The Scots Archaeologist returns to the shores and screens from 11 March, on Prime
After filming the second season of Coast Australia, Neil Oliver gives his picks for his favourite moments from his trip around the country.
South Western Australia
I've filmed on board the Duyfken, a replica 16th-century tall ship, a couple of times. It's a replica of the kind of ship that Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog would have been aboard, so it was a real treat to be seeing the sea from the deck of a ship that would have been instantly recognisable to mariners from his time. Especially for someone like me who's interested in history and interested in archaeology and you can see the love and care with which the ship had been built. Every effort has been taken to recreate something real so that it didn't feel like some sort of film prop, it felt like a real sea-going vessel. I know they've done some big journeys in it and it was very thrilling to be on board.
Neil Oliver and the replica of the 16th Century Duyfken.
Victoria
Skull Rock, or Cleft Island I think it's technically called, is right there in the top three places I've ever seen anywhere in the world. Not least because we knew going in that more people had walked on the moon than had stood on Skull Rock in the last 20-30,000 years. There was a huge thrill about how unknown it was. And the fact it was called Skull Rock by the locals, it felt as though we were going somewhere where we might see King Kong or dinosaurs, it just had that air of mystery about it.
We went out with a couple of scientists who had been waiting all their lives for a chance to get on to Skull Rock and see the different species of skink and lizard and whatever else was on there. Their excitement as scientists, frankly, they were like wee boys getting to a toy shop. It was palpable.
Skull Rock, Victoria.
It's a protected reserve so it's under the control of all the local sectoral bodies that take care to preserve the local flora and fauna,. To get on it you'd have to make a specific application to those groups and you'd have to have a scientific reason for going. We were there only because we were accompanying two scientists and we had to take all sorts of precautions — we couldn't take anything on to the island. You couldn't even so much as go for a pee on the island because it wasn't to be contaminated by human presence.
Northern New South Wales
Byron Bay is a bit of a surprise because it's so lovely. It's like your perfect holiday destination, I think — regardless of where you've come from in the world — because it's green, it has good weather, it's not a million miles from civilisation. It has everything you could want. Byron Bay's a very easy place to be and yes it does have that relaxed, laidback atmosphere about it.
Off Byron Bay I was on a sailing boat and we were suddenly surrounded by humpback whales. Australia is on one of the many routes that some of the humpback population swim by. For about an hour, within a few hundred metres of the boat, and some much closer than that, I would have been able to point to a dozen whales. We found ourselves in the middle of part of a migration, so there were whales spouting, rolling over, doing the whole thing. That was magical for me. And I remember talking to [the scientist] and learning from him that whales are so numerous there that they're actually quite a hazard for people out in their boats. You don't want to bump into a whale. They were saying that the humpback population was back to pre-contact levels, pre-whaling, which is a lovely thing to hear.
Eddie Mabo was born and raised on Mer (Murray) Island and then discovered as an adult that although his family had always lived on that patch of land, it was owned by the Crown. Legally he didn't own it and his family never had that land. He set out on a world-changing legal battle and he was eventually famously victorious.
Murray Islands. Photo / Getty Images
It felt like brushing past real history there, just one man who had decided for himself that he was going to challenge the Establishment and he did. No one expected him to be able to win. [We met] his daughter, who was obviously very proud of her dad and was still connected to that island and that place. It felt like he was obviously one of those inspirational figures who quite proudly but politely and in a dignified way said "this is wrong and it shouldn't be like this" and he managed to change the whole nature of land ownership.
He was one of those figures that changed something for the better. So I felt very privileged to meet his family and hear that story.
We don't really think about the Torres Strait as being part of Australia. It's remote and it's obviously so different — you know, you're halfway to PNG at that point. It's a different landscape, different climate, different people, different attitudes. It opened up a whole different vista of Australia for me.
