“YOU never know what’s coming up next” has become a mantra for Cardwell’s Ian and Jennifer McCallan, and both admit this attitude has made their life a whole lot more interesting.
“You can sit back and get bored, or go out there and take up challenges,” Ian said, speaking of their retirement in Hinchinbook Harbour near Cardwell.
Their off-road bicycles lean against the wall and a sailing boat is moored to the jetty. It has taken them half way around the world.
Ian’s passion for activity was born when, in a fit of boredom, he and a friend went to the Earls Court Boat Show in England. He instantly fell in love with sailing boats and bought a boat on the spot.
“It was in January and people thought I was mad to want to sail on the North Sea in January, but I managed to fluke some lessons which I needed because I had never sailed,” he laughed.
He and Jennifer have certainly lived life creatively and to the full.
Both English, they met in England in 1976.
Ian came to Australia in 1982 and Jennifer followed a little later, first for a short holiday and then to become Ian’s wife.
She loved bike riding and bushwalking, especially when she arrived here – and Australia’s dramatic wild spaces beckoned.
Ian introduced her to sailing.
In the UK Ian had also developed a passion for motor racing, and not only raced but later built his own Formula Four racing car, which he brought to Australia. It was raced successfully, by another driver as he was reaching retiring age, and was only sold when he and Jennifer moved to the north.
But what they describe as one of their biggest challenges has taken place here in Queensland.
“We came north in 2003 because it was amazing country, and there is so much that is special about it,” Ian said.
“So imagine our distress when we saw beautiful Hinchinbrook Island, just off the coast and Australia’s largest offshore island national park, was burning.”
They phoned Queensland Parks and Wildlife to report the fire and discovered it was part of a scheduled burning program.
“Areas on the island have been burned since, but in 2014 the fires were particularly serious,” Ian said.
“Apart from the smoke which enveloped us here on shore for days ... there was the loss of wild bushland and the wildlife living in it.
“We went across to the island after that fire and 18 square kilometres had been utterly destroyed.
“The fire had been so fierce nothing except the very strongest flying birds could have escaped.”
Ian said the island is also home to the rare blue banksia, which thankfully for the species survival has been propagated commercially.
“The blue banksia was quite common on the island when we first went there but when we searched, using the tracks, after the 2014 fire we could only find two mature bushes,” he said.
Since then, Ian and Jennifer have written letters, made videos and held meetings in a bid to save the wild island tracks they have grown to love from future burning.
“Fires so easily ‘get away’, especially with the sea winds, and the island is wild country which should be allowed to evolve as it has over millions of years. It presents no danger to the mainland.”
Saddened by the regular burning, the couple bought a property on the coast north of Cardwell. It has a jetty but there the resemblance ends.
The property is partially rainforested and home to a group of cassowaries. Their visits have shown what amazing birds these are and how special it is to have them around.
“It would be good to have the chance to have land to look after and know we are doing the right thing by it,” Jenny said.
“But whatever happens, we will continue to question the need to burn Hinchinbrook Island and beautiful wild places like it.”
