admiration” (Manilla Express 1933; and also in Wigmore 1933b). The waterscope thus opened up both trepidation and delight in the other of the underwater world. You adjust your water telescope – this is usually an ordinary dipper with a glass bottom cemented in. When it is placed on top of the water and you look through the glass there is no ripple to obstruct the view, and you can see everything below as clearly as you can in your room at home. You make yourself comfortable by sitting down in the six inches or so of water at the edge of a pool, and place your feet on the coral ledge below. Then you begin to “listen in.” You throw your bread crumbs and meat into the pool, and your “picture show” commences. (Whampoa 1930, p. 20) The invention of the waterscope provided the opportunity for visitors to see the Reef and its underwater life at close quarters. While the view is perpendicular, it is one that is microscopic and immersed and less amenable to control than that from a high vantage point. The view through the waterscope is dislocated from the surface and from the surrounding immensity of the Reef. In other words, the view through the waterscope was not strategic but disorienting. It resulted in a loss of control, a loss of the composite picture created by a raised vantage point or a map.

142   Cultural constructions Even though the view through the waterscope did not achieve the multi-­ sensuous and multi-­dimensional sense of participation that accompanies snorkelling and diving, it was more like that of a participant. The experience of the Reef through the waterscope sacrificed the panoramic view, and therefore is more analogous to “walking the streets” (cf. de Certeau 1984). It is an activity much less amenable to management through maps. However, the experience through the waterscope, like later ways of accessing the underwater Reef, provided an opportunity to elaborate a different view; that of coral gardens.

Seeking similitude: coral gardens Direct observations of marine life led to the naming of the “other” with nouns and adjectives of the terrestrially familiar. Descriptions of underwater features render the unfamiliar familiar. This is not simply a matter of using the language of the colonising people but of describing elements of the underwater as artefacts of that cultural world. The choice of vocabulary is based on people’s recognition of similarities between underwater objects and those of the terrestrial cultural landscape. More particularly, nouns are used as adjectives to describe this very different world in terms of the everyday surface. One of the most common descriptions is that of the “coral gardens”: “The remainder stayed on board to fish, and running up to anchor at the edge of the reef were delighted by the under-­water views of the beautiful coral gardens … submerged by the high tide” (Watson 1935, p. 7). As people peered into coral pools at low tide or by means of a waterscope, the corals were seen as gardens of flowers: For a moment nothing is observable but the clear, still water and numerous forms of coral, the polyps of which spread out their tentacles like the petals of a small daisy. (Gilbert 1925) To gaze down through the deep blue, yet somehow crystal clear water, into what appears to be an enchanted flower garden, with blooms of unimaginable colouring and formation, and inhabited by the most weirdly and quaintly shaped marine life, of every rich conceivable and inconceivable hue, criss-­crossed, zigzagged, circled, and spiked, with colours mingled and inter-­mingled in a vision dazzling to the eye, proved a never ending joy, and held on spell-­bound at its beauty, as the ever changing picture of the waterscope was revealed. (Anderson c.1935) Other descriptions referred to corals as being like “a tropic forest” and having “tree-­like forms” (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 1926, p.  19). This animal world was more often equated with the plants

Cultivation of coral gardens   143 that make up the gardens of Europe than with any marine or Australian landscape. The comparisons extended to individual species of corals and other marine life. Within the coral gardens were mushroom, table, plate, staghorn, fan and brain corals. A comment from a 1952 documentary notes that while corals have complex scientific names, common names are attributed “for similarity to objects with which we’re familiar in our everyday life” (Cine Service Pty Ltd 1952). These names continue to be used, and the nomenclature is so easy to understand that uninformed tourists are able to readily recognise species without the tour guide needing to point them out. Similarly, fishes were named in reference to terrestrial animals; porcupine, squirrel, and bat fishes, as well as clown fish. Many are reminiscent of European countryside. And as the coral is to a flower garden, fishes are to butterflies and birds. Several species of butterfly fish are found on the Reef, as well as bird fish; hawkfish, a number of parrotfish species and “beaked” varieties of other fish, all of which invoke their avian counterparts. The parrotfish is brightly coloured, and its name suggests that the fishes of the coral reefs are brighter than any bird in Europe. It is possible that the analogy between butterflies and fishes comes partly from the netting of both in collections and research (Figure 3.3). One might expect the analogy to birds to be stronger in the correlation of fish names than those of butterflies. Fish certainly move three-­dimensionally in water as birds do in air. On reflection, however, the naming of reef fish predates snorkelling and diving and, in peering into the coral gardens from above water, visitors viewed the fish below them. The flight of birds is more likely to be noted overhead in terrestrial experience, whereas butterflies can be observed flying among flowers, below and around us. The analogy of water to sky may not have been as apparent when peering into the world of fishes from overhead, and reef fish with their brighter colours may have been more analogous to European butterflies. The immersed view in which fish “fly” above us is one that comes with diving. Divers can observe fish above and around them, and in contemporary Reef encounters underwater participation is much more possible than it was in the past. To this extent, fish-­watching has largely displaced bird-­watching and other land-­based activities. Susan Buck-­Morss (cited in Taussig 1993, p. 20) has suggested that new technologies have provided “a new schooling for our mimetic powers”. New technologies that give people greater access to the underwater world have certainly engaged a range of senses beyond the visual. They have also facilitated a much more tactile vision, the eye becoming “an extension of the moving, sensate body” (Taussig 1993, pp.  25–6). This sensate eye is able to conceive of the world around it in new ways, and motion film has unveiled new human experiences of the Reef. Citing Koch, Taussig (1993, p.  36) suggests that film provides a sensuous connection – a blending together and dissolution of images and their movement. The capacity for

144   Cultural constructions free-­diving, including snorkelling, also facilitates this new conception of the underwater world because, like film, movement in water is analogous to flying and gives the human body the capacity to gain multiple views of the same object. The analogy of diving or snorkelling to flying is a common one, and the underwater landscape is conceived of as one of garden and air rather than coral and water. The coral garden is an analogy that closely links western landscape appreciation with the otherworldly underwater, and is an important mechanism through which people engage with difference in relation to their daily multi-­dimensional experience. The viewpoint is central to the construction of the picturesque and the panoramic (Ryan 1996) and the viewpoint for the coral garden is similarly picturesque. While some explorers insert the “familiar other” into unknown landscapes (Ryan 1996, pp. 84, 117), in the case of the Reef, it is the very familiar and tamed garden that is projected onto the potentially threatening other. Through the idea of the underwater garden, the Reef is transformed from a place of threat and danger to one of safety and discipline. Gardens are essentially tamed places in which the wildness of Nature is controlled and in which human agency is paramount. As such they are simulacra of Nature. They are peaceful places, and in constructing the coral reefs as gardens, the Great Barrier Reef is rendered benign. This taming of the wild and dangerous is reinforced by the tropical paradise simulacrum. Transformation of tourist landscapes at the Reef to meet an imaginary Pacific ideal replaces the characteristically harsh and dry Australian bush with an exotic, rich and plentiful tropical growth. The colourful coral gardens and the tropical paradise with its palms, hibiscus and frangipanis mimic each other. While the coral gardens are inhabited by brightly coloured parrot and butterfly fish, the island paradise is represented by colourful parrots and butterflies. The brightly coloured denizens of each simulacrum can be seen in the people wearing brightly printed shirts and leis around their necks in the island paradise, and the colourful fishes of the coral gardens. The fish of the underwater world are described as though they are indeed people at a social gathering: “Numbers of fish are to be seen everywhere, scampering from under your feet as you bathe, and playing hide and seek among the coral” (Morrison 1925, undated letter). Fish are not only named after terrestrial creatures but ascribed human characteristics, their activities perceived to parallel human occupation and play: Unmistakable flappers in dainty and charming garden dress of pale corn colour or pale green, bright young he-­men in blue and green racecourse suits, long lank students in drab brown, fussing matrons in black and grey, scholarly parsons in black with white collar all complete, grass widows flitting here and there and flirting their spotted muslins and fur-­belows, gay bachelors in greys, steady bankers going golfing in plus fours, footballers and tennis players in accoutrements

Cultivation of coral gardens   145 that would satisfy the soul of the most exciting international representatives, shy and modest young things with blue bows and eyes that peer shyly from an almost hidden corner, tiny babies carrying a blue light and sporting their ribbons as babies were wont to do since Father Time first set his clock ticking, the stay-­at-homes in black, brown, deep red, lurking in the background – all are there in one small coral pool, and also intensely interested you may stand there every day for two hours on the edge of such a pool gazing through a water telescope, and at the end of a month’s sojourn among them all find your “insatiable curiosity” is still an “insatiable curiosity”. (Whampoa 1930, p. 20) This description translates the strangeness and diversity of the underwater world into the equivalent diversity of contemporaneous society. It ascribed anthropomorphic characteristics to the fish, distinguishing them with human temperament, and describing their colour and form as human clothing. They are further attributed with human vocations and a shared sense of play and emotion. This social gathering is befitting of a coral garden.

Aquariums as controlled gardens While the coral garden could be named to make the unfamiliar familiar, accessing the underwater remained a challenge. Without embodied access, scientists and holidaymakers found it difficult to observe living species underwater. The development of aquariums provided a means through which to observe living corals and fish. Early versions were no more than simple holding tanks that allowed scientists to observe specimens collected from nearby reefs in closer detail. These early aquariums were essentially transplanted samples of the nearby coral gardens. Aquariums of a more sophisticated nature are still used in this way by marine researchers both at Reef research stations and in laboratories at some distance away. The creation of a copy in the form of an aquarium represents an act of mimesis in which both copy and contact ensure the power of the original are maintained, and even expanded. Life in aquariums is observed as though it is the original and the scientific explanation is in no way undermined by the artifice. The control afforded by these copies provides a means of recording reef life with greater accuracy and reliability than on the Reef itself. Thus, the aquarium operates as a simulacrum that is more powerful and significant than the original. As technology was enhanced, aquariums were constructed some distance from the Reef where they could extend scientific examination and, more significantly, bring the coral gardens to those who had never visited the Reef. Photography and collections of shells and corals were not always sufficiently powerful copies of the original. The loss of colour in both

146   Cultural constructions photography and collections was particularly problematic in recreating the wonder of the Great Barrier Reef (Chapter 4). The sense of movement was also lost and vantage points were limited. Aquariums were developed to overcome some of these limitations and offered the opportunity for people to experience underwater life from the comfort and convenience of their everyday lives. However, the expertise and technology required to transport and keep reef creatures in non-­tropical environments is complex and costly, and many early experiments were unsuccessful: The collection for the Zoo is an experiment which may lead to many of the vividly coloured coral fish being brought before the eyes of the Sydney public, but this first consignment was seriously depleted when the wire net in which the catch was being towed to the boats fouled a snag. (Wigmore 1933a) The possibility of creating easy access to Reef marine life was highly desirable not only for those in distant locations but at the Reef itself. As prototypes of later visitor aquariums, underwater viewing chambers were constructed on islands. These chambers offered secure and guaranteed access to the underwater by allowing visitors to go below the surface without being submerged in person. Although observers remained on dry land, the submerged chamber ensured that wind, weather and tides on the surface did not interrupt the view. Underwater viewing chambers remain popular today, especially for those who cannot swim, snorkel or dive, and are especially enjoyed by the disabled, elderly and very young, as well as international visitors with limited swimming ability. In the second half of the twentieth century underwater viewing chambers allowed people to view the underwater without the discomfort of bending over coral pools, squeezing around the panel in glass-­bottomed boats or in fact being on water at all. People could enjoy the Reef while seated or standing in completely dry surroundings, and yet still enjoy the visual experience of immersion. Early advertisements likened the chambers to lounge rooms at home and so extended the idea of the coral garden further through analogy with the everyday, with the lounge room looking out onto the garden. In many respects the underwater viewing chamber was a real prototype for the modern aquarium. The commercial aquariums we now know are large-­scale enterprises with large glass-­fronted tanks which allow viewers to observe the exhibits from the vantage point of the underwater diver or participant. The contents are landscaped to recreate picturesque forms of the coral garden, with the most colourful and vibrant soft corals and fishes selected and arranged for optimal viewing pleasure. Observers stand and walk around as they might on land, they can converse with those around them and breathe without any apparatus. The sense of everyday participation in the underwater world is accomplished.

Cultivation of coral gardens   147 The Great Barrier Reef lies some distance off the Australian mainland, and many tourist centres on the adjacent mainland coast have some form of aquarium for tourists to visit, which frequently refer to the Great Barrier Reef in their presentation and promotion. The tropical cities of Townsville and Cairns are both relatively close to the Great Barrier Reef which forms closer to the mainland as it moves north. Townsville is home to key Reef research institutions, and Cairns is one of the key tourist centres for visiting the World Heritage Area; both boast large-­scale aquariums. Despite its proximity to the actual Great Barrier Reef, the Townsville aquarium is called “Reef HQ” and is self-­proclaimed variously as “the world’s best living reef experience”, “the world’s largest living coral reef aquarium” and is promoted with the slogan, “see the reef up close”. It is synonymous with the Reef itself and allows people to experience the Great Barrier Reef without leaving the Australian mainland. In Sydney, the Australian gateway for the majority of overseas visitors, and more than 1,000 kilometres south of the southern edge of the Reef, a large aquarium boasts that “[h]ere you will see the Great Barrier Reef close up” (Quakk.com/), and another that “The Great Barrier Reef exhibit recreates the striking appearance of one of Australia’s most well-­known features” (Expedia 2018). The aquarium facilitates access to the Reef for those who cannot visit the original location in person, and the Reef is thus experienced and understood through an elaborate simulacrum. In a further historic twist, visitors are invited to view this exhibit by way of a glass-­bottomed boat which “offers guests a unique perspective on this dazzling display” (Nabo 2017), so that “the beauty and bountiful marine life of the Great Barrier Reef ” can be enjoyed “without leaving Sydney.… Completely under cover, this tour is perfect in rain, hail or shine”. Aquariums allow people to walk around and view the underwater coral gardens as a participant, but visitors remain terrestrial – they dress conventionally, breathe without artificial aids and talk, hear and feel in air as they do in everyday life. In spite of the success of aquariums in providing almost unlimited close up views of underwater life within the everyday, there is an incomplete metamorphosis, and sensuous experience is limited to the visual. Diving, even more than snorkelling, is therefore hailed as the ultimate Reef experience.

Immersion and loss of control Free-­diving and snorkelling provide some freedom of access to the underwater Reef, but the need for oxygen limits the extent of human participation and as people are forced to the surface. The transformation of the human body has certainly been aided by the development of new technologies. Scuba gear allows people to breathe and balance in water as though they are fish, and it is possible to remain submerged for extended periods. This self-­contained equipment has allowed divers to throw off the ropes

148   Cultural constructions and tubes of earlier diving helmets that tethered them to the land. Nevertheless, the limitations are all too apparent even for modern divers; the intrusion of time, as oxygen supplies dwindle, is a reality that transgresses the transformation from human being to sea creature (Love 2000, p. 12). Diving can be a tactile experience, and an experienced diver can sense and interpret the currents and subtle changes in temperature against their skin (Allen-­Collinson and Hockey 2011, p. 338), and this is more so in warmer waters where it is not necessary to wear a dry suit or even a wetsuit, leaving more of the skin exposed (Allen-­Collinson and Hockey 2011; Merchant 2011). However, for most tourists, diving is a first-­time experience and it is the novelty of these sensations that creates moments of dysfunction in which the diver has a renewed awareness of their body (Merchant 2011). Such sensations are not necessarily ones that give rise to a sense of place. Although the capacity to dive has created new sensuous interactions in the form of floating and immersion, and a sense of flying, other everyday senses are diminished or transformed through the same technologies. The sense of three-­dimensional movement, while novel and exciting, is also disorienting; no longer is the strategic panoramic or aerial view possible – instead movement and activity surround the diver. Divers can hear sounds of the corals and fishes, but they are even more likely to hear their own bodies – particularly breathing, as air is expelled through the regulator. External sounds are distorted so that divers find it difficult to know where it originates, contributing further to a sense of disorientation. Visual senses of distance perception, scale and colour are also distorted in diving (Merchant 2011) so that visual experience can appear diminished or even disappointing. Bodily awareness for a first-­time diver is often centred on the equipment and making adjustments to a new environment, and this can distract from interactions with subaquatic marine life (Merchant 2011). Although sensuous experiences are intense, they are primarily focused on the experience of the equipment and the new watery medium that divers must learn to negotiate. Divers, like all Reef visitors, are discouraged from touching, so even though they are immersed in the underwater world, they cannot touch the external environment. There is a loss of orientation as the body moves three-­dimensionally, and sensuous experience is focused inward on the human body, rather than outward into the surrounding environment. With limited capacity to reach out and feel the surroundings, an absence of smell and taste, and a distorted sense of sound and sight, knowledge of the underwater is a generic knowledge of underwater. This is not a knowledge of place comparable with terrestrial experience. The visual perceptions are displaced so that even as sight remains a key means of experiencing the underwater Reef, it is a disoriented and dislocated knowledge.

Cultivation of coral gardens   149

Coral gardens as imagery Life underwater seems quite beyond what human beings can imagine or describe, based on their experience of the terrestrial world. A certain magical or dreamlike quality is attributed to the experience that appears to have no equivalent in their everyday knowledge: Then, of a sudden, the incredible, blazing beauty of coral hues of every conceivable shade and color [sic], and of infinitely varied structure such as no human mind could conceive, leaps to the eyes. It is a shock that electrifies the imagination. (Wigmore 1932) While visitors struggle for words to describe the Reef, photography provides a capacious means of reproducing and communicating the phenomenon (Chapter 4). Photographs can be carried and kept far from the Reef itself, and in this way they have brought the Reef from its state of alterity into the everyday. Significantly, too, photography provides an effective means through which people who have never been to the Reef can experience it. The power of the photograph is due, at least in part, to the element of contact between the original and the copy, which provides the copy with some power of, and over, the original (Sontag 1973; Taussig 1993, and Chapter 4). In this way, photographs of the Reef have maintained and expanded the element of contact that is so central to the effectiveness of Reef mimesis. The camera has made the Reef tangible and communicable. This role is particularly valuable today when conservation management has lessened direct contact between people and the Reef. Contact is a central element in the authenticity of a Great Barrier Reef experience, but even though modern-­day divers have greater access to the underwater than ever before, they are strongly discouraged from touching any marine creatures or objects. Photographs remain one of the few ways in which contact can be achieved, and the vast proliferation of photographic images of the Barrier Reef is reminiscent of Taussig’s observation that: “[a]s with cinema, the eye grasps at what the hand cannot touch” (Taussig 1993, p. 183). Close-­up views of Reef life are therefore an important indicator of authenticity in contemporary tourist experiences. Divers grope with words to express the gap between the experience and the recollection. The diver wants to latch onto and hold the feeling of being there. This helps explain the popularity of underwater photography. To me, holding camera gear gets in the way of actually “being there”, but, to many, film conveys better than words the immediacy of the underwater experience. (Love 2000, p. 10)

150   Cultural constructions It is only through images of the underwater that a fully immersed and controlled view of the coral garden is made possible. The extended corals in full bloom are captured by night photographers at greater depths than most visitors will ever encounter. The proliferation of professional photographs of corals, polyps, reefs and fishes bring a dazzling and colourful world to the surface – each frame carefully constructed to represent a coral garden that is realer than real. The issue of imagery is particularly pronounced at the Great Barrier Reef where photography, science and tourism are strongly intertwined (Pocock 2009). However, the persistent preoccupation with visual aesthetics in heritage assessments also makes other heritage properties vulnerable to displacement by copies. Photographic and other reproductive technologies are increasingly sophisticated in their capacity to mimic and even replace the original. Such copies are called on to represent heritage properties that have been destroyed or that stand in the way of development. However, such copies lack the embodied experience, the sociability, history and connection that transforms space into place, and the replicas are not the original as is discussed in the next chapter.

References Allen-­Collinson, Jacquelyn and Hockey, John 2011, “Feeling the way: Notes toward a haptic phenomenology of distance running and scuba diving”, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 330–45. Anderson, Jean c.1935, “An Ideal Holiday. The Great Barrier Reef of Australia. By Miss J. Anderson – Sydney Office”, Manuscript, Australian Museum Archive, Papers of F.A. McNeill, AN 90/72, Book 5. Baudrillard, Jean 1983, Simulations, Foreign Agents Series, Semiotext(e), New York. Cine Service Pty Ltd 1952, “The Great Barrier Reef ”, Documentary film, Screensound (441135). Collins, CM 1933, “On Hayman Island – Embury Expedition – beauties of the Barrier Reef ”, The Mackay Daily Mercury, Tuesday, 10 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 1926, “Great Barrier Reef Committee. Proposed expedition to Great Barrier Reef from London”, National Archives of Australia, A8510 (A8510/1), 201/8. de Certeau, Michel 1984, The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Expedia 2018, SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium, viewed March 2018, www.expedia. com.au/SEA-­LIFE-Sydney-­Aquarium-Darling-­Harbour.d502976.Attraction. Fullagar, Simone 2000, “Desiring nature: identity and becoming in narratives of travel”, Cultural Values, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 58–76. Gamon, GA 1935, This is Australia, Documentary Film, ScreenSound Australia (1471196). Gilbert, PA 1925, “Wild life on a coral island”, Sydney Mail, Wednesday, 30 December, pp. 8–9. Australian Museum Archive, AMS 139, Box 32.

Cultivation of coral gardens   151 Glacken, Clarence J 1999, “Reflections on the history of western attitudes to nature”, in A Buttimer and L Wallin (eds), Nature and identity in cross-­cultural perspective, Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht and London, pp. 1–17. Knowles, Joan 1997, Traditional practices in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area: A study of five communities and their attachment to the area, Unpublished Report for the Steering Committee of the Traditional Practices in the World Heritage Project, Hobart, Tasmania. Langton, Marcia 1996, “Art, wilderness and terra nullius”, in Northern Land Council (ed.), Ecopolitics IX Conference, Northern Territory University, Darwin, pp. 11–24. Love, Rosaleen 2000, Reefscape: Reflections on the Great Barrier Reef, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, Australia. Lowenthal, David 2000, “Environment as heritage”, in K Flint and H Morphy (eds), Culture, landscape and the environment; the Linacre Lectures 1997, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 197–217. Manilla Express 1933, “Call of the coral: Embury Expedition at Hayman Island”, Manilla Express, 31 January. Merchant, Stephanie 2011, “Negotiating underwater space: The sensorium, the body  and the practice of scuba-­diving”, Tourist Studies, vol.  11, no.  3, pp. 215–34. Morrison, Philip Crosbie 1925, “Papers: Great Barrier Reef – Letters home”, Personal letters, State Library of Victoria, MS 13358, 10/5. Nabo 2017, Explore the Great Barrier Reef in Sydney with SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium’s Glass Bottom Boat Experience!, viewed March 2018, www.nabo. com.au/whats-­on/event/explore-­the-great-­barrier-reef-­in-sydney-­with-sea-­lifesydney-­aquarium-s-­glass-bottom-­boat-experience-­374. Pocock, Celmara 2009, “Entwined histories: Photography and tourism at the Great Barrier Reef ”, in M Robinson and D Picard (eds), The framed world: Tourism, tourists and photography, Ashgate, Farnham, ch 10, pp. 185–97. Quakk.com Welcome to the Sydney Aquarium, viewed 11 February 2002, www. quakk.com/Austmain/nsw/Sydaquarium/Sydaquarium.htm. Ryan, Simon 1996, The cartographic eye: How explorers saw Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York. Sontag, Susan 1973, On photography, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. Taussig, Michael 1993, Mimesis and alterity: A particular history of the senses, Routledge, New York and London. Watson, Eric D. 1935, “The cruise of the ‘Cheerio’ ”, The Australian Banker, 2 October. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 5. Whampoa 1930, “The Great Barrier Reef: Living flowers”, Bank Notes, vol.  12, no. August, August, pp. 20–3. White, Richard 1981, Inventing Australia: Images and identity 1688–1980, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney. Wigmore, Lionel G 1931, “Black hordes – island subterranea – call of dawn – Sydney people on the Reef (No. 2) – Nor’West Islet”, Sun, January 2. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Wigmore, Lionel G 1932, “Blazing beauty – new world of coral reef – man Friday – will be world’s playground (No.  1)”, Sun, 9 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1.

152   Cultural constructions Wigmore, Lionel G 1933a, “Among the birds and fishes of the Barrier Reef ”, Daily Mail, Saturday, 21 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2. Wigmore, Lionel G. 1933b, “Call of the coral: Whitsunday Passage explorers – expedition on Hayman Island – civilisation arrives by radio and liner”, Daily Mail, 14 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 2.

7 The Great Barrier Reef as hyper-­reality and World Heritage

The previous two chapters have shown how visitors’ embodied encounters with the Great Barrier Reef are achieved through two simulacra: the coral garden and tropical island paradise. These fuse the underwater and the islands into a commodity, a commodity that has become fetishised because it is misconceived as natural and wild even though the experienced land­ scape is entirely a simulacrum. At the same time, these localised and indi­ vidual experiences of the simulacra are themselves fused into a single entity through the simulacra of maps and photographic imagery. This is signi­ ficant because the overarching conception of the Great Barrier Reef as a single and natural entity is fundamental to its World Heritage status. Its size and naturalness are central to how the region is managed and how vis­ itors appreciate it. The natural quality of the Reef is its most important attribute. The World Heritage system isolates and rarefies naturalness as a distinct and important element of significance. Despite some recent attempts to integrate or make provision for the integration of natural and cultural values, Nature is assessed under its own system without reference to those who ascribe or inscribe the values. Authentic visitor experiences of the Great Barrier Reef are dependent on this “naturalness”, or an encounter between humans and “nature”; Self and Other. While such encounters and ways of valuing the Reef are possible for coral reefs and natural environments elsewhere in the world, a key element of the Out­ standing Universal Value of the Great Barrier Reef rests on the unparalleled scale of this natural phenomenon. This chapter explores how this preoccu­ pation with uncontaminated nature of unprecedented scale produces mis­ understandings that impact how the region is valued and managed.

The simulacra of a single natural reef The endless reproduction of images of both the coral garden and the trop­ ical island paradise are integral to the process of the Reef being made into a fetishised commodity. While the coral garden and the tropical island are imaginaries, photographs serve to uphold the view that both are natural and pristine by eliminating human, particularly industrial, activity. Postcards,

154   Cultural constructions tourism brochures, advertisements and other commercial reproductions largely exclude the industries that thrive on the Reef and adjacent main­ land. In this way they serve to enhance the commodification and fetishisa­ tion of Nature, and it is this aspect of the Reef that is misconceived and that gives rise to the Reef as a fetishised commodity. While photography has a long history and continuity of use in Reef experiences (Chapter 4 and Pocock 2009), its widespread adoption and affordability in the late twentieth century coincided with a rise in conserva­ tion measures that curtailed shell and coral collecting. Photography subse­ quently came to fulfil the role of fossicking and collecting. Like other kinds of collections, photographs can be sorted and catalogued, and most signifi­ cantly personal photographs also retain a sense of contact with the Reef itself. Just as the types of shells collected at the Reef were not of much con­ sequence, so too photographs captured at the Reef do not have to be “good photographs” or even a good likeness to maintain the power of contact. It is the perception of contact between the souvenired coral or photograph and the Great Barrier Reef commodity that gives both their particular significance. More than mere memory aids, these acts of souve­ niring create a tangible object that is perceived to be part of the original, and which assumes the power of the original. Shells are still popular in the souvenir trade associated with the Great Barrier Reef and some of their significance rests in their status as “natural” objects, or as a part of “Nature”. In this way, too, aquariums have come to be an important and “natural” link between the underwater coral gardens and the everyday ter­ restrial world. As copies of the coral pools and the underwater world, aquariums continue the chain of replicating images of the Reef that is necessary to the fetishised commodity. While postcards, purchased shells and aquariums lack the connection created through embodied acts of col­ lecting or photography, relatively early in the colonial history of the Reef, the original began to be described as the copy as a way of communicating its significance. The coral pools and underwater world marine life of the original Great Barrier Reef were described as aquariums. For instance, the narration for a 1935 film, This Is Australia, suggests that the Great Barrier Reef is an aquarium and the life within it, merely items of display: “The Great Barrier Reef, the grave of many a ship, a golden expanse of amber coral, built by tiny insects, a marvellous aquarium. Now look at the exhib­ its: there’s a dogfish … a bêch-de-­me …” (Gamon 1935). In a similar way, photographs have become more real than the real and photography has also made the cartographic real. The process which commenced with car­ tographic conventions of navigation ultimately realised the Reef as a single image through aerial photography and satellite imagery. The endless production of photographs and the creation of aquariums affirms the status of the Reef as a fetishised commodity and also produces the hyper-­real (Eco 1986), in which the copies appear more authentic than the original. For many snorkellers and divers the experience of entering the

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   155 underwater world of the Great Barrier Reef is reminiscent of the aquarium, and in relating the thrill of her first dive on the Great Barrier Reef, Karen Miller recalled “[t]here were many mixtures of parrotfish and butterfly fish, which always remind me of aquarium fish” (Miller 2001). This inver­ sion of the role of copy and original, between the aquarium and the Great Barrier Reef, is further sublimated in the example of ReefWorld.

Hyper-­reality at ReefWorld ReefWorld is a self-­contained aquarium centre. Like many modern aquari­ ums, it offers a viewing chamber, souvenir shop, kiosk and dining, and there are opportunities to swim with the exhibits. At ReefWorld you can do almost everything that you can do in a city aquarium. But you can also do more. You can go outdoors and lie on a sundeck, enjoy a breath-­taking aerial view of the Reef from a helicopter, or take a look at a living wall of coral from a semi-­submersible boat. All this is possible because of the extraordinary fact that ReefWorld is situated on Hardy’s Reef on the Outer Great Barrier Reef. ReefWorld (Figure 7.1) is a large offshore pontoon and shares some similarities with theme parks such as Disney World (see, for example, Ber­ leant 1997, for an aesthetic analysis of Disney World; Eco 1986). It is different in that time intrudes and there are real dangers associated with

Figure 7.1 ReefWorld offshore pontoon, Hardy Reef. Source: © W. Stewart. Reproduced with permission of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (CN-43B-3-18).

156   Cultural constructions the Outer Reef. Pontoons act like small islands and offer a sense of security to what otherwise would surely be recognised as a foolhardy activity; plunging into the depths of the ocean some seventy-­five kilometres from land. “Walking on the pontoon is comparable to walking on land, and the structure allows easy access to all activities” (Pure Pleasure Cruises 1999). People can swim along a section of coral wall at Hardy’s Reef, cordoned off by ropes which create the illusion of security and containment. Visitors are advised to stay within this section and lifeguards keep a lookout for anyone straying too far. Strong currents are a real threat, and deaths in similar enclosures are reported in the media from time to time. But ostens­ ibly visitors are at liberty to explore any part of the Reef. Only one area is declared a no-­go zone: snorkellers and divers are requested not to swim in front of the glass wall of the underwater viewing chamber. On one end of the pontoon is a darkened auditorium with rows of benches where visitors can sit and watch the world of corals and fishes. This is like many theatres in aquariums built on land. The water through the window is a luminous blue from the daylight that streams through from the surface. It is at once familiar and strange and seems to represent a moment in which mimesis and alterity blur. At one level the rule about not swimming in front of this chamber appears to simply ensure that fish are not frightened away by divers and snorkellers, leaving those in the chamber with nothing to see. However, as Love (2000, p.  6) notes, “fishes move largely indifferent to human intrusion”, and schools of fish flow all around the snorkellers and divers swimming along the edge of the coral wall. Some, like the large maori wrasse, Wally, seem to seek visitors out, having become accustomed to them, while others boldly face up to their own reflection in glass of snorkeller facemasks. The presence of swimmers therefore seems unlikely to rid the viewing area of all fish. At other less elaborate pontoons such as the one at Kelso Reef off Townsville there are no such restrictions and fish appear to be unbothered by people in the water. It is more likely that the prohibition on people in front of the viewing chamber at the ReefWorld pontoon enhances the sense of Nature. It also enhances the sense of the aquarium. The Outer Barrier Reef is regarded by many as the most authentic part of the Great Barrier Reef and is promoted as providing visitors with a “genuine” Reef experience. It is for this experience that people must travel beyond the mainland city aquariums. This is what it is all about: the vast­ ness, the vivid colours, the swirls of corals and ribbons of blue, the depth of water beyond the security of the coral wall, the immense and infinite phenomenon, all out of reach of land. ReefWorld achieves this through mimicking the mimesis of the aquarium. It is a brilliant case of what Taussig has described as “an almost drug-­like addiction to mime, to merge, to become other – a process in which not only images chase images in a vast, perhaps infinitely extended chain of images, but one also becomes matter” (Taussig 1993, p.  43). For ReefWorld is not simply a facility in

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   157 which people can view the “real” thing. It has captured essential elements of the modern-­day aquarium in its construction, presentation and associ­ ated amenities. It has also reproduced many other elements of a Great Barrier Reef experience including a range of historically constituted activ­ ities such as sunbathing on islands, climbing down into the underwater observatory, viewing corals from a glass-­sided vessel, taking helicopter rides and learning to scuba dive and snorkel. ReefWorld is therefore a simulacrum of several simulacra. ReefWorld is another expression of Taussig’s observation that, more than ever, mimetic technology has led to an excess that results in mimetic faculty and mimetic historical product turning on one another, so that the self is no longer separable from its alter (1993, p. 252). The effectiveness of the aquar­ ium or the pontoon as a copy of the original depends on both copy and contact and is not dependent on realism alone (Taussig 1993, pp.  10–11). Rather, the aquarium encapsulates the sublime, and transforms that which is beyond human comprehension into a package for consumption. The direct experience of the Great Barrier Reef is thus likened to an aquarium. ReefWorld’s ascendancy lies in its mimesis of the original and its copies. It brings together all aspects of Reef visitors’ history in a space that could constitute the original. The original has been observed, copied and sampled, taken away, and then brought back to the authentic location in which it originated; transformed, enriched and more powerfully authentic.

Loss of place ReefWorld brings together the outer limits of Reef encounters: the Outer Reef and the safety and comfort of an island or city aquarium; aerial scenery and the intimacy of coral gardens. Although described as providing an authentic Reef experience, as a third-­stage simulacrum, ReefWorld no longer represents any original. Furthermore, ReefWorld epitomises the loss of sense of place that characterises contemporary Reef encounters. As argued in earlier chapters, a sense of place derives from the experiences of a knowing sensate body, a sense of orientation and location, as well as a sense of time. Tourist activity at ReefWorld suggests that few if any of these attributes are experienced by contemporary Reef visitors. Rather, these experiences are reminiscent of what Augé (1995) has identified as non-­places. If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or histor­ ical or concerned with identity will be a non-­place. The hypothesis advanced here is that supermodernity produces non-­places, meaning spaces which are not themselves anthropological places and which … do not integrate the earlier places: instead these are listed, classified, promoted … and assigned to a circumscribed and specific position. (Augé 1995, pp. 77–8)

158   Cultural constructions For Augé “anthropological places” are established and symbolised – and socially inscribed in both space and time. In contrast, non-­places are characterised by a pervasiveness of the sign, and a lack of both identity and relationship. For Augé the spaces of travel are the archetype of non-­ places in supermodernity (Augé 1995, p.  86). de Certeau (1984, pp.  103–4) similarly suggests that the proper names attributed to loca­ tions supplant places and create “nowhere place”. He suggests that proper names attribute direction to an itinerary and provide impetus for movement, but this movement cannot be foreseen prior to the action of movement. Hence de Certeau argues that proper names are always retro­ spective of practice, and named locations replace places which are instead transformed into passages of movement that create “nowhere place” or, using Auge’s term, non-­place. However, Augé (1995, p. 85) suggests that through such place names, the locations themselves gain status as a part of a journey. He argues that a horizon is a necessary part of any journey and that movement traverses places so that place names are accumulated as words and non-­places to create the necessary itinerary. A journey such as this is one of more than a single place and is brought about through the traveller’s own movement and the external moving landscape which is accumulated by the traveller as a series of “snapshots” (Augé 1995, pp. 85–6). These snapshots can also be interpreted as the isolated single points in an itinerary as opposed to the journey which links them together. These snapshots characterise the way in which travellers’ experiences of place have changed. Journeys of supermodernity are routed around places by way of highways and other corridors that skirt around places with living history and identities. The traveller is no longer privileged with insight into everyday lives of particular places in travel­ ling through those places. Instead signs along highways declare the historical nature of a particular region and thus history is replaced with its signifiers (Augé 1995, p. 73; Mate and Pocock 2018). So non-­place is, first, without history. Importantly, Augé identifies how an individual can fulfil the role of spectator without having a focus on the spectacle itself. One of the con­ ditions of supermodernity is that the individual loses the usual referents of identity and instead is only defined by their role or action within a par­ ticular non-­place (Augé 1995, pp. 103–6). The traveller who thus identifies through the act of being a spectator, rather than focusing on an actual spectacle, is illustrative of this. As such the tourist identifies as a spectator and this becomes the spectacle itself (Augé 1995, p. 86). This is significant because it recognises that it is not only the subject of the tourist gaze (Urry 1990, 1992), but also the act of gazing that is important to the traveller and which establishes tourist identities in supermodernity. This act of gazing enables tourists to identify with the promotional imagery of non-­ places, to imagine themselves in the position of the gazer. Augé suggests that while the image only portrays something about the would-­be traveller,

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   159 the object of the gaze is named as a particular destination and thus consti­ tutes a classic non-­place (Augé 1995, p. 86). The third factor in non-­places is the question of relatedness. In contrast with modernity in which old and new were interwoven into a working whole, supermodernity reduces all history, local particularity and exoti­ cism into forms of spectacle. There is also a lack of synthesis with any par­ ticular curiosity along a journey equated to all others, so that they remain equivalent and unconnected (Augé 1995, pp.  110–11). Similarly, Casey (1996) suggests that regions, defined as broad spatial units comprising a number of interrelated and co-­located places, can be undermined by a lack of relationships and a lack of distinction. He suggests that the absence of any clear relationship between a series of places obscures local knowledge. Further, he suggests that when places of a related region lack individual specificity or distinction they merge into one another and the region reverts to abstract space (Casey 1996, pp.  45–6). Augé, however, characterises equivalency and unrelatedness not with space but with non-­place. Idealised destinations are identified by Augé as another form of non-­ place which is more properly an imaginary place. These places are “banal utopias” and clichés that only exist as the words that evoke them. Unlike de Certeau’s non-­places which represent a disjunction between everyday use and lost myth, in imagined places words create images which in turn create myths that are realised through television, imagining and tourism (Augé 1995, pp. 95–6). These imaginary places are not classic non-­places by Augé’s own definition either. His non-­places are defined by the words and texts which provide instruction or information to people and which thus define their behaviour and in turn their prescribed identity as travel­ ler, shopper or driver. Non-­places are also defined by time because they are subject to timetables and itineraries. However, this is not expansive or historical time because non-­places are only lived in the present and history only exists in the form of spectacle (Augé 1995). These characteristics of non-­place and the loss of place pertain to many contemporary tourist encounters with the Reef, particularly the idealised tours to pontoons such as ReefWorld. The journey from the island resorts of the Whitsundays to ReefWorld was by way of a large fast catamaran. A printed timetable suggested that there were several alternative departure times on any particular day, giving the impression that the trip was analogous to everyday commuting. In reality these different departure times simply reflected the sequence of embarkation points for passengers on each of the island resorts linked to the tour. This skewed passenger expectation about the frequency of departures but also the duration of the journey to the Outer Reef, distorting the sense of time even before passen­ gers boarded the vessel. The journey to Hardy’s Reef thus commenced with ports of call at key island resorts, and these were some of the few locations mentioned by the skipper. It took just under two hours to travel from South Molle Island, the last point of embarkation, to the ReefWorld

160   Cultural constructions pontoon. During the voyage, the majority of passengers sat inside in the air-­conditioned cabin. There, and on the outer deck, television screens dis­ tracted people from the voyage, further diminishing any sense of move­ ment in space and time. Although ReefWorld and its recent pair, Heart Pontoon, provide several means through which to experience the Reef, these are by-­and-large visual. The focus of activities, including diving and snorkelling, is on looking at the Reef. Human vision is always partial rather than panoramic or all encompassing (Rodaway 1994, pp. 131–3) and contemporary experiences of the Reef increasingly focus on visual amenity in isolation from a fully sensate and thinking body. The all-­encompassing vision of the Reef, from the air or outer space, is not an embodied sensuous experience and does not contribute to a sense of place. Similarly, intimate encounters with the living Reef are increasingly experiences of dislocated and disembodied visual sense. The Reef commodity represented simultaneously by close-­up and distant imagery is only possible through the camera and interactions with the underwater sphere are similarly mediated by technology. Techno­ logy always intervenes between people’s bodies and the Reef itself. While some technologies enhance our sensuous appreciation (cf. Rodaway 1994), the increasing focus on visual senses has displaced many others. This is particularly the case with scuba diving (see, Merchant 2011). In addition, the living Reef can only be experienced sensuously as small parts of the strategic whole. It is not possible to have a multi-­sensuous knowledge of the conceptual whole. Human appreciation of the Reef is therefore strongly tied to technological advances and mimetic capacity. At ReefWorld guide ropes create a swimming enclosure that provides security for visitors. This ensures that people can find their way back to the pontoon with only the most basic sense of relative orientation. Even immediate physical danger is no longer a personal concern. The Great Barrier Reef is presented as synonymous with this small cordoned-­off section of the Hardy Reef lagoon. The catamaran and pontoon on which people spend most of their time are both examples of archetypal non-­ places that characterise modern travel (Augé 1995). Although they were occupied by large numbers of people, these people were largely anonymous to one another. Except for those travelling together in couples or groups, people were only identified through their roles as either tourists or staff. The lack of a sense of place is not, however, restricted to ReefWorld or even to aquariums or other pontoons. Rather, the history of visitor inter­ actions with the Reef suggests that contemporary tourist experiences are of an imaginary non-­place rather than of place. This is the case even in the most immediate physical encounters with the geographic space of the region as is seen in tourist resorts on the islands which mimic one another, and most importantly mimic other parts of the Pacific, itself an imagined destination. As such they have become a series of equivalent and unrelated

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   161 spaces in a broader region which itself lacks distinction. Consequently, the Great Barrier Reef is experienced as non-­place. This is not to say that the region cannot be perceived as place. Despite Augé’s bleak portrayal of contemporary society – or a lack of society – he recognises that there are many forms of contemporary existence and that the non-­places of supermodernity are only one of these. Significantly, too, he maintains that places can be constituted within non-­place, and that non­place is never an absolute state. Establishing places that are meaningful within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area may therefore offer a possibility for its future care.

Conservation of the Great Barrier Reef Much of the conservation effort at the Reef is focused on preserving par­ ticular aspects of the physical environments. Despite ever new threats to the well-­being of the Reef, many of the same elements that underpin dis­ tinctive experiences of place for early Reef visitors still exist today, and these natural features continue to frame local residents’ sense of place. However, for visitors, there has been a profound shift in the ways in which they interact with these environments. This has occurred primarily through a preoccupation with visual qualities that characterises management, tourism and heritage assessment and which are reinforced through conser­ vation measures. The reliance on visual amenity allows many aspects of the Reef to be mis­ conceived. The technologies of visual reproduction make use of a number of manipulative techniques, but photography is credited with representing a reality, and through photographs imaginary conceptions of the Reef are made real. The beauty of the Reef is presumed to be intrinsic in the “natural” qualities of the region, and a focus on photographic appreciation ensures that such experiences are unaffected by the smell of death and decay, slimy touch, excessive heat, insect bites or danger. These images also reinforce the Reef commodity by removing evidence of human interference, and this allows the Reef to be understood as “natural” and synonymous with Nature. So too, the single Great Barrier Reef imagined through carto­ graphy has achieved reality through a synthesis of aerial imagery. This, in particular, is core to the way in which the region is valued and managed and was instrumental in the establishment of the world’s largest marine park. The conservation lobby successfully campaigned to preserve the entire region as a single protected area, rather than a series of discrete marine parks, on the basis of ecological arguments that the many individual reefs operate as an interrelated whole (Wright 1977). In this way the size of the Reef which originates in the cartographic creation of a single entity is taken as syn­ onymous with the natural qualities of the region. The naturalness and size of the Great Barrier Reef go hand in hand in the recognition of the phenomenon as unique and of Outstanding Universal

162   Cultural constructions Value. While the single Reef is a construction, nature is also misconceived. The notion of Nature as Other is essential to management. Without the dualism between nature and culture, management and conservation lose their purpose. For if human activity is considered to be part of natural pro­ cesses, managers and conservationists would not feel obliged to reverse instances of human impacts. On this basis Milton (2000) has argued that it is in the interests of conservation to uphold and extend the separation of people and nature. The insistence on this binary results in an ambiguity in the way in which conservationists operate. Management and conservation wish to eliminate human interference in the natural sphere, but this requires a denial or exclusion of their own activities that are other forms of interven­ tion (Milton 2000). In this way too, control and protection of the Great Barrier Reef as a natural phenomenon becomes ambiguous. Management is not simply about allowing biological and geological processes to continue, but rather requires control and discipline of the Reef. The control that management seeks is the prevention of contagion between industry (or Culture) and the Reef (or Nature). The threats from people are seen as both direct, as in instances of physical collision or oil spills, and indirect, through occurrences like global warming and associ­ ated coral bleaching. Both are regarded as instances of contamination, in both a magical and physical sense, that leads to a loss of Nature. “Humans have had it good till now. Now the corals are telling us – beware. Our time may be coming to an end. Watch out for the corals. When they go, we’ll follow” (Love 2000, p. 188); despite her deep time account of geology and the coming and passing of reefs in the past, Love’s comment clearly sug­ gests that the future of humanity is interchangeable with the future of the Reef. This suggests a totemic relationship between people and Reef. However, the symbolism of the Reef is equivocal as both a threat and a source of well-­being; the health of the Reef is a reflection of the health of the people, and yet it is possible for the people to be drowned, wounded by deadly marine stingers or savaged by large marine predators. Control over these dangers has been effected through mimesis as a means of colonisation (cf. Taussig 1993). This is a two-­way process in which people transform the otherworldliness of the Reef into the everyday, and simultaneously seek to become Other. This has been accomplished through a range of mimetic technologies and the creation of simulacra that allow visitors to experience the Reef in ways analogous to their everyday activities and surroundings. At the same time other technologies have transformed the human body from terrestrial being to marine creature, enabling visitors to enjoy intimate encounters with the underwater world as participants. However, the desire to be Other runs contrary to conserva­ tion in which humans are excluded from Nature. The production and reproduction of Reef images and other simulacra are careful to maintain this idea of a distinctive and separate nature. The profusion of Reef postcards and advertising deny widespread industrial

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   163 activities in the region; sugar mills, mine sites, cattle stations, coal carriers and transport infrastructure are all invisible. Pictures of the Reef show bril­ liant colours, unadulterated beaches and healthy marine life. There are few images of the everyday industrial or domestic world. Beyond the images, maintenance and work activities associated with the tourist industry are carefully disguised; taking place in the early hours of the morning, in segregated parts of islands, resorts or towns, or elsewhere that it can be made invisible. Human intervention is hidden so that the simulacra are made more effective. This is not merely a matter of creating the tourist gaze (Urry 1990) but of maintaining Nature as other. In spite of the control that mimesis facilitates over the other, contagion threatens to undermine that relationship. The distinction between the Reef and people, its position as Nature in opposition to Culture, underlies how the region is managed, which is founded on the dualism of industry and nature. Instances of contagion between Nature and people disrupt these relationships and highlight misconceptions in management of the Reef.

Box 7a  Case Study: Bunga Teratai Satu On 2 November 2000, the container ship Bunga Teratai Satu crashed onto the Great Barrier Reef, 22 nautical miles southeast of Cairns. The incident and the subsequent reparation made national and international headlines. The ship had stuck fast to Sudbury Reef, in essence a small part of the greater World Heritage Area. However, the reaction sparked by the incident suggested otherwise. The perceived impact was far greater, and it seemed that the whole of the Great Barrier Reef was under threat. Similar arguments were successful in the lobby to create the Marine Park in the 1970s (Wright 1977). However, unlike in the cases of oil spills, mining, coral bleaching and Crown of Thorns outbreaks, the damage resulting from this particular inci­ dent can be seen as relatively contained. Nevertheless, it represented an instance of direct contagion between industry and nature, and as such threat­ ened all of Nature. Contagion between the two opposing elements threat­ ened not only that particular location on the Reef, but the phenomenon as a whole. Significant physical damage occurred to the corals of Sudbury Reef when the tanker struck. Initial reports suggested that the ship left a 70-metre long gouge in the coral. Further threats were also identified from the contents of the vessel. There was no suggestion that the ship itself was damaged or that its contents would escape their containers. However, media coverage sensa­ tionalised the oil, chemicals and other pollutants on board. Freeing the coral of the ship became a priority, and several unsuccessful attempts were made to refloat the Bunga Teratai Satu in the days after it was grounded. It was almost two weeks before tugboats were able to pull the tanker from Sudbury Reef, and not until three sections of the reef had been removed with explo­ sives. A history of Reef navigation and the passage of time have demon­ strated that wrecks can in fact be as rich, if not richer, in biological diversity

164   Cultural constructions as other marine locations. However, the possibility of leaving this ship on the Reef was never considered – not least because the vessel was intact and its cargo destined for Australian consumers. Nevertheless, its presence was seen as particularly polluting because of the anti-­fouling agents used on the ship’s hull. This is toxic to marine life, and even after the ship was removed, con­ servation groups suggested that its effects would be felt for up to five years (WWF Australia 2000). There was also something more to this repulsion, which is echoed in Love’s (2000, p. 77) comment that “[h]umans build arti­ ficial reefs from old tyres and concrete blocks. Nature, one hopes, will do better”. Why is the interference of humans, or the addition of artificial materials to the Reef so abhorrent, if they ultimately extend the diversity and richness of marine life that is valued and revered in World Heritage listing? Once the ship was freed from the Reef, divers immediately went under­ water to see what damage had been done. A film from this excursion was released for television news and the public was shown an underwater desert with lots of sand and coral rubble. In these colourless depths viewers saw not the colourful fish and coral usually associated with the Reef, but grey sharks and stonefish that had begun to recolonise the area. While this might have been considered a positive and remarkable speed for initial signs of recovery, what is emphasised in the reports is the return to danger and chaos. The Australian reported on 12 January 2001 that a clean-­up operation had begun to restore the area of impact. With a shark as an inquisitive visitor and poisonous scorpion fish pro­ viding an occupational hazard, divers were yesterday cleaning up the mess left by a Malaysian container ship that ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef late last year. (Pryor 2001) Scorpion fish include lionfish and firefish which, although venomous, are renowned for their striking form, brilliant colour and beauty. In this report, however, the scorpion fish, together with the sharks and stonefish shown in the news footage, were relegated to the poisonous, dangerous and ugly. Stonefish are adept at camouflage and are able to transform themselves into the grey and mottled colours of the sea floor. Because they present a hidden danger they are characterised as threatening and malicious, and the stonefish is referred to as the ugliest of all fish. In contemporary promotion and experi­ ence of the underwater corals these dangerous creatures are seldom high­ lighted. The incident of the tanker and the destruction it caused can therefore be seen to have disrupted more than this specific area. The colourful coral gardens were returned to a colourless and dangerous threat. There was also a loss of the order and containment of the garden. A strong call by conserva­ tion groups to have all vessels escorted through the Inner Route suggests that the control achieved through cartographic mimesis had been lost. The contagion caused by the tanker further hints at another form of con­ tagion seldom recognised in relation to the Great Barrier Reef and World Heritage listing. The recognition of the Reef as a place of universal value brings with it a strong implication of global ownership which has been a source of conflict for many local communities at World Heritage properties.

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   165 The Reef is also presented and constructed through an idealised Pacific that displaces its Australian context (Chapter 5). Furthermore, the tropical islands and coral gardens can both be seen as colonial constructs laden with values of the British Empire. The Bunga Teratai Satu therefore poses another form of pollution, and that is of the exotic or foreign. The fact that the tanker was Malaysian – Asian and Other – was given considerable attention in the press even though the goods were intended for Australian consumption. At a time when the refugee debate was raging, the Reef incident reflected heightened Australian xenophobia. It was one of the few instances in which the Reef was claimed by the Nation and not for the world, exposing some of the values implicit in heritage regimes and the groups whom they best represent. The physical area of impact from both the collision of the Malaysian tanker and the consequent management and recovery strategies is relatively small in relation to the 350,000 square kilometres of coral reefs and islands that constitute the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The contamina­ tion, in a magical sense, however, was polluting of Nature. Contagion occurred when the carefully separated elements of nature and industry mingled as a result of the accident. Maintaining the separation of industry from nature forms the focus of Reef management today. The idea of the authentic, pristine naturalness of the Reef is an essential part of the way it is valued by the listing processes of World Heritage. It is these underlying con­ cepts of authenticity, nature and wildness that underpin the value of the Reef as a commodity. Management and visitor experience of the World Heritage Area are oriented towards maintaining and witnessing these “natural” values and preventing contagion between two opposing forces. It is ironic that the human influence so central to the establishment of the garden, the islands and the conceptual whole that provides people with control over the Reef, is also a source of contamination and destruction. This ambiguity creates a series of contradictions that undermine conservation of the Great Barrier Reef, including: • • • •

Through mimesis people seek to control the other, and also to become other. The Reef is both a source of well-­being and a source of danger. People must not interfere with Nature, but intervention is necessary to (re)construct or maintain “nature”. Biodiversity enriched through artificial means is less valuable than nat­ urally occurring biodiversity.

And of particularly potency is the idea that the threat to one small reef could undermine the integrity and authenticity of the whole Reef, and by implica­ tion, the health and future of all humanity.

References Love, Rosaleen 2000, Reefscape: Reflections on the Great Barrier Reef, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, Australia. Pryor, Cathy 2001, “Divers begin reef clean-­up”, The Australian, 12 January, p. 22.

166   Cultural constructions Wright, Judith 1977, The coral battleground, Twentieth anniversary commemorative edition 1996 edn, Angus & Robertson, Sydney. WWF Australia 2000, Collision legacy lingers: Malaysian container ship leaves lasting impression, viewed 12 March 2002, www.gbr.wwf.org. au/.

The ultimate view of a single Great Barrier Reef is that from space. In one picture it is possible to conceptualise the Reef as a whole, to comprehend and control it through a reproduction that has the power of the real. At the same time, the complexity and diversity of the Reef is illustrated through reproductions of its intimate life forms. In this way the Reef that people experience is a cinematic collage. The collage is made up of mul­ tiple images at different scales and from different viewpoints. It comprises strategic satellite and aerial imagery, scenic panoramas and images of islands and seascapes. There are also surface images of and by tourists, in hotels or by pools, on islands, ships and dinghies, walking on beaches and resting under palm trees. The collage brings underwater divers and the living reef to the surface in detailed close-­up imagery of polyps, fish, sea slugs and microorganisms. The challenge to management is that these activities and views are not singular or strategic. For all that the Reef is renowned for its immensity, most people experience it through very small parts. These experiences of the Reef are antithetical to management. Management is dependent on the pan­ opticon, or strategic view as represented by maps, aerial photographs and zoning. However, the way in which people actually experience the Reef, through snorkelling and diving, aquariums and glass-­bottomed boats, is through its parts. In other words, management operates through a fallacy of the Reef as a whole. This is analogous to de Certeau’s (1984) walking the streets in which the strategic view of management is unable to reflect the experiences and practices. The way in which people experi­ ence the underwater Reef is also reminiscent of Dr Aziz in Salman Rush­ die’s Midnight’s Children. Dr Aziz treats a female patient through a hole in a sheet that is held up to preserve her virtue. In diagnosing and treat­ ing the woman in small sections, Dr Aziz falls in love with the parts rather than the whole: “In short: my grandfather had fallen in love, and had come to think of the perforated sheet as something sacred and magical” (Rushdie 1981, p.  24). In this way, too, people have fallen in love with the Great Barrier Reef, and the technology that facilitates access to the underwater is itself sacred and magical. Whether looking through the water surface, a waterscope, glass-­bottomed boat, aquarium porthole, camera, microscope, or even facemask, visual interaction with the underwater Reef is analogous to looking through a perforated sheet. In spite of all the technology that facilitates access to the underwater world, the Great Barrier Reef remains alter and human experience

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   167 limited. However, it is the fragmented vignettes that are frequently inter­ preted as the aesthetic values of the World Heritage Area. The Great Barrier Reef is renowned for its aesthetics. In the most com­ monly held understanding of aesthetic appreciation, the dramatic visual experiences of the underwater are without question the most widely regarded of its attributes. At the same time, it is the unfathomable scale of the region represented in maps and mesmerising aerial photographs and satellite images that makes the region unique. So, while aesthetic values may be considered a discrete category of heritage significance and assessed separately from other values, aesthetic and sensuous encounters between visitors and the environs of the Great Barrier Reef are fundamental to its distinction as a unique global phenomenon. These aesthetic qualities are not intrinsic to the natural features, but created through historical encoun­ ters mediated by technology, and critical to the conservation history of the Great Barrier Reef. A key aesthetic experience is the pull between fear and excitement. The endless expanse of underwater corals incited fear in early European navig­ ators, while the intriguing diversity of life below the surface excited the naturalists who accompanied these voyages. The apparent bounty of the tropical islands and seas presented an opportunity for both scientific and commercial exploitation that paid little heed to short- or long-­term impacts; impacts that were in many instances dramatic and almost immediate. By the late nineteenth century, pearl shell used in button manu­ facturing had largely been depleted, and the turtle soup canneries estab­ lished on Heron Island and North West Isle in the 1930s ceased operations after just a few years due to the decimation of turtle populations. Despite the recognition that such practices were unsustainable, the idea of natural abundance was deeply entrenched in the public mind, and the islands of the Great Barrier Reef continued to be idealised as paradise on earth. Famously, journalist Edmund (Ted) Banfield and his wife Bertha Banfield moved to Dunk Island in 1897 following Ted’s emotional break­ down. They sought solace and a simple life on the island, one inspired by a love of nature (Bowen and Bowen 2002, pp. 226–7; Noonan 1986). And yet they struggled to realise a bountiful paradise – island life was challeng­ ing and hard work (Banfield 1908). While Ted Banfield’s writing perpetu­ ated idealisation of tropical island life, it was his books rather than natural bounty that sustained their life on the island. Ted and Bertha nevertheless developed a sensibility for the island and came to understand its vulner­ ability as well as its natural abundance. Their connection was primarily to the island vegetation and fauna, rather than the underwater corals, and in Banfield’s own words he cared about “birds from the standpoint of aestheticism and sentiment blended with utility” (Banfield 1925, cited in Bowen and Bowen 2002, p.  226). In the early 1900s Banfield declared Dunk Island a bird sanctuary, and his long-­term dream was to create a “great insular national park” for the Great Barrier Reef (Bowen and

168   Cultural constructions Bowen 2002, p.  230). Despite these sentiments, living on the island demanded a degree of hypocrisy as large tracts of vegetation were cleared to create the Banfield home and garden, and birds and snakes that threat­ ened domestic chickens were shot and killed. Banfield had an equally paradoxical relationship with tourism. Like the later less-­revered island writer-­resident Henry Lamond, Banfield eschewed the intrusion of tourism while his popular writing about island life – including a commissioned tourist brochure – contributed to the growth of tourism (Pocock 2015). This had direct and indirect impacts on Reef environments. Holidaymakers and scientists amassed large collections of corals and shells, so much so that by 1932 Australian Museum scientist Frank McNeill reported a number of species had begun to disappear (Sun 1932). Walking over reefs while collecting specimens did further damage to corals and, as tourist numbers grew, reefs around the most popular tourist islands suffered significant destruction. Despite these impacts, col­ lecting practices continued well into the 1970s and even early 1980s (Daley 2014, pp. 128–51). Conservation provisions for islands and bird life, and prohibitions against commercial coral collecting introduced in the early twentieth century were largely specific to particular industries or localities rather than regarded as problems of the larger region. It wasn’t until the late 1960s and early 1970s that scientific studies of the Reef began to consider how the entire region might operate as an integrated ecosystem (Wright 1977, pp. 20–3). This idea of an interconnected Reef and the convergence of a number of dramatic environmental impacts shifted approaches to Reef conservation (Wright 1977; Bowen and Bowen 2002, pp. 323–2). In 1960 an outbreak of Crown of Thorns Starfish wrought devastation to coral gardens in a number of localities. The voracious species sucked polyps from their coral skeletons, leaving swathes of colourless reefs and destroy­ ing the iconic visual qualities of the Reef. Soon after came a revelation that the conservative State Government of Queensland was set to approve mining of a coral cay and had already issued oil exploration licences for parts of the Great Barrier Reef. The issue of oil drilling on the Reef was particularly inflammatory because a spate of high-­profile oil spills in other parts of the world – including major disasters off the coast of Cornwall in 1967 and California in 1969 – had demonstrated the potential of oil to cause widespread destruction of marine life. This conflation of events, and a new way of seeing the Reef as an interrelated ecosystem, escalated public concern that Australia’s natural crown jewel was at perilous risk. A small group of activists, including Australian poet Judith Wright, began an intense campaign to save the Reef. Many of the most vociferous advocates for the Reef had never visited it, and only a few had any scient­ ific training. Rather than lived experience, it was the Reef as a single integ­ rated entity and its startling beauty portrayed in vivid images that inspired people to fight for its protection. Judith Wright reflected:

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   169 I myself had seen only a very small part of it, in the fringing reef of Lady Elliott [sic] Island many years before.… But when I thought of the Reef, it was symbolised for me in one image that still stays in my mind. On a still blue summer day, with the ultramarine sea scarcely splashing the edge of the fringing reef, I was bending over a single small pool among the corals. Above it, dozens of small clams spread their velvety lips, patterned in blues and fawns, violets, reds and choc­ olate browns, not one of them like another. In it, sea-­anemones drifted long white tentacles above the clean sand, and peacock-­blue fish, only inches long, darted in and out of coral branches of all shapes and colours. One blue sea-­star lay on the sand floor. The water was so clear that every detail of the pool’s crannies and their inhabitants was vivid, and every movement could be seen through its translucence … perhaps all of us had some such image to hold and to inspire us when we thought of the shadow that menaced the Reef. (Wright 1977, p. 189) This lasting memory of a single coral pool conflates a mental visual image of a tiny fragment with the significance of the enormous whole. And it was images rather than direct sensuous knowledge that inspired people to cam­ paign to protect the Reef. In 1975, the progressive Whitlam Labor Government of Australia passed the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act, bypassing the State Gov­ ernment to establish the Great Barrier Reef as a marine protected area and paving the way for the inscription of the Reef on the World Heritage List.

World Heritage listing The Great Barrier Reef was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981 in recognition of the Outstanding Universal Value of its natural features. Recognised under all four of the 1980 criteria (Table 7.1) (Lucas et al. Table 7.1 UNESCO World Heritage Criteria 1980: Natural criteria against which the Great Barrier Reef was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981 Criterion (i) an outstanding example representing a major stage of the earth’s evolutionary history. Criterion (ii) an outstanding example representing significant ongoing geological processes, biological evolution and man’s [sic] interaction with his natural environment. Criterion (iii) contain unique, rare and superlative natural phenomena, formations and features and areas of exceptional natural beauty. Criterion (iv) provide habitats where populations of rare and endangered species of plants and animals still survive.

170   Cultural constructions 1997, p. 22), the World Heritage nomination focused on the scale of the region and the enormous diversity of natural attributes. The statements against the criteria include a litany of species names and features. There is a notable schism between the excitement and exuberance of tourist accounts, the impassioned descriptions of activists and the dry official assessments used to create a sense of objectivity and scientific justification. Nevertheless, in comparison with later nominations, documentation for the initial Great Barrier Reef nomination was scant and consequently proved inadequate for the management of the World Heritage Area. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority therefore commissioned a study to ascertain the full range of values for which the Reef might be recog­ nised, taking into consideration refinements to the UNESCO criteria since the original nomination. It was through this reappraisal by Lucas et al. (1997) that the aesthetic values of the Reef were identified as an area in need of further research. In 2001, the World Heritage Committee adopted a Retrospective State­ ment of Outstanding Universal Value for the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. This describes the aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef as follows: Criterion (vii): The GBR is of superlative natural beauty above and below the water, and provides some of the most spectacular scenery on earth. It is one of a few living structures visible from space, appearing as a complex string of reefal structures along Australia’s northeast coast. From the air, the vast mosaic patterns of reefs, islands and coral cays produce an unparalleled aerial panorama of seascapes comprising diverse shapes and sizes. The Whitsunday Islands provide a magnifi­ cent vista of green vegetated islands and spectacular sandy beaches spread over azure waters. This contrasts with the vast mangrove forests in Hinchinbrook Channel, and the rugged vegetated mountains and lush rainforest gullies that are periodically cloud-­covered on Hinchinbrook Island. On many of the cays there are spectacular and globally important breeding colonies of seabirds and marine turtles, and Raine Island is the world’s largest green turtle breeding area. On some continental islands, large aggregations of over-­wintering butterflies periodically occur. Beneath the ocean surface, there is an abundance and diversity of shapes, sizes and colours; for example, spectacular coral assemblages of hard and soft corals, and thousands of species of reef fish provide a myriad of brilliant colours, shapes and sizes. The internationally renowned Cod Hole near Lizard Island is one of many significant tourist attractions. Other superlative natural phenomena include the annual coral spawning, migrating whales, nesting turtles, and signi­ ficant spawning aggregations of many fish species. (World Heritage Committee 2012)

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   171 These descriptions invoke visual qualities, making reference to panorama, vistas and aerial views, described as spectacular, and offering a diversity of brilliant colours, shapes and sizes. While the aesthetic experiences of natural phenomena such as bird breeding colonies, migrating butterflies and nesting turtles might be multi-­sensuous, the statements give no indica­ tion that anything other than visual experiences are considered significant. These assumptions about the visual nature of aesthetics reflect the persist­ ence of poor definition of aesthetics in World Heritage nominations. In 2012, as a result of concerns about development impacts on the Great Barrier Reef, the World Heritage Committee facilitated a Reactive Monitoring Mission to visit the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage prop­ erty with the intention of assessing the conservation status of the Out­ standing Universal Value (OUV). The Reactive Monitoring Mission found that the aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef continued to meet OUV. This finding was based in part on aerial visits to the northern section of the property which “reveal[ed] an exceptionally well preserved tropical coral reef system, which is nearly pristine and largely spared from anthropogenic influence” (World Heritage Committee 2012). The Mission recognised the probability of increased human use of the region over time but noted that management interventions had helped to protect the aesthetic values through restricting use and development to particular areas (Douvere and Badman 2012, p. 15). Despite this positive assessment, the report acknow­ ledged that activities such as port development and increased shipping were having a detrimental impact on aesthetic appreciation. These assess­ ments suggest that aesthetic values were largely determined through an everyday interpretation of aesthetics, based on commonly held ideas of visual quality and beauty. However, the Mission reiterated the earlier Lucas et al. concern that “the aesthetic values … are less well understood than other aspects of the property” (Douvere and Badman 2012, pp.  15–16). Furthermore, the Mission noted that the methods of assess­ ment of aesthetics and the mechanisms for monitoring trends in this cat­ egory of OUV remained problematic. Without guidelines to understand and monitor aesthetic qualities, the report suggests that aesthetic qualities are at risk of “death by a thousand cuts” because impacts may go unno­ ticed (Douvere and Badman 2012, p. 16). In response to this finding, the Australian Government commissioned a study to provide further detail of the aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and provide an evidence-­based guide for the assessment and management of these values (Context Pty Ltd et al. 2013, p. 36). The report by Context recognises aesthetic experiences created from different perspectives – underwater, water level and panoramic (IUCN 2012, Context 2013), and recommends aesthetic be defined as more than narrow visual or seen landscape values and include experiential and emo­ tional preferences (Context Pty Ltd et al. 2013, p. 36). To demonstrate this approach, the report draws on existing datasets, including historical and

172   Cultural constructions contemporary photographs, and responses from an earlier GBRMPA workshop. However, the report struggles to achieve the goal of identifying greater diversity of aesthetic responses. Both the selection of data sources and the way they are evaluated remain confined to everyday under­ standings of aesthetics and beauty which privilege sight. For instance, the values tabulated against “special places” make few references to senses other than visual ones (Context Pty Ltd et al. 2013, in Appendix 4). Even the sand of Whitehaven Beach, which is interpreted to tourists through touch and sound, is described as “amazing” without qualification as to its texture or the noise it creates. The report further tables assessment of sources against each of the statement of values in the Retrospective State­ ment of OUV (Context 2013, Appendix 5). Primacy is given to images, particularly aerial vistas and underwater photography, both of which have an inherent bias towards particular types of visual experience. It does attempt to include a broader range of “aesthetic responses” generated through the GBRMPA Stakeholder workshop. These point to the import­ ance of terms such as solitude, calming, remoteness, well-­being, fascination and wonder. However, these descriptors are largely made in relation to visual experiences of colour, attractiveness, scene and beauty. And although solitude, serenity and tranquillity are identified as important experiences, these are poorly defined as a form of aesthetics. While archi­ val research can reveal forms of sensuous information beyond the visual (Pocock 2002), the report prepared by Context defaults to particular kinds of aesthetics and a broader suite of senses is not identified. So, despite the Government response to both the Lucas et al. report and the Reactive Mission recommendation to develop better means of identify­ ing and measuring aesthetic value, aesthetics continues to be defined and dominated by visual response. One of the issues raised by the Mission report is how to measure aesthetic appreciation and value over time. The references to visual imagery in statements of OUV reflect the way in which contemporary experiences of the Reef are largely photographic rather than embodied. This focus risks overlooking a range of experiences, locations and values that constitute significant aesthetic responses constituted through direct experience and a knowledge of particular places which may guard against loss of value in future. Attempts to assess aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef as a whole inevitably turn to the disembodied, disconnected and dislocated experi­ ences of the strategic view and the disoriented underwater view. The view of maps and satellites are increasingly created without contact, without the human action of physical measurement and interpretation. Instead they are created through remote sensing and dehumanised technology. However, a more inclusive understanding of aesthetics as embodied and sensed can support a more systematic assessment and a more inclusive range of experi­ ences and values. As the example of the sound of casuarina suggests, the loss of this value through the displacement of trees would go unnoticed

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   173 through photographic and visual assessment alone. It is the encounter between the emplaced and embodied visitor and the environment that leads to an aesthetic knowledge that constitutes place and value. The opening of aesthetic assessment to experiences makes it much more pos­ sible to include different cultural perspectives, including those of Abori­ ginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, which have largely been neglected. By assessing aesthetics against persistent visual qualities that have strong cultural bias, significant aesthetic responses will continue to be overlooked, and all aspects of the Great Barrier Reef remain at risk of damage or destruction. The implications for other World Heritage properties and heritage sites more broadly are potentially profound. Aesthetics is regarded as a poorly understood category of significance, not least because it is one of the most elitist categories of value. Recognition of embodied experiences as integral to aesthetic values has the potential to force apart the stronghold on visual aesthetics by particular classes of experts in art and architecture, and par­ ticular cultural perspectives on what constitutes pleasing aesthetics. By seeking to understand the diverse range of sensuous experiences that a greater diversity of people may experience, there is an opportunity not only to better understand the richness of everyday aesthetic appreciation, but to bring together intangible and tangible attributes of heritage places. Such an approach can therefore contribute to the significant shift occurring in heri­ tage conservation globally; to create, recognise, protect and celebrate a much more culturally diverse heritage.

Postscript Most of the field research for this project was conducted in the early 2000s with a number of shorter supplementary field observations taking place intermittently up to the present. During this period, there have been a number of extreme weather events. With much of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area lying within cyclone-­prone climatic zones, a number of holiday resorts have been destroyed by cyclonic storms in the past. This includes the devastation of Cyclone Ada that hit the Whitsunday Islands in 1970, which was particularly catastrophic for the resort on Daydream Island. However, since 2000 there have been a larger number of cyclones of increased intensity, many of which have struck the Great Barrier Reef coastline, destroying several island resorts. Some resorts have been aban­ doned despite lease conditions that require developers to maintain the sites. Others are being considered for redevelopment, often with an ecological rather than a Pacific Island theme. The shift towards ecotourism suggests a community awareness about environmental impacts, and a desire to reduce the impact of tourism. But all forms of tourism are significant contributors to environmental change with air transport, waste management, and energy use contributing to global problems. Even the most highly accredited

174   Cultural constructions ecotourism resort makes significant environmental impacts beyond its own locality (Peace 2005). In 2007, I was invited to participate in a workshop on ecological resili­ ence of the Reef. The meeting brought together a group of people who could bring knowledge to bear on the question of how the Reef had changed since European invasion. Most of the participants were marine scientists who, while interested in the historical images and other sources I shared, saw little relevance in my interpretations about diminished embodied experiences of the Great Barrier Reef. One participant went as far as to question if it even mattered whether tourists mistook one part of the Reef for any other. From his perspective, it was preferable that tourists were left to damage or “mess up” a small part of the Reef, if scientists could continue to have unfettered access to the unspoilt areas of the World Heritage Area. A decade on, the consequences of accepting that a small part of the Reef can substitute for any other are becoming clearer. Even at the time of the resilience meeting, the Reef was beginning to exhibit unprecedented damage, and doomsayers like Ove Hoegh-­Guldberg were warning of potential widespread catastrophe. A number of severe tropical cyclones in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef, including Cyclone Yasi in 2011 and Cyclone Ita in 2014, wrought untold damage over large tracts of reefs through direct force and turbulence and the secondary effects of increased runoff from the adjacent mainland. A rise in water temperature has further contributed to widespread coral bleaching. Scientists are deeply concerned, as are many tourism operators who have lost business through damage to infrastructure and more significantly, to the very source of their business. Despite the scale of the catastrophe tourism operators proclaimed that the southern end of the Reef was still pristine, and tourists could visit these parts to experience the wonders of an intact and healthy reef system. In other words, concern about Reef conservation on a global scale could be ignored as a localised problem. The capacity to experience a small part and enjoy it means that it is ever possible to ignore the widespread deterio­ ration of the larger system – a system that by its very scale, diversity and complexity, makes it of World Heritage significance. At the end of 2017, I returned to Lady Musgrave Island at the southern end of the Reef for the first time in more than fifteen years. I rated my first visit among the best of all my snorkelling experiences. The turtles were still there and there were plenty of fish, but the hues of the corals were subdued. I didn’t snorkel in the exact same location, but as we were snor­ kelling in deeper water than previously, my expectation was that the corals would be just as vibrant. With patience, more and more lifeforms become apparent, and the experience was certainly more pleasing than a trip to a much-­damaged reef off Townsville in 2002. On my first trip to Lady Mus­ grave, we travelled in a small launch and came close to the shallows; there were a few campers on the island, but we saw no one else. In 2017, there

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   175 were several operators anchored off Lady Musgrave, and the increase in tourist traffic may well have contributed to the change, but the effects of Cyclone Debbie in March 2017 were almost certainly responsible for some of the most visible impacts. Cyclones that impact the Reef are just one of several weather events that are becoming more frequent and more severe, even if they are part of long-­ term patterns. Tourists and tourism operators can be strong advocates for heritage conservation – especially when their pleasure and business depend on it. The way of managing conservation areas as parcels of inaccessible and isolated territory is no longer effective in a world where global changes – water scarcity, social inequality and climate change – bring unprecedented impacts that are not manageable locally but depend on cooperation across borders, across cultures and nations, and across expertise and the public. This requires us to change the way we think about heritage management. We cannot simply rely on mapping visible qualities because significant prac­ tices and experiences that are imperceptible to the map may shift or dis­ appear (cf. de Certeau 1984). And we should be wary of allowing increasing sophistication of digital copies to replace an experience of the original. Managers, politicians, tourists and locals all have difficulty shifting their mindset away from the idea that we can protect natural areas and features like the Great Barrier Reef by controlling activities within the boundaries of protected areas. Protected areas are increasingly challenged by impacts that may originate in activities at considerable distance from the protected area, but which have widespread and direct impacts on the environment regardless of whether they occur within or outside a protected area boundary (Tweed 2010). The Great Barrier Reef is perhaps the most evident example of this. Despite – and perhaps because – this is one of the largest marine protected areas on the planet, the impacts of global warming and climate change are having profound impacts on the region. Responses by governments reflect an old way of understanding impact – they con­ tinue to prioritise spending within the protected area. Activities remain focused on maintaining the coral garden. Commonwealth Government funding is directed to weeding out the long-­unwanted Crown of Thorns Starfish, and experimental planting of so-­called super corals to seed and propagate a colourful garden more resilient to rises in water temperature. These acts seek to maintain the visual beauty of the coral, without paying heed to embodied sensuous encounters. But can a Great Barrier Reef that is weeded, planted and sculpted remain a site of outstanding natural value?

References Augé, Marc 1995, Non-­places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, Verso, London and New York. Banfield, Edmund 1908, The confessions of a beachcomber, Angus & Robertson, Sydney.

176   Cultural constructions Berleant, Arnold 1997, Living in the landscape: Toward an aesthetics of environment, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. Bowen, James and Bowen, Margarita 2002, The Great Barrier Reef: History, science, heritage, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Casey, Edward S 1996, “How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time: Phenomenological prolegomena”, in S Feld and KH Basso (eds), Senses of place, School of Amer­ican Research Press, Santa Fe, NM, pp. 13–52. Context Pty Ltd, Johnston, Chris, Smith, Anita and Dyke, John 2013, Defining the aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef: Final report, Department of Sustain­ ability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Brunswick. Daley, Ben 2014, Great Barrier Reef: An environmental history, Earthscan. de Certeau, Michel 1984, The practice of everyday life, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Douvere, Fanny and Badman, Tim 2012, Reactive Monitoring Mission to Great Barrier Reef (Australia): 6th to 14th March 2012, IUCN, https://whc.unesco.org/ en/list/154/documents/. Eco, Umberto 1986, Faith in fakes: Travels in hyper-­reality, Vintage, London. Gamon, GA 1935, This is Australia, Documentary Film, ScreenSound Australia (1471196). Love, Rosaleen 2000, Reefscape: Reflections on the Great Barrier Reef, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, Australia. Lucas, PHC, Webb, T, Valentine, PS and Marsh, H 1997, The outstanding ­universal value of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville. Mate, Geraldine and Pocock, Celmara 2018, “A disconnected journey”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 374–89. Merchant, Stephanie 2011, “Negotiating underwater space: The sensorium, the body and the practice of scuba-­diving”, Tourist Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 215–34. Miller, Karen 2001, The Great Barrier Reef, a dive come true, Naples Daily News, viewed 5 February 2002, www.marcodailynews.com/01/09/marco/a1419a.htm. Milton, Kay 2000, “Ducks out of water: Nature conservation as boundary mainte­ nance”, in J Knight (ed.), Natural enemies: People–wildlife conflicts in anthropological perspective, Routledge, New York, pp. 229–46. Noonan, Michael 1986, A different drummer: The story of EJ Banfield, the beachcomber of Dunk Island, Paperback edition edn, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press. Peace, Adrian 2005, “Managing the myth of ecotourism: A Queensland case study”, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 321–34. Pocock, Celmara 2002, “Identifying social values in archival sources: Change, con­ tinuity and invention in tourist experiences of the Great Barrier Reef ”, in V Gomes, T Pinto and L das Neves (eds), The changing coast, Eurocoast/EUCC, Porto, pp. 281–90. Pocock, Celmara 2009, “Entwined histories: Photography and tourism at the Great Barrier Reef ”, in M Robinson and D Picard (eds), The framed world: Tourism, tourists and photography, Farnham: Ashgate. Pocock, Celmara 2015, “Nostalgia and belonging: Henry George Lamond and the Whitsunday Islands”, Queensland Review, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 49–61. Pure Pleasure Cruises 1999, Every day is pure pleasure on the outer reef, Action Graphics Pty. Ltd, viewed 1 February 2002, www.action-­graphics.com.au/ bruce99/town_pages/townsville/townsvillepurepleasure.html.

Hyper-reality and World Heritage   177 Rodaway, Paul 1994, Sensuous geographies: Body, sense, and place, Routledge, London; New York. Rushdie, Salman 1981, Midnight’s children: A novel, 1st Amer­ican edn, Knopf, New York. Sun 1932, “Rare coral looted – Barrier Reef and vandalism”, Sun, 31 January. Australian Museum Archive, AN 90/72, Book 1. Taussig, Michael 1993, Mimesis and alterity: A particular history of the senses, Routledge, New York and London. Tweed, William C. 2010, Uncertain path: A search for the future of national parks, University of California Press, Berkley, Los Angeles and London. Urry, John 1990, The tourist gaze: Leisure and travel in contemporary societies, Sage, London. Urry, John 1992, “The tourist gaze ‘revisited’ ”, Amer­ican Behavioral Scientist, vol. 36, pp. 172–86. World Heritage Committee 2012, Adoption of retrospective Statements of Outstanding Universal Value, UNESCO, https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/4841. Wright, Judith 1977, The coral battleground, Twentieth anniversary commemora­ tive edition 1996 edn, Angus & Robertson, Sydney.

Index

Page numbers in italics denote figures. Aboriginal people 10, 118, 119, 173; labour 25, 119 accommodation and facilities 61, 103, 105, 111, 118, 120, 122; camping 56, 57, 64, 68, 102, 112, 119; dining 67, 111; facilities 102–8, 121; grass huts 104, 120, 127; huts 120, 104; locally owned 119; mess tent 112; resorts 118, 128; sleeping 57; tents 57, 103, 111, 112, 120; see also individual islands and resorts activists 86, 168 advertising 86, 122, 130, 131, 154, 162; deceptive 121 aerial imagery 33, 89, 126, 138, 154, 157, 161, 166, 167 aesthetics 1, 167, 171, 172, 173; beauty 2, 7; natural and cultural values 153, 175; place 7–9; senses 7–9; values 4–7, 167, 171, 172; see also emotional responses air conditioning 56, 64, 73, 160 Allen, Joyce 92 Alligator Creek 92 Antipodes 119, 136, 139 aquariums 97, 145, 146, 147, 154, 155, 156, 157, 166; underwater viewing chambers 84, 146, 155, 156 architecture 131 Armit Island 41 Ashworth, Olive 87 Augé, Marc 8, 34, 157–9 Australian Heritage Commission (Council) 6, 8; National List 7 Australian identity 116, 119, 130; outback myth 131 Australian landscape 116, 128; bush

116, 117, 119, 120, 129, 130, 144; harshness 118; identity 116, 130 Australian Museum 26, 28, 30, 41n 49, 71, 86, 91, 92, 94, 139, 168 Australian National Travel Association 30, 56, 117, 120 authenticity 132, 149, 153, 156, 157, 165 bananas 70 Banfield, Bertha 167 Banfield, Edmund (Ted) 58, 65, 125, 167–8 Banks, Sir Joseph 17–18, 20, 24 Barr, Todd 119 Barrett, Charles 25 Bastard, Lieutenant Richard 23 Baudrillard, Jean 137, 138 bech-de-mer 48 Benjamin, Walter 42 Bennett, Isobel 129 Berryman, RM 28 birds 58–62, 73, 113; feeding 51; sanctuary 167; watching 59, 61, 112, 143 Boardman, Bill 92 Border Island 40, 63 botanical gardens 118 Bourdieu, Pierre 6 Bowen 41, 82, 95 Bowen School of Arts 95 box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri) 57 Bradsworth, Marjorie 127 Brampton Island 38, 71 Brown, Robert 24 Bunga Teratai Satu 163–6 Burra Charter 3

Index   179 Bushy Island 38 butterflies 143, 170 Cairns 28, 72, 111, 126, 147, 163 cameras 149, 160, 166; tourist 125; underwater 89, 92, 97; see also photography canefields 114 canning factories see turtles Cape Conway 31 Cape Flattery 20 Capricorn group 60, 69, 126 Caribbean 118, 119, 122, 130 Carlisle Island 38 Cartesian model 17, 21, 30, 34, 137 cartography 17–35, 138, 154, 161; European 136; mimesis 137 Casey, Edward 8, 42, 80, 159 casuarinas 38, 57–8, 65, 66, 73, 112, 113, 115, 117, 126, 127, 172 catamarans 64, 159, 160 cattle stations 163 charts 21, 136, 137, 138, 140 Chase, Miss 94 clams see giant clams climate change 175 clothing 55, 145 coal carriers 163 cockatoos 62 cocktails 71 Coconuts (Cocos nucifera) 72, 124; drinking 72; husking 71; milk 71, 125; palms 38, 58, 71, 71, 121, 123, 125, 126, 127, 130, 131 Cod Hole 170 collecting: corals and shells 45, 48, 66, 67, 83–6, 94, 97, 138, 143, 154, 168; marine specimens 25; permits 86 conchologists 154 cone shells (Conus geographus) 48–9 conservation 51, 80, 86, 141, 161–3, 166–9, 175; agenda 73; conservationists 162; groups 164; lobby 161; management 97, 132, 149, 168; measures 154, 161; zone 50 consumerism 10, 130 contagion 164 Context 171–2 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) 80 Cook, Captain James 17, 21, 26, 28, 30, 31, 34, 124

Cooktown 18 corals 40, 44, 45, 66, 83, 84, 86, 96, 117, 136, 138, 142, 143, 145, 162, 163; bleaching 162, 163, 174; cay 65; colouring 95–6; gardens 136–50, 153, 154, 164, 168, 175; hard 94; loss of colour 145–6; names 143; spawning 170; super 175; see also collecting Coral Sea 89 colour 45, 46, 90, 94, 96 crabs 44, 57 Crown of Thorns Starfish 163, 168, 175 cultural perspectives 173 curlews 61, 62 cycads 115 cyclones 27, 173, 174, 175; Ada (1970) 173; Debbie (2017) 98n 175; Ita (2014) 174; Yasi (2011) 174 Dakin, William 126 dangers 21–3, 27, 30, 33, 48, 49, 119, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 160, 161, 162, 164 Daydream Island 40–1, 173 de Certeau, Michel 23, 158, 159, 166 Defoe, Daniel 130 Disney World 155 disorientation 32–3, 141, 148 diving 54, 92, 140, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149, 154–5, 156, 160, 164; free diving 144, 147; like flying 144; night 96; Scuba 147, 157, 160 diving goggles 140 diving helmets 148 Dunk Island 58, 65, 125, 167 Eastern curlews 62 ecological resilience 173–4 ecotourism 64, 173 Ego cogito 9, 42 Embury, Arch 87–8, 92 Embury, Mont 25–6, 27, 28, 30, 48, 54, 68, 70, 88, 128; brochure 92; expeditions 55, 59, 67, 82, 83, 86, 87, 91, 103, 119 Embury, Ted 48 emotional responses: astonishing 139; bewilderment 136; bizarre 139; curiosity 145, 159; eerie 60, 61; excitement 167; fear 136, 141, 167; haunted 58; magical 149, 162, 166; mystical spirit 58; oddness 139;

180   Index emotional responses continued surprise and disbelief 141; weirdness 119, 139; wonder 31, 84, 96, 141, 146, 172, 174 Endeavour 17, 18, 20, 24, 26, 30, 31 Endeavour River 18 eucalypts 112 European navigators 17, 33, 167 exotic 116, 129 facemask 166 film 59, 61, 82, 88, 92–3, 97, 143, 154, 164; home movies 83 fish 45, 46, 68, 91, 144, 145, 170; anthropomorphic characteristics 145; clothing 144; collecting 83, 91; feeding 51; local 67; names 143; watching 143 fishing 38, 40, 54, 60, 68 Flinders, Matthew 23, 25 fossicking 47, 48, 50, 83, 84, 86, 97, 154 frangipanis 128, 131, 144 Fry, Dene 28, 116 Garden of Eden 118, 119 Gaugin, Paul 130 giant clams (Tridacna giagas) 45, 46, 48, 50, 140, 141 Gladstone 86 glass bottomed boats 139, 140, 146, 147, 157, 166 global warming 162, 175 Gloucester Passage 41 goats 30, 124, 125 Grace, Helen 9, 42 grass trees 115 Grassy Island 41 Great Barrier Reef: Australian icon 111; benign 144; idealised paradise 122; Indigenous occupation and management 23; industry 162–3; inner route 18, 22, 24, 26, 28, 124, 164; Labyrinth 30, 136; mining 163, 168; natural qualities 1; naturalness and size 161; navigational dangers 26; oil spills 162, 163, 168; origin of name 23; outer route 18, 23, 28, 32, 45, 54, 82, 86, 129, 155, 156, 157, 159; Outstanding Universal Value 161–2, 169, 171; pristine naturalness 165; single natural entity 153; social value 3, 4, 42; unique global phenomenon 167; universal

significance 81; visible from space 166, 170; World Heritage Area 70, 74, 81, 153, 161, 173; see also reef The Great Barrier Reef (1893) 90 Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act (1975) 169 Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority 2, 86, 111, 137, 170, 172; conservation 168; management 137, 153, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 169, 170, 171; protection 50, 132; regimes 64, 86 green ants 56 Green Island 57, 72, 127 guano 65, 66 Hallam, Bob and Bert 40 Hamilton Island 62; Resort 57, 106 haptic see senses, touch Hardy’s Reef 155, 155, 156, 159, 160 Hawaii 123 Hawaiian style 123, 124, 128 Hayman Island 27, 40, 49, 54, 55, 61, 70, 82, 103, 104, 119, 120, 121, 123, 128; brochure 124; Hotel Royal Hayman 61; pool 105; Resort 105, 106, 108 Heart Pontoon 160 Heart Reef 33 heat 51–3 helicopters 155, 157 heritage 42, 79; Aboriginal heritage 3; assessments 89, 150, 161; authenticity 132; conservation 175; intangible heritage 3, 80, 173; management 43, 175; significance 97, 132, 167; sites 132; studies 2, 8; tangible 173 Heron Island 30, 51, 61, 68, 86, 114, 125, 126, 167 hibiscus 128, 131, 144 Hinchinbrook Island and Channel 170 HMS Fly 59 Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove 174 holidays and holidaymakers 51, 65, 82, 83, 104, 113, 121, 138, 140, 145, 168; expeditions 25, 51; facilities 102–8 Holmes, Charles 56 Hook Island 39–40 hoop pines 112 Hoskyn Island 59 hyper-reality 91, 98, 131, 137, 153–69

Index   181 images see photographs, reef immersion 147; see also diving, snorkelling immigrants 118 Ingold, Tim 34, 43 insects 55–7 Investigator 24 irukandji jellyfish (Carukia barnesi) 57 islands 167; aesthetic 119; bush walks 33; changing environment 102–8; continental 30, 33; cultivated plants 116; exotic plants 111; landscapes 116, 118, 120, 122, 139, 142, 153; lease 54; modified 111, 119; native vegetation 111, 113, 125, 128; planted gardens 120, 128; soils 119; tropical 118, 130; vegetation 58, 112, 114, 142; see also individual islands Jukes, J Beete 55 Kapferer, Judith 117 Kelso Reef 156 Keong, Shirley 95–6, 96 King, Grahame 87 Knowles, Joan 129 labour 53, 119 Lady Elliot Island 169 Lady Musgrave Island 174–5 Lambert, Ron 87 Lamond, Henry 28, 50, 119, 124–5, 168 lighthouses 21, 124; map 22 Lindeman Island 30, 31, 38, 39, 58, 102, 104, 120, 139 Lizard Island 20, 170 locals 10, 127; communities 164; identity 129; knowledge 127; pastoral families 119; residents 161 Lock, Arnold 121 Lodestone Reef 95 Long Island 31, 107, 128 lorikeets 62 Love, Rosaleen 65, 90–1, 162, 164 Low Isles 25, 27, 52, 56, 86, 121, 124; expedition 52 Lucas, PHC 4, 6, 170–2 MacGillivray, Dr William 59, 82 McGrath, Ann 131 Mackay 28, 114 McLean, Captain Tom 58, 127

McNeill, Frank 49, 82, 86, 91, 94, 92, 168 Mair, Barbara 67 Malaysia 163, 165 Malpas, Jeff 8–9 maori wrasse (Wally) 156 mapping 28, 34, 136, 137, 138, 140, 167 march flies 55 marine life 91, 93, 142, 143 Marks, Hilda Violet 27, 94 Masthead Island 54, 56, 59, 60, 68, 102, 116 Mategot, Mathieu 87 Midnight’s Children 166 Miller, Karen 155 Milton, Kay 162 mimetic technologies 157, 162 ML Cheerio 37; see also Voyage of the Cheerio Molle Island Group 28, 31, 40 Monkman, Noel 59 Morrison, Crosbie 30, 45, 57, 59, 62–3, 113, 115, 126 mosquitoes 55, 56 Mount Oldfield 30, 31, 38 multi-sensuous see sensuous experiences mutton birds 59, 60, 61 National Geographic 87 naturalists 167 nature 153, 156, 162, 165; attributes 4, 153, 161; and culture 136, 162 navigation 136, 137, 138, 154 Nicholson, Captain 38, 54 noddies 62 non-place see place North West Isle 46, 53, 59, 60, 68, 69, 70, 94, 103, 112, 140, 167 Northfield, James 87 Olympic Games 2000 Opening Ceremony 117 orientation 33–5 Ormsby & Shafer survey 64 ornithology 59, 102 otherness 136, 138, 139, 153, 162, 166; chaos 138, 164 oysters 68, 71 Pacific see South Pacific palaeontology 82 Palm Passage 30

182   Index palm trees 56, 57, 65, 71, 107, 115, 120, 121, 128, 131, 144; see also coconuts pandanus palms 38, 66, 112, 113, 114, 114, 115 panoramas 21, 30, 32, 38, 43, 44, 89, 97, 137, 138, 142, 144, 160, 166 papaya 70 paradise 111–32, 153, 167; blue lagoons 121 pearl shell 167 Pentecost Island 38 petrels 60 photographs and photography 61, 64, 81, 82, 86–9, 93, 97, 98, 112, 145, 149, 150, 154, 161, 166, 172; albums 27, 30, 88; black and white 93–4, 95, 113, 130; collections 126; colour 88, 93, 97; hand tinted 95–6; moments 64; photographers 87, 88, 128, 150; primacy 144, 172; and science 87; slides 86; technologies 97, 113; underwater 88, 92 Pine Island 31 pineapples 70, 114, 115 Pioneer River 114 pisonia 60, 112 place 7, 42, 79, 91, 98, 129, 148, 160; knowledge of 97, 111; loss of 157, 159; named locations 158; non-place 157–8, 159, 160; sense of 47, 73, 79, 97, 157, 160; and space 43, 150 pontoons 155, 156, 157, 159, 160 Porcher, Edwin Augustus 59, 87 port development 171 Proserpine 127 Proserpine Historical Museum Society 128 Queensland Tourist Bureau 83 Queensland Tourist Development Board 121, 125 Quetta 24 rabbits 125 radio broadcasts 83 rail 28 rainbow lorikeets 62 red ants 56 Red Bill Island 38 Reef: access 121, 122; art and artists 59, 61, 82, 87, 130, 136; attachment 127, 131; cinematic collage 166; as commodity 153, 154, 165; danger

17, 26; early encounters 17, 44, 91, 136; earthly paradise 118; economic potential 1; environmental impacts 168, 174, 175; greeting cards 87; health 162; infrastructure 118; marketing and promotion 25, 33, 59, 82, 84, 86, 114, 115, 117, 121, 125; memories 79, 80, 81; as non-place 161; otherness 138–42; as place 34; postcards 87, 127, 153, 154, 162; posters 82, 127; recording 81–3; souvenirs 79, 80, 97, 154, 155; threats 162, 164, 174; see also Great Barrier Reef, tourism, visitors, photography, senses Reef HQ 147 ReefWorld 155, 155, 156–7, 159, 160 Retrospective Statement of Outstanding Universal Value for the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area 170 Robinson Crusoe 118 Rockhampton 115 Rodaway, Paul 47 Roughley, Theodore 120–1 Rushdie, Salman 166 Ryan, Simon 21, 119, 137 Saddleback Island 41 sand 172; see also Whitehaven Beach sandflies 55 satellite imagery 89, 154, 166, 167 Saville-Kent, William 24, 25, 25, 67, 90–1 Sax, George 85, 98n Scawfell Island 38 schoolteachers 83 science 83, 113, 138, 145, 150, 168; Belgian expedition 49; botany 24; British expeditions 25, 27, 121, 126; exploitation 167; laboratories 111, 113, 116, 145; lectures 82–3, 84, 86, 92; marine 50, 83, 174; microscope 166; research 143; scientists 51, 56, 82, 83, 92, 138, 145, 168, 174 Scott, Tom 85 sea gulls 60 sea water 53–5 sea worms (Serpula) 48 seabirds 170 Seaforth Island 38 seaplane 63 Sea-urchins 91, 141 Sellheim, Gert 87 semi-submersible boat 155

Index   183 senses 7, 42–74, 98; merging 72–4; sight 42, 44–7, 89, 98, 148, 160, 172; smell 42, 44, 65–7, 148; sound 44, 57–65, 148, 172; taste 42, 44, 67–72, 148; touch 42, 44, 47–57, 73, 97, 98, 148, 172 sensuous experiences 9, 42–74, 80, 89, 138, 140, 143, 148, 160; knowledge 73, 83; multi-sensuous knowledge 43, 96–8, 140, 142, 160 sharks 38, 40, 49, 91, 164 Shaw Island 38, 39 she-oaks see casuarinas shells 66, 67, 83, 84, 85, 154; baler 84; collecting 84, 85, 94, 98, 154; cowrie 84; spider 66; trochus 84 Sheller, Mimi 118, 119 shipwrecks 21, 30, 125, 136 sighing see casuarinas silica sand 64 simulacra 97, 137, 144, 145, 147, 153, 162–3 Sir James Smith Group 38 snake bite 49 snorkelling 54, 142, 143, 144, 147, 154–5, 156, 157, 160 Sontag, Susan 81 sophora bushes 113 South Molle Island 62, 67, 85, 98n 107, 128, 159 South Pacific 119, 122, 130, 131, 160, 165; ideal 144; imagined 123, 127; theme 122, 173 Stevenson, Robert Louis 130 stonefish 48, 49 Sudbury Reef 163 sugar cane 115 sugar mills 163 sunsets 46 supermodernity 158, 159 swimming 54, 156; bathing 53; enclosure 54, 103; pools 57 Sydney aquarium 147 Sydney University 94 Tahiti 118, 128 tankers 163 Tasmanian World Heritage Area 129 Taussig, Michael 42, 80, 81, 143, 149, 156, 157 Taylor, Valerie 50 technological developments 81, 88, 93, 97, 98, 138, 139, 141, 143, 147, 160, 166

temperature 52 Tern Island 38 This is Australia (1935) 154 Torres Strait Islanders 21, 173 tourism 10, 26, 32, 47, 50, 53, 54, 56, 65, 68, 111, 120, 129, 150, 161, 168, 173; brochures 28, 82, 87, 124, 127, 154; destinations 84, 111; experiences 9–10, 32; history 126; industry 119, 163; knowledge 47; maps 28; narratives 30, 44, 79, 82, 98, 130; operators 174, 175; posters 87 tourists 10, 32, 50, 57, 63, 73, 84, 111, 121, 131; Australian 117, 129, 131; overseas 129; see also holidays and holidaymakers tourist gaze 132, 158, 163 tournefortia 112 Townsville 121, 147, 156 transport infrastructure 163 Treasure Island 118 Trompf, Percy 87 tropical cyclones see cyclones tropical flavours 70–2 tropical fruits 70–2, 131 tropics 51, 114, 116, 132; fantasy 118, 132; islands 118, 130; paradise 132, 144 TSS Katoomba 28 turtles 38, 46, 68–70, 92, 170; cannery 54, 68, 69, 69–70, 113, 167; soup 69–70 turtle riding 50, 51, 68 turtle watching 50 Tyron Island 90 underwater cameras see cameras underwater world 89–96, 97, 129, 138, 139; frontier 138; phenomenon 136 UNESCO (1972) World Heritage Convention 1 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2 UNESCO programs 80 UNESCO World Heritage Criteria 169, 170 United States of America 118 Urry, John 44, 130 utopias 118, 131; banal 159 vantage points 89, 137 visitors see tourists

184   Index visual aesthetics 5, 43, 73, 97, 150, 161, 170 visual amenity 97, 160, 161 visual experiences 89, 97, 167, 172 Voyage of the Cheerio 30, 31, 37–41, 56, 63, 67, 127 Walkabout Magazine 85 walking 47, 63, 112 Ward, Melbourne 58, 92, 93 wasps 56 water 54; fresh 52, 53, 54, 57; lack of 119 water glasses 47, 92, 140 water telescopes 44, 45, 141 waterscopes 40, 84, 90, 139, 139, 140, 141, 142, 166 Watson, Eric 127 West Molle Island 40 whales 170 whistling sand (Whitehaven Beach) 40, 62–5 Whitehaven Beach 30, 33, 40, 62, 63, 64, 125, 172 Whitlam Labor Government 169

Whitsunday Island (s) 28, 29, 29, 30, 31, 33, 39, 58, 62, 64, 119, 122, 127, 159, 170, 173 Whitsunday passage 31, 61 wild magnolias 58 wild plum 58, 66 Wistari reef 86 World Heritage 1, 9, 111 World Heritage Area 67, 137, 147, 163, 167 World Heritage Committee 170–1 World Heritage List 169–73 World Heritage Operational Guidelines 1, 4–5 World Heritage Reactive Monitoring Mission 171, 172 Wright, Judith 168–9 xenophobia 165 Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission 126–7 Yonge, Maurice 25, 27, 55 zoologists 82, 86, 94