68 Australian Geographic
While diseases such as chalkbrood (which
appeared in Queensland in 1993) and the varroa
mite (which hasn’t yet reached Australia) have
ravaged hives and led to the collapse of colonies
elsewhere, queens from Keswick have been posted
across Australia and beyond, to ensure the survival
of healthy new generations. It’s not an enormous
trade – John estimates just short of two dozen clean
queens have been despatched from Keswick in the
last two years – but it’s an important one.
The queens can’t remedy existing diseases, but
they can introduce infection-free generations of
pollinators. And the honey they make here is spec-
tacular. Flavoured by nectar from the local grass trees
and other distinct blooms, it has a deep, dark-red
colour and tastes like malted caramel.
Then there are the plants themselves. While St
Bees has delivered at least three new species to
Australia’s botanical records – sumac or wedding
bush (Rhus taitensis), orange annona (Fitzalania hetero-
petala), and tick clover (Desmodium gangeticum) –
Keswick has its own group of particular botanicals.
The island’s development lease was granted to
Keswick Developments more than eight years ago.
When Brett Curd became its operations officer
four years later, the plan was to regenerate its
community spaces with plants imported from the
mainland. “Then we discovered we had our own
horticulturalist and offsider,” says Brett, referring to
Ron and Marion Brooks. “They took on running the
nursery. If they can’t grow it, we don’t plant it.”
Seeds from the island have been collected andpropagated, and the nursery now holds Keswick’s
flora in miniature: from native ginger and beach
cherry to cycads, lomandra, cotton trees and grass
trees. All are ready to be dug in at the island’s public
spaces or into gardens of residents. “They’re my little
babies, those plants,” says Marion, who does the
majority of the nursery’s work these days. “I love it.”
Planting work often falls to WWOOFers – World
Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms volunteers,
who hail from around the globe. “Italians, Germans,
Swedes, French, Americans, English, Belgians, Welsh,
Irish – we’ve had them from everywhere,” says Brett.
“They help us with weeding, mulching, planting,
treecare, and a bit of work in the nursery.”
All other landscaping and maintenance is taken
care of by Brett and his two staff – including Rodger- as well as whichever of Brett’s eight children
happen to be around. “Anything that happens on
this island, I have to be across it,” Brett says. “I’m
the council, the mayor, the labour and the manager.”
And while more than 80 per cent of Keswick is
designated national park, the area covered by Keswick
Development’s lease is not prettified or manicured,
but rather simply well-kept. It sits in the foreground
against the kind of lush Australian bush that spans
the full gamut of greens and glows like stained glass
when lit by sunlight.
An exploration of the island reveals just how
special Keswick is. As I sat at Basil Bay, watching the
tide turn, a concerto of crickets called; a cloud of bats
rose up as two eagles circled overhead; two oyster-
catchers with crayon-orange beaks picked along the
shore; and a ray chased a shoal of baitfish across
the water. As Brett says, “Look long enough and
something will come past.”
But it’s not just the natural attractions of a place
such as this that make it feel somehow removed from
the rest of the world. There’s also its self-sufficiency.
Keswick has no natural springs; rather, rain fills the
tanks that supply its water. Power is solar, and wastes,
including black water, are processed on-site, with only
the hardest rubbish shipped back to the mainland.
“It makes me laugh when people talk about this
‘new’ ecotourism and sustainability,” Brett says.
“We’ve been doing it here for years.”
I
N THE 1890s, William Saville-Kent, Queensland’s
then commissioner of fisheries, travelled north
along the state’s coast. En route he passed over
kilometres of spectacular corals until, as he recorded,
he reached “the Percy, the Northumberland, the
Cumberland and the Whitsunday islands...a linear
series of island groups...composed of igneous or met-
amorphic rock, identical in character to those ofOn the web. Northerm golden orb weavers, such as
this one on St Bees Island, can create expansive silken
insect traps that reach up to 2m in diameter.Nephila pilipes