Starting Points
In the beginning, the intention was to write something About The North. I've ended up writing a lot. The content here doesn't always relate directly to the part of Australia where I live, but it's part of a story that does, and stories come with starting points. In some cases, the starting point goes back a long way, and others begin in the not-too-distant past.
In Origins, Indigenes and Antecedents, the points of entry are The Big Bang, climatic and geological changes in East Africa and different historical eras.
Mapping The North comes in four sections:
Tracing an Outline starts with European notions of what lay on the other side of the Equator, then moves through what happened when European travellers ventured across the line and, eventually, arrived in Australia's neighbourhood
Six Voyages delivers an outline of North Queensland's coastline.
Adding Detail tracks through an assortment of travellers between the arrival of the First Fleet and Queensland's separation from New South Wales.
North Queensland begins in the lead-up to Separation, tracks through the beginnings of European settlement in The North, then continues through the rest of the nineteenth century into the twentieth and beyond.
