Sannah and The Pilgrim, and Pia and The Skyman, by Sue Parritt

Sue Parritt’s Sannah and The Pilgrim is the first title in her climate fiction trilogy. It is followed by Pia and the Skyman and The Skylines Alliance. I found Sue Parritt’s vision what a future world might turn out when wrecked by climate change to be scarily plausible.

The story: Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand) are ravaged by droughts. In Australia in particular. The coastal plains have been inundated by rising sea levels. The ‘Whites, although impoverished by today’s standards, hang on to power through apartheid. They force the ‘Browns’, mostly refugee populations from the drowned Pacific Islands, to labour on the little arable land that remains.

We see this future from the point of view of a resistance movement, the ‘Women’s Line’, as they endure dangers to help the serfs held in the underground prisons to escape to what we hope will be a better life for them in Aotearoa. This is an Underground Railroad of the future.

Sannah, “The Storyteller”, belongs to the Women’s Line. When a light skinned stranger calling himself Kaire arrives at her dome she must consider whether he is a spy. The twin mysteries of Kaire’s origins and Sannah’s purpose in “storytelling” drive along the narrative in the first novel. Kaire’s background when revealed gives us another viewpoint of the conditions on the planet.

We have escapes by desert and by sea, rescues, betrayals, brutalities and passions. Yet Parritt’s low key writing makes this stark way of life seem almost normalised, which makes it all the more disturbing; and the wreckage of not just the planet but of humanity springs out at us.

In Pia and the Skyman the story picks up from the bases in Aotearoa.

Parritt writes on her website –

“I want readers to grasp what is happening not only in contemporary Australia, but throughout the world with regard to refugees and the ongoing environmental degradation that poses increasing problems for humanity… By writing fiction that I believe could easily become fact, I hope to inspire more ‘ordinary’ people to take a stand and work for a more equitable and sustainable world.”

Sannah and the Pilgrim was Commended in the FAW Christina Stead Award, 2015. Pia and the Skyman was commended for the Christina Stead Fiction Award 2016 in the National Literary Awards of The Fellowship of Australian Writers. You can learn more about Sue Parritt and these books at her blog.

Where to find the trilogy: All the books are published by Odyssey Books and available through Waterstones, Indigo and Amazon. The third book, The Skylines Alliance, is also now available.

Another Cli-Fit series I loved and is the Chronicles of the Pale by Clare Rhoden. You can see my review here.

You are at Baffled Bear Books, the blog of Mark, guardian and blundering typist for Mawson Bear, Ponderer of Baffling Things and one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is writer bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In.

Songlines, The Sentinels of Eden Book 1, by Carolyn Denman

I got four angry strides away before Harry changed the course of my life with six easy words. “Can you hear the river crying?” Lainie, Ch. 8

From Back Cover Description: ‘In the heart of the Wimmera region of Victoria, an ancient gateway to Eden is kept hidden and safe by a creature so powerful that even the moon would obey her commands – at least it would if she had any idea that she wasn’t just a normal girl about to finish high school.

‘Your mother’s grave is a lie.’ Harry to Lainie.

Synopsis: Lainie’s days are filled with study, repairing fences, ‘pulling stubborn lambs out of angry ewes’, and contemplating a future beyond this one-grain-silo town.

When the two important adults in her life, Aunt Lily and Harry, try to tell her that the mother she never knew is actually alive in some ‘Eden’, she reacts with anger. Though not clued up on the Book of Genesis, Lainie is sure the original Garden was not in the Great Southern Land (Australia). Besides, her mother lies buried. Harry, though, disappears. This is the catalyst for Lainie to seek out her roots.

This unusual adventure, aimed at Young Adults, is so thoughtful it deserves a wide readership. It mixes a coming-of-age tale and romance with ancient memories, religious motifs and mythologies.

The slow burn narrative begins in a nowheresville ‘where the creeks are named after dead animals’. Carolyn Denman builds the details of school life, farm work and hikes through the fire-prone bush until the fantastical elements seem to arise quite plausibly from this backdrop .

I see it as an engrossing story of protecting the one Eden we all have now, our Earth. Lainie and her friends, Bane, Noah and Tessa, represent our only hope – young people. Earth’s enemies are symbolised by the mining giant Kolsom. But there is more going on than the struggle between these Sentinels of a special place and Kolsom’s devious agents. Something seems to be going badly wrong with the nature of Eden itself.

Don’t be fooled by the early steady pace; the acceleration toward the utterly unforeseeable events took me by surprise. You are bound to want to know what on earth – and Eden – is going to happen next. Fortunately, the sequels are now available too.

I smiled at him, winked, then stepped across the boundary into Paradise.

Note on song lines: To Indigenous Australians, a songline, or dreaming track, is one of the paths across the land or sky which mark the route followed by creator-beings. These made the earth and everything in it. This early time is called the Dreamtime or the Dreaming. Carolyn Denman says in the foreword, ‘My desire is that this tale reflects the co-existance and interconnectedness of belief systems.’

A word on the dialogue: Some of the lively terms sprinkling the novel might be new and fun to readers beyond Australia: you will hear of colours, for instance, ‘as bright as a tradies wardrobe’, and of dorks, drongos, fairy bread, even a mention of the legendary drop bears*.

Songlines: The Sentinels of Eden is now a complete series. You can read more about them at Carolyn Denman’s website.

Where to find them: through Bookshop Org and Amazon.

*What’s a drop bear? Not telling.

You are at Baffled Bear Books. Here writes Mark, guardian of Mawson Bear.
Mawson is a Ponderer of Baffling Things and one of this bright world’s few published bears. He is the writer bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In. Mawson has many qualitites but he is not a drop bear.

The Drago Tree, by Isobel Blackthorn: excellent trip fiction available in Spanish and English

After the slow motion collapse of her marriage Anne seeks refuge on the jagged island of Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands off Africa.

Wounded, introspective, prickly – like the Drago tree of the title – Anne broods about her past, trying through writing in her notebook to exorcize the ghosts of her husband and troubled sister.

She meets the novelist Richard . He lives on the island seasonally, perched in his house as though at an outpost of progress, surrounded by artefacts made by the local potter Domingo. His plan to pluck bits of the islanders’ story from Domingo to use in his next book becomes, in Isobel Blackthorn’s hands, a parallel for robber cultures that plunder from others .

With Domingo and Richard, Anne explores Lanzarote, learning the unhappy story of its fragile population, the target of conquerors and pirates, and now of tourists. Anne both welcomes and distrusts Richard’s interest. He advances but exasperatingly retreats. Domingo just as infuriatingly holds his counsel. Unexpressed emotional forces heave beneath the surface, like the volcanic forces that shape the island. When they erupt it is in the form of their argument over tourism, whether it is ruin of the island or its salvation. This disagreement shifts the dynamic between the three, ultimately leading to a later plot twist.

A current running beneath the story of these three people is a meditation on the art of writing. Richard, seeing Anne’s notebook, thrust upon her his views as a professional writer. As Anne tests his critiques, expanding her notes, trying for her own voice, Blackthorn weaves them also into her novel, playing with them, taking us alongside the writing process at the same time as we are reading its results – this book. It’s a risk to skim along just inside the “fourth wall’ in this way but Blackthorn beautifully pulls it off. And when Anne confronts her ambiguous feelings about Richard, Blackthorn unexpectedly turns us further down the theme of exploitation, this time about where personal lives meet literature.

For readers who love layered levels of feeling and thought expressed in fine language, this is your novel.

Where to find it: The Drago Tree is available at Amazon; AND it is available in Spanish.

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Whale Sharks and Humpback Whales Too

The Search So Far: Mawson’s Guardian, Mark, and the Guardian-ess set off to see the Whale Sharks that migrate up past the Ningaloo Reef in the North of Western Australia. But on our day out on the water, hours passed with no sighting of a whale shark. We feared we would miss out altogether. But then suddenly they were sighted.

Whale Shark. Pic by Daniel Browne of Coral Bay Eco Tours — All under water pics shown here are by **Daniel Browne** of Coral Bay Eco Tours.

The skipper steered into position. We tourists shuffled on bums down to the marlin board, tense for the word to drop in. If the skipper had judged right, the whale shark would cruise in front of us. Go! And there it was! Just below the surface, moving along with a smooth up and down motion of the whole body. I was so excited that if I had not needed the snorkel to breathe, I would have eaten it.

We were actually swimming with this great beast. We spread out into a semi circle and followed as long as possible. Some lucky people were alongside the shark, on either side, 3 or 4 metres away, with a good clear view. Some saw mostly its big tail and other snorkelers. The beast seemed unconcerned by us and never changed its pace. It easily pulled ahead within a few minutes.

The boat came round to pick us up. This required using upper body strength and a big kicking lunge to land your torso as high up the marlin board as possible before clambering up to the deck itself. No problem for me in the calm water within the reef. But the swell had gotten up as the cold front got closer. If the stern lifted up in the swell at the same time as you made your lunge, your big seal flop could be difficult, even bruising. I clobbered my chest. Several people struggled with it. The crew helped pull us up, of course.

A second beast was seen and then a third one. The vessel steered into a new position, and again we slid into the water. Several people this time got an excellent along-side swim. They got those classic “I swam with a Whale Shark’ instagramable photos. But I saw only a powerful tail ahead of me. That tail moved almost lazily but it made my effort to keep up with it seem like a flutter board chasing a silent jet ski. I swam as hard as I ever have; and the crew member, Ellie, who was helping me hauled me along too. I had never moved in the water so fast. But still not much of a view for me this time. And I was really drained. Been in the water 4 times now. But it was not over. The RV Thunder turned to try for a third swim.

We came around again ahead of the course of the whale sharks as they cruised seemingly without effort north along side Ningaloo Reef. Only 14 or so our group of 20 went in this time, the others exhausted. With help of crew member Ellie, I got into a good position. The spotted beast was huge, perhaps 4 metres, bigger than the others. I managed to keep up alongside it although it took the most powerful swimming of my life and Ellie towing me as well. Within 3 or 4 minutes perhaps, although it felt longer, the animal had glided ahead until there was only its tail to see. We boarded RV Thunder for the last time, collectively elated and exhausted. ( I needed help to get up out of the water this time.) All had seemed lost only an hour before. But now we had actually swum with the whale sharks!

Then our day got even better. The earliest hump back whales of the season were out there too! We hadn’t even expected whales.

To see a whale even from 150-200 metres or so, a huge pecoral fin surging out of the side of a swell and a big body curving up, blowing, and diving down (“Tharr she blows!”) is an uplifting sight. We saw one perhaps 50 m away surfing along the side of a big swell and turning its big pink belly to us. Another (or perhaps the same) turned to the vessel. Yes! It came on, swirled around until it was belly side up, all white and pink, dipped lower while still upside down, and went right under the boat. We think we saw 5 different migrating humpback whales. What a day! What a day!

(I couldn’t get vids of the whales, sorry, but here are more whale sharks we saw that day taken by Daniel Browne of Coral Bay Eco Tours.

Whale Shark seen on 7 June 2022. Pic taken by Daniel Browne of Coral B ay Eco Tours

Note: All under water pics shown here are by Daniel Browne of Coral Bay Eco Tours.

You are at Mark’s blog called Baffled Bear Books. Mark is a dark coffee tragic, bibliophile and Guardian of Mawson Bear, a Ponderer of Baffling Things and one of this bright world’s few published bears.

Whale Sharks of Ningaloo Reef: Our Search is On

The Search So Far: Mawson’s Guardian, Mark, and the Guardian-ess had the good fortune last November to swim with 3 manta rays off the North West coast of Western Australia in the waters of the Ningaloo Reef. You can read about our snorkelling experience here and particularly about the big manta rays here. This year we set off to see Whale Sharks. But would we be successful?

Turtle swimming in the coral reef off Coral Bay in Western Australia — All under water pics shown here are by **Daniel Browne** of Coral Bay Eco Tours.

No doubt, some of you are used to snorkelling and boating. Me, I love to look at the ocean but when I get waist deep in it my body involuntarily says, ‘Errruuuh Huh Huhh Huhhh Ooooogggh Arrrrrrrrrh’.

Out beyond the reef to find the whale sharks in RV thunder

Within the reef: extraordinary structures of coral

I speak as a non boating average swimmer who has rarely snorkelled. Everything about our Whale Shark Day at Ningaloo Reef held its own excitement for me, including my apprehension about sliding into the ocean kilometres off the coast.

Reef Shark on the outer side of Ningaloo Reef

I didnt see that particular turtle in these pics but I was gobsmaked by so much else. Streams of sunlight poured down thru the water catching shoals of coloured fishes like dancing lights. Magical. The coral was simply fantastic, a whole other world. Octopi, reef sharks, fish of all kinds.

After our first excellent swim of the day within the reef around the amazing coral bombs, we set course beyond the reef parallel to the shore heading to about where 5 whale sharks had been spotted by the same crew the day before.

Excitement was high. We steered north and chatted of all the creatures we had seen. We kept on northward. We all made umpteen adjustments to our gear. We kept steering north. The spotter plane appeared and quartered the area. Nothing. North and further north we coursed. At this rate we would soon be half way to Exmouth. There we were, all kitted in our wetsuits, keyed up, ready to plunge in; and no sighting. We started to realise that this just might not be our day. You can’t predict the wide ocean and wild animals. T

Whale Shark of Ningaloo Reef: Photo by Daniel Brown of Coral Bay Eco Tours

The crew conferred. They told us that it looked like perhaps they had nothing for us. Our emotions dipped from elation to deflation. We all knew that we were unlikely to go out next day for another try because the weather was going to turn overnight. So that seemed to be that. Oh, well. We could still do another swim or two.

For our 2nd snorkel they took us to a little seen spot on the outer side of the reef. The coral animal structures on the deep side look different, tougher you might say, and just as fascinating. We saw reef sharks and larger fish. The swell was stronger here for an average swimmer like me and there was some suction close to the reef. My arms tired but I kept happily swimming. I was going to make the most of seeing Ningaloo Reef with my own eyes.

Suddenly the crew signalled to get aboard. Had a whale shark at last been spotted? Yes! We scrambled back on the marlin board in a tangle of flippers and seal-flopping bodies. We sat on the deck with masks and snorkel on our heads, ready to slide in at the word to go. The vessel’s stern dipped and the bow surged.

Could we actually get our swim alongside the creature?

Don’t miss the next awesome episode. Spoiler- we saw three!

Note: All under water pics shown here are by Daniel Browne of Coral Bay Eco Tours.

To See Whale Sharks of Ningaloo Reef: Prelude

Mawson’s Guardian, Mark, and the Guardian-ess had the good fortune last November to swim with 3 manta rays off the North West coast of Western Australia in the waters of the Ningaloo Reef. You can read about our snorkelling experience here and particularly about the big manta rays here.

This year the Guardian-ess had a Big Birthday. ‘What would you like for your birthday?” asked the Guardian. “To swim with whale sharks”, she replied promptly. Whale Sharks migrate up the coast of Western Australia on their way to Indonesian waters and come close to Ningaloo Reef. We were able to book for early June, quite late in the Whale Shark migrating season, and there was a risk we could miss them altogether. There was also a risk that the winter weather would not allow safe vessel operation beyond the outer reef, but we chanced it anyway.

Murchison River gorge in Western Australia — Murchison River gorge and the skywalk near Kalbarri

We drove some 1400 kilometres north of Perth to the township of Coral Bay, turning off to Kalbarri on the way to see the amazing Murchison River gorge. I will talk of that in another post, but for now, here is a picture of the Skywalk jutting out over the lip of the gorge, or ‘canyon’ in American-English. You cannot capture the spectacle in photos. Millions and millions of years of layers of rock all eaten down by the flow of the waters in the bed of surrounding land.

Clouds hung ominously over the landscape as we drove north — Office Ratty and Terri Turtle admire the clouds

Sunshine and rainbow prisms played on the sky — Office Ratty and Terri Turtle admire the clouds

During our long drive up we fortunately missed the worst of the bad weather which struck the coast for days. No charter boats or tour vessels had gone out in that time. Would we also strike bad weather on the very day we had booked to go out with Coral Bay Eco Tours on the good ship RV Thunder?

The morning before The Big Day, we trooped to the booking office for fittings ie we squashed ourselves into wetsuits of suitable sizes, which Eco Tours requires snorkelers to wear when in the deep water beyond the outer reef. By the time I had finished not falling over as I hauled on the leggings and got my chest to function again after I was zipped into the suit, I believed I’d had all my aerobic exercise for that day.

Sunset over Coral Bay in Western Australia

That afternoon the weather began turning. The sunset was spectacular but the heavy clouds a concern. Those of our party who had wifi connections (something not always the case beyond the big Australian cities) peered at weather forecasts. Another front was definitely coming in on Our Day. When? ‘Late in the day’ observed the weather people. Would the operator therefore cancel for safety reasons? They didn’t. But as it turned out, the on the following 2 days they did; and every tour and charter vessel stayed at moorings as rain surged in. We only just managed just to squeak into the window of opportunity.

At 8 am we boarded RV Thunder and steered out over calm waters under a sky cloudy but bright to a spot in the Ningaloo Reef featuring ‘coral bombs’. These clusters of all shapes of coral rise from the sand floor nearly to the surface. In fact, you have to be careful to not get over the top of them in case of injuring both oneself and the coral.

Coral cluster at Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia

Here we practised being comfortable in our wetsuits and goggles as well as enjoying the swim. More about that in the next post! Meantime, a sneak preview of a whale shark.

Don’t miss the next exiting part of our Whale Shark Day.

Note: All under water pics shown here are by Daniel Browne of Coral Bay Eco Tours.

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