Torres Strait Coast Australia

You're looking out at the Torres Strait.

It's a narrow passage of water encircled by the Coral Sea.

There's over 100 separate islands

scattered across 48,000 square kilometres.

We've come here to unlock the secrets

of this far-flung archipelago.

Part of yet so unlike the rest of Australia, Torres Strait has

long been a place of both opportunity and peril.

Where vital chapters in Australia's history were written

and where people uphold ancient traditions,

forged by centuries of isolation.

Joining me on this journey, Professor Tim Flannery

enters the realm of the head hunters.

They were cruelly murdered and beheaded.

Dr Xanthe Mallett investigates a maritime disaster.

I can't imagine what it would have been like for a young girl

to be tossed from a sinking ship.

Dr Alice Garner is off on a very different border patrol.

No X-rays or scanners here.

And I find out what happened when war came to paradise.

This was the only indigenous battalion ever formed

by the Australian Army.

This is Coast Australia.

Our journey stretches across the Torres Strait,

from Possession and Thursday Islands in the south,

to Mer Island on the far-eastern fringe,

and Saibai Island, just off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

It's hard to believe the shadow of war once loomed

over such a tranquil place.

But as Australia's northern-most outpost

and its first line of defence,

Torres Strait became a World War II battlefield.

Greenhill Fort on Thursday Island is a stark reminder of those dark days.

This place was originally fortified in the 1890s

when there were fears of an invasion by Russia,

but it wasn't until the 1940s that the place saw any real action.

By this time, the threat was from the Japanese

and the fort was manned by Australian and US troops

anxiously scanning the horizon to the north.

That sky was soon filled with Japanese bombers,

on raids from bases in Papua New Guinea.

Between March 1942 and June 1943,

neighbouring Horn Island came under withering attack.

500 bombs were dropped, making Horn Island the most shelled site

in Australia, after Darwin.

I want to find out why.

Hi, Vanessa.

'One person who's studied Horn Island's wartime role is

'historian Vanessa Seekee.'

It's hard to imagine this as a war zone?

I know it's idyllic and very beautiful,

but, yes, it was a war zone.

It was the most advanced Allied airbase that we had to PNG

while still being in Australian waters.

That very fact made the Horn Island airbase a target.

In particular, this runway.

Why did Horn and the runway matter so much?

Because from here you could easily reach Japanese bases in PNG

and get back here in one day, but the Japanese on the other hand

looked at Horn Island and thought they could launch from here,

they could launch all the way down the east coast.

So, what it all boiled down to is everyone knowing that

if you had aircraft in this area, you wanted that runway

-to have them land and take off from?

-Yes, exactly.

At the height of the Japanese bombardment,

5,000 Australian and US troops were stationed here.

Amongst these was the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion for which

almost all the combined islands' eligible men folk had volunteered.

All the more remarkable when you consider that this was

the only indigenous battalion ever formed by the Australian Army.

Nearly 900 islanders answered the call to arms.

The highest rate of enlistment per population in Australia.

They volunteered at a time when they didn't have the right to vote,

they weren't considered citizens of Australia, they weren't

on the Commonwealth census, but they still volunteered in such numbers,

and I think that points to

the honour and integrity of the Torres Strait people as a whole -

as a culture and as a people.

The islanders were also deemed unworthy of equal pay,

receiving just a third of the regular army wage.

Well, this is document of the time.

"If such natives were paid at such rates far above the rates

"earned by them in civilian life before the war, it would cause

"considerable trouble when they eventually left the army."

That's amazing.

They admit that when they go back into peacetime life,

they'll want the same again, and we can't have equality.

That's right.

Did they see action, in as much as,

were there bullets and bombs flying around them?

During the air raids, yes, for sure.

I spoke to one Torres Strait veteran who was in the first air raid

and he was on a machinegun and he can remember

the bullets zipping around and he said they make

little puffs of smoke as they hit the grass and the ground.

13 members of the battalion paid the ultimate price

for their extraordinary loyalty.

Even today, the island is littered

with rusting reminders of a violent past.

It's just an open-air museum of World War II, isn't it?

It is. It's a time capsule sitting in the bush.

What was this place?

This is the command post of the 34th Australian heavy anti-aircraft battery.

So, if you picture a circle, around the edge of the circle are four

3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns. This is the centre, the hub of the wheel.

This is where all the decisions were made.

Were these jobs being performed by Torres Strait islander men?

This unit had non-indigenous and indigenous soldiers

so, yes, it's a perfect example of Horn Island being

the only place in Australia where they came together in such numbers

for a common goal, and that's exactly what happened here.

While the site's remained remarkably intact,

the men themselves have all but disappeared.

-How do you do, Mebai?

-Good.

'90-year-old veteran Mebai Warusam was just 18 years old

'when he left his island home to serve as a gunner on Horn Island.'

Why did you join? Was it something you wanted to do?

Yeah, everybody agreed, everybody agreed to join to defend our country.

In the army, we used to call ourselves all brothers.

It doesn't matter, American or Indian or New Zealand,

-if there is one blood inside.

-One blood?

-One blood, yeah.

-No other colour.

-How did you feel

knowing that you were getting less pay?

No, we never feel anything but we want to defend our country.

I think people got that mind.

So, even with the unequal pay,

-you were still determined to defend your country?

-Yeah.

Are there other veterans of the battalion here on the islands now?

-No, there's nothing. There's only me, the last one.

-Just you?

-Yes.

-Last of the line?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's why you ordered me to come here for this!

THEY LAUGH

I don't order soldiers around, I can tell you.

The immense challenges that faced Australia's only indigenous battalion

make it hard to resist the impression that the Pacific war

and their role in fighting it was ultimately empowering.

Not just in terms of the way those Torres Strait islanders

learned to see themselves,

but in the way the whole of the rest of Australia saw them too.

Just a stone's throw off Cape York Peninsula lies Possession Island.

Uninhabited now, this non-descript nub of land once played

a fascinating role in Australia's history.

Tim Flannery's off to uncover the remarkable story of how

Possession Island earned its name.

By mid 1770, Captain James Cook's

voyage of discovery had become a nightmare.

He'd been trapped in a great coral labyrinth that we now know

as the Great Barrier Reef and his ship had been holed.

If it wasn't for the fact that a lump of coral the size of a human fist

had stuck in the hull, the Endeavour would have sunk then and there.

They managed to link to the coast

at a place near present-day Cooktown, make some repairs

and then set off again to find a way out of the great coralline maze.

Before long though,

mountainous waves were driving the vessel towards yet another reef.

All looked lost.

Cook wrote in his journal,

"We hardly had any hopes of saving the ship.

"All the dangers we'd escaped were little in comparison of being

"thrown on this reef."

Just as the ship was about to be dashed to splinters,

her sails caught a sudden, unexpected gust.

Cook and his crew had been saved at the last possible moment.

They made safe passage to here, Possession Island,

and the first thing they did was head off to the highest point.

From here you can see the way out of that endless maze of reefs

and islands that had threatened so often to finish his voyage,

not to mention his life.

But before leaving, Cook had to claim this newly-charted land

for king and country,

and I'm keen to find out exactly what that involved.

Historian Katrina Schlunke is something of a Cook scholar.

Now, I understand it was somewhere near here that

Captain Cook claimed Australia for Great Britain. What happened?

He showed the colours on land.

It was answered by a flag being raised on the ship.

He had the marines let off three volleys of fire,

which was answered on ship, and then there was a big shout

from the sailors on board, up in the shrouds.

Well, I suppose the story's up here, really, isn't it?

"Lieutenant James Cook,

"in the name of His Majesty King George III, took possession

"of the whole eastern coast of Australia. August 22nd 1770."

One thing that's always intrigued me, Katrina,

is why Cook choose this place to take possession?

He could have done it anywhere on the coast,

-and yet he chose this little island here.

-I know.

He's got the Dutch maps that are showing that he's reached

the, sort of, end of what has already been mapped.

It's almost like a recuperative point. He's got this moment

to sum up all that's happened so far,

and he himself is very modest. He believes... You know, he says,

"I've made no great discoveries,"

and yet what he's done is fill in that missing east coast,

which has been missing for over 250 years

and so it's an incredible feat

and he knows that this is the moment to do it.

Two years earlier, Cook had set out on his South Seas voyage

with two distinct objectives.

The first - to observe the transit of Venus - was public knowledge.

His second task was a secret.

Cook himself didn't know what was in his sealed orders.

He unfolded another set of instructions

and on that he was told to go discovering, to 40 degrees south,

in the hope of finding the great south land.

Cook's secret orders also contained clear instructions on what to do

should he find that land was already inhabited.

The instructions from Morton, who was president of the Royal Society,

were very clear -

to make an alliance with, or to make a treaty with,

and those two terms were repeated in the so-called secret instructions

that Cook unfolded after Tahiti.

Cook ignored those instructions.

Despite meeting many indigenous people

on his voyage up the East Coast,

he declared this vast place to be terra nullius -

a land that belonged to no-one.

And that was contrary to both his secret instructions

and the hints from the president of the Royal Society.

So in that sense, it still remains in doubt -

did really what Cook do... was it really legal

in any sense of the word, and should he have done it?

Two years after Endeavour left England, it was time to go home.

Cook had mapped so much of the South Pacific and Australia

that he'd changed the map of the world

and was the last person to do so on such a scale,

but here on Possession Island he missed something.

Something that might have changed the whole course of history,

particularly here in Australia.

That something was gold.

Between 1896 and 1906,

Possession Island yielded more than 150 kilos of the precious metal,

worth a staggering 7 million in today's money.

So this is the goldmine.

It's completely deserted now, but this was it.

Wow. But are you telling me that Cook, when he landed here

-and claimed Australia, was literally standing on a goldmine?

-I am.

I am astonished. Can you imagine what would've happened

if he'd put the flag pole in and come up with a nugget?

-The sailors would've gone crazy.

-A mutiny, that's all I can imagine.

It's hard to believe how profoundly important

this forgotten island is to Australian history,

and it's important not just for what happened here,

but for what didn't happen.

But for a puff of wind, Australia may never have been British.

But for a missed goldmine, Possession Island might been

the capital of Australia.

Given that Torres Strait is so remote and isolated,

it's remarkable how many major events have unfolded here.

Events that altered the destiny of Australia.

200 years after James Cook stood on Possession Island

and claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain,

the people of Mer, or Murray Island,

on the eastern fringe of Torres Strait,

spearheaded an unlikely land-rights revolution.

In 1982, this extinct volcano erupted once again,

becoming the centre of a legal maelstrom,

whipped up by one islander.

His name was Eddie Mabo.

Although he spent much of his life on the mainland,

Eddie always considered this place home.

As does his daughter, artist Gail Mabo.

Thank you for having me to this fantastic place.

-Not a problem. Welcome to Murray Island.

-It's a bit special.

-It is.

How long have your people been on this island?

-Since time immemorial, mate.

-So, for ever?

-For ever.

With my dad, he researched and he found that he is the 16th generation,

so I am 17th generation.

-16 generations.

-Yes.

-OK. So that's reaching back quite far?

-That's right.

But in 1981,

Eddie Mabo learned that his beloved Mer Island belonged,

not to the people who'd lived there forever,

but to the Australian government.

It was when he was invited as a guest to speak

at James Cook University Land Rights Conference,

and he was talking about his land in the Torres Straits

and at the end of the conference, they said,

"You actually don't own that."

Was your dad, in some ways, the first of the people

of Mer Island to even learn this fact,

that someone believed

-that they owned the land, and not people of the island?

-Yes, he was.

You know, because it's Crown land people can put in for it

and, you know, they could get it.

I suppose, by saying that, that the only way we can prove

that the system do exist, is to convince the white man's law system.

And so began a David and Goliath battle.

300 islanders, led by Eddie Mabo,

taking on the might of the Australian legal system,

setting out to prove that a method of land ownership

had existed here long before the arrival of Captain Cook.

In 1989, as part of Eddie's claim,

the Supreme Court of Queensland came to Mer Island to hear evidence.

Most importantly,

it enables the people of Murray Island to participate

in the process of justice that's been worked out in these proceedings.

The court heard that the island had been divided between Mer's

eight clans by a God called Malo,

who'd arrived centuries before in the form of an octopus.

I'm meeting Mer Island elders Alo and Meb

to find out why the Malo story was crucial to Eddie's land claim.

-I'm Meb.

-Hi.

Who is Malo?

He gave the order of how to exist,

coexist.

Magaram ,this tribe, Peibre tribe is this one.

The spaces between the octopus's tentacles

are the different portions of the island.

So that's why Malo was relevant to Eddie Mabo's claim on the land.

Yes.

It took nearly ten years for the Mabo case

to wind its way through the courts.

Finally, in November 1992, the High Court handed down its decision.

The finding had rested upon

two simple questions -

did the community of Mer Island have a system of land ownership

that predated white conquest, and was it still valid?

The answer to both questions was yes.

But that wasn't all.

The court decided its findings applied not just to Mer Island,

but to all Australia.

Paving the way for indigenous people across the country

to claim native title.

For Eddie Mabo, it was a stunning victory.

But it was one he could never savour.

In January 1992, just months before the High Court decision,

Eddie died after a battle with cancer.

His grave lies on a hill overlooking the land,

which the Mabo decision finally confirmed was his.

You know, and where he's now buried, behind him, the warriors,

the past warriors of Murray Island,

are all buried behind him here in the bush.

Right. So, this is hallowed ground?

This is, yes.

He is he is here because he is the last of the warriors.

The Mabo case changed history.

More than 200 years previously, James Cook had come to Australia

and the place had been declared terra nullius -

an empty land. But, of course, it wasn't empty. James Cook knew that.

What he meant was that it was populated

by people who would cause no trouble, who had no voice.

But then along came Eddie Mabo

and he had a voice, not just for himself or for the people

of this island, but for indigenous people right across the continent.

And at the end of the day, what he had to say with that voice

was something very simple - we have always been here.

This land has always been ours. It will always be ours.

Living on an isolated island on Torres Strait

there's no popping downtown for a spot of shopping.

Everything you need, from fuel to four-wheel drives

must be shipped in.

Each year, around 3,000 ships pick their way through Torres Strait,

but busy shipping lanes and reefs are a hazardous mix.

Dr Xanthe Mallett's heading east of Cape York,

into the Adolphus Channel,

the site of Queensland's worst peace-time maritime disaster.

125 years ago, a 3,000-tonne ship called the RMS Quetta

came steaming north through these waters.

Just nine years old, she was a fast, modern vessel

carrying cargo and 292 passengers.

On that fateful February night back in 1890,

the Quetta was on her way from Brisbane to London.

It was the 12th time that she'd made that run.

It would become a voyage of the dammed.

The terrible events that unfolded that night have long

fascinated historian and former reef pilot John Foley.

What happened the night she sank?

She had to come through this channel to get to Torres Strait

to Thursday Island, the next port of call.

The only known danger was a rock over here called Mid Rock

and so they knew there was good deep water over this side of the channel,

so what they did, they kept over that side of the channel.

Not knowing that there was a rock right in the middle of the channel.

On this particular night,

she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and she struck the rock.

What kind of damage did that rock do?

It just opened up a big rent on the starboard side.

-So it basically disembowelled her?

-Yes. Oh, yes,

she was doomed from the moment that happened.

Nobody knew it existed. Bad luck. There was the rock sticking up.

The top of the Quetta is just 12 metres down, but diving her

can be really dangerous and it's just too rough for me today.

There are also rips that would have played havoc with the passengers.

On our dive boat is engineer Hubert Hofer

who has written about the wreck.

For 35 years he's been fascinated by why it sank so quickly,

claiming so many lives.

In search of answers, he's dived it more than 80 times.

Back on solid ground,

Hubert gives me more details about the Quetta's final moments.

So you've got a diagram here.

Can you show me on this what you think happened to her that night?

Where was she damaged?

Well, you can see on the picture of the rock here.

That's the actual rock she hit, the one that wasn't charted.

Yes, she came from this side, from the south,

she struck the rock and it actually split it.

It went all the way back to the engine room,

-which is a distance of 55 metres.

-Wow.

-So it's a long gash.

-How quickly do you think - point of impact to sinking?

-Three minutes.

Three minutes.

-This must have been terrifying.

-Unimaginable. Unimaginable.

Of the nearly 300 people on board, 158 were rescued,

some boasting incredible tales of survival.

One girl who lost her sister and uncle in the tragedy

was found drifting nearly two days later.

I can't imagine what it would have been like for a young girl to be

tossed from a sinking ship and then to be left alone out here at night.

Emily Lacy was just 16.

For 36 hours, she drifted, naked and unsupported,

in shark-infested waters.

By the time the crew finally got her aboard, she was delirious,

telling them that she'd been living

in a hotel at the bottom of the ocean.

Later she wrote,

"I was nearly suffocated. I thought I would be drowned.

"In fact every second I thought would be the last in this life."

Emily rarely spoke of her ordeal.

Her account was only made public after her death in 1951, aged 77.

The Quetta tragedy claimed 134 lives.

Three years after the sinking, in 1893,

this tiny cathedral was built on Thursday Island

as a permanent memorial to the victims.

These are some of the items that have been recovered

from the wreck of the Quetta.

Poignant reminders of one of the blackest days

in Australia's shipping history.

In 1792, 22 years after Captain Cook,

another famous English naval officer, William Bligh,

spent three weeks in Torres Strait, charting its islands and channels...

and narrowly escaped death at the hands of native head hunters.

Other mariners weren't so lucky.

Venturing into the heart of the strait, on his own quest,

is Professor Tim Flannery.

I've been fascinated by the head hunters of Torres Strait

ever since I read about them as a kid.

Going on a head-hunting expedition must have been

just about the most exciting thing a young man could do.

You'd get aboard a canoe that would hold 30 warriors, go out,

and after an ambush, or a raid,

out would come the gabba-gabba clubs and then the bamboo knives.

'Flying from Horn Island, my companions on this expedition

'are Ned David, descendant of a 19th century warrior chief called Kebisu.'

Great to meet you. Thank you for this.

I'm really looking forward to it.

'And professor of indigenous archaeology Ian McNiven.'

-This is going to be a great day.

-Absolutely.

We're on our way to Yam Island,

ancestral home of the Kulkalgal people, and they were considered

the fiercest head hunters in all of Torres Strait.

The Kulkalgal mounted long-range raids as far as New Guinea

and mainland Australia, with one gruesome objective -

to harvest heads.

The headhunting habits of the Torres Strait islanders

had shot spectacularly to world attention with

the wreck of the Charles Eaton in 1834.

She'd foundered on the Great Barrier Reef, but a raft full

of survivors were taken to a nearby island by a party of Kulkalgal.

There, they were cruelly murdered and beheaded, and their skulls

brought to Torres Strait and used to decorate an ancestral fetish mask.

When the mask was discovered in 1836, it was brought back to Sydney

and put on display at the museum,

and I can only imagine the horror of those passengers at Circular Quay

who were waiting to embark on a journey to Singapore, or Mumbai,

or London, that knew they would have had to pass through the strait.

Hidden on this island are remnants of this ferocious warrior culture.

Gentlemen, welcome to Table Stone.

This is where all the locals would have gathered

to shape their weapons to go to war, et cetera.

-We've actually got one here.

-Ah!

'This was the business end of a weapon called a gabba-gabba.

'A warrior clubbed his victim with this, before using a bamboo knife

'to take the head.'

Look at that, it's so beautiful.

You can see how it would have been... maybe it was shaped like that.

-Exactly right.

-With great precision, look at that.

-So, for getting different angles and getting the right shape.

-I see.

Including, like a thin one here.

Yeah. We call it the Stone Age but that is high technology.

It's an absolutely work of art.

I've been told if I hold it, I've got to hold it really firm.

'This complete gabba-gabba holds a special significance.'

The chief himself would've owned that. It would've been great King Kebisu himself.

Kebisu? I'm just blown away, I mean, this is...

It's like the royal sceptre of Torres Strait, isn't it?

It's one of the treasures of the Torres Strait.

Oh, it's such an honour and privilege to hold it.

It's a privilege to be in its presence.

So, I guess from a modern perspective,

it's really hard for people to understand why human heads

were so important to the Kulkalgal culture.

-Yeah.

-Because these heads, or these skulls,

-actually had a value to people.

-It could be a currency.

Certainly, heads could be used in the big trade system that sort of

operated throughout Torres Strait, connecting different communities.

There's certainly status in taking heads for young warriors,

but there's also a requirement that these heads go into these special headhunting shrines,

which then gives power and energy to the communities.

So, it's not just an act of going and sort of killing people.

Heads are absolutely essential

to the proper functioning of these societies

and, unfortunately, early Europeans had no sort of concept of that

and didn't understand it properly, and were on the receiving end of it.

Shipwreck survivors were especially vulnerable.

You're seen to be spiritually very dangerous.

Because the sea has rejected you, people see you as being somehow

almost metaphysically unstable

and they don't want that sort of person in their community

because it's a danger to the community,

and the best way to process that person

is they have to be executed on the spot and there's

a number of important religious shrines on these islands

where the heads were taken to and buried in those shrines,

to give power to the shrine

and then the shrine would sort of give power to the community.

Such places were sacred and secret.

But Ned's agreed to show us a head-hunting shrine

on his spiritual home, Tudu Island.

About 30km east of Yam, Tudu was once known,

more ominously, as Warrior Island.

What we're about to go in to now,

it's of immense cultural significance for my people.

I ask you to watch where you step and try not to dislodge anything.

My goodness! I wasn't expecting that.

We're confronted by scores of trumpet shells,

untouched for more than a century.

Under each shell is meant to have generally a skull.

Right. A human skull under every one. Wow.

Under the arrangement.

So, Ned, why were the skulls kept in a place like this?

The skulls, I think, you know, channel through the energy for...

And guidance I think, you know, to make the right decisions.

This place, known as a kod, was both the parliament

and the spiritual centre of life on Tudu.

You can imagine how sacred it must have been for the people.

They wouldn't have come here lightly. This would have been something almost too powerful.

-So no-one would come anywhere near this place.

-Right.

And how many heads do you think are here then in this...

under this great circle of shells?

There would be more than 200.

Yeah, right. Almost one for every shell.

Probably a thousand plus scattered throughout the island.

I can confidently say that the mix of skulls here would be

-people of status.

-Yes.

And maybe a mix of people who had been killed in battle

-or trophies that had been brought back.

-Right.

As warrior culture faded, European interest in skulls increased.

Many ended up in museum collections.

Well, it seems to me there's an irony in that

because 150 years ago, you were seen as the head hunters

taking European heads, and now we're the head hunters.

We've got museums full of skulls from people from Torres Strait islands

-and you're trying to get them back.

-Well, yeah. Funny that.

So, what have you got here in your hand?

These are where they have them in storage.

'Ned is working to have those remains returned.

'Already, the British Museum of Natural History has agreed

'to send back the remains of 138 Torres Strait islanders.'

And look at the number in there. There's bay after bay after bay.

So, what will it mean to you to get all these remains back?

I think it would be a great deal for Torres Strait islanders,

certainly for the Kulkalgal.

I think, I, you know, extremely optimistic

we could do this, my generation can achieve this.

Ned expects those belonging to Tudu

will be placed back in the earth of their ancestors.

It's hard to understand head hunting, but with the help of an island elder

and an archaeologist I feel like at least I've made a beginning.

And more importantly than that, I've seen how my own culture's

determination to collect the heads of Torres Strait islanders

has caused distress here

and how a new generation of elders is starting to put that right.

While Asian sailors explored this region long before Europeans,

the strait bears the name of the Spanish navigator

Luis Vaez de Torres, who sailed through here in 1606.

Nearly 300 years later, at federation,

the Torres Strait islands all became part of Australia,

even though some lie just off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

Dr Alice Garner is on her way to one such island, to find out

about an unusual form of border patrol.

It's market day on Saibai Island.

As they've always done, people from villages on the southern coast of PNG

make the easy four-kilometre jaunt across the water

to trade with local islanders like Mariana Baba.

Mussel shells. We've got crabs and woven mats, baskets and brooms.

-And these are coming over from Papua New Guinea?

-Yes.

We have a long history of... In alliance with them

for trade purposes and bartering.

So it would supplement the local...

Local produce, yes.

It makes sense for such close neighbours to be trading partners

until you remember that Saibai Island is part of Australia

and that these visitors are entering Australian territory

with no passports or visas.

With border security such a hot-button issue,

why are they allowed such freedom?

The answer lies in a really unusual deal.

A 1978 landmark agreement, known as the Torres Strait Treaty,

which radically redefined maritime boundaries.

In a world first, the Torres Strait Treaty was set up to preserve

this traditional way of life.

Clayton Harrington is treaty liaison officer.

It's his job to oversee this unusual arrangement.

And coming up here we can see Papua New Guinea there, 3.7 kilometres.

-So, that's it right there?

-Right there.

They'll come at about 9.30 or ten in the morning

and then they'll depart at about four o'clock in the afternoon.

So, Clayton, how does this treaty work?

What we've got here is the protected zone.

Arguably the most important

and certainly most recognisable provision of the treaty is

the provision that allows free movement within the protected zone

for traditional inhabitants from Australia

and from PNG coastal villages without passport or visa.

Were it not for the treaty, a PNG national in Sigabaduru

would have to travel via Port Moresby,

Cairns International airport

and Thursday Island

in order to reach Saibai.

A ridiculously roundabout route which would soon put an end

to the traditional way of life.

What are the traditional activities that are allowed

under the framework of the treaty?

Fishing, gardening, hunting and gathering.

Visiting families for cultural events such as deaths,

births, marriages. Religious events

and anything that they've been doing and accessing the Torres Strait

region for a long, long period of time.

How unique is this treaty?

This is the first international agreement that sought to protect

and preserve the traditional way of life across an international border.

It really is ahead of its time and so special and unique,

it really is a triumph in doing that.

Each year, there are about 45,000 movements in the shared zone

between PNG and the treaty islands.

Saibai alone receives about 15,000 visits.

This is the immigration checkpoint on Saibai. No X-rays or scanners here.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

-OK, purpose of visit? Barter and trader?

-Yes.

But there is still paperwork.

Everyone must show proof that they come from a treaty village

and have prior permission to visit Saibai.

Yep, good to go.

Yeah, good to go.

While the treaty promotes freedom, there are limits.

PNG villagers cannot come to Saibai to work or get medical help,

and they can only trade on treaty islands.

In a world of heavily policed borders and stifling bureaucracy,

it's hard to believe that a treaty like this can work, but it does

and it seems to live up to its mighty ideals -

being in a spirit of co-operation, friendship

and goodwill between neighbours.

Arrive in Torres Strait and one thing is soon clear,

without a boat you're going nowhere fast.

Every day, rain, hale or shine, vessels of all shapes and sizes

plough through these waters.

It's peak hour on Horn Island

and there on the wharf is the ferry MV Australia Fair,

bound for Thursday Island, the administrative hub of the Torres Strait.

Now, as administrative hubs go, Thursday Island is an unusual one

in that you can't access it by aeroplane, only by ferry.

One of only a handful of wooden ferries left in Australia,

the MV Australia Fair first graced the waters of Sydney Harbour.

About 80 years ago,

she was de-commissioned and brought up to the strait

and for the last ten years, she's been skippered by Daniel Takai.

-Hi, Daniel.

-Good day, Neil. How are you?

Good. Great. Some office.

Beautiful, isn't it? Fantastic!

I noticed as soon as I came on board

there was kind of a happy atmosphere. It's like a happy place.

It's got the right ambience

for people to just come on and enjoy the travel.

I get a real sense that between the islands nothing happens

without this link.

-That's it.

-They're stranded.

Yeah, we've got no bridges, we've got no causeways.

This is it. This is it.

The ferry makes the round trip between Horn and Thursday Islands

12 times a day, 364 days a year.

So I thought Daniel might need a break.

-Can I take the helm?

-Why not?

-Brilliant.

-I think we should go somewhere different though.

-What, fishing?

Yeah, let's shake the passengers up a bit.

-You're enjoying this mate, aren't ya?

-Yeah.

-Could be a second job.

-I do like boats.

There's one type of vessel you don't see in Torres Strait any more

and that's a pearling lugger.

Pearling was once big business.

At the industry's height in the late 1800s,

16 pearling firms operated on Thursday Island,

and Torres Strait supplied more than half the world's pearl shell.

The people who flooded here from all over the world,

brought with them their songs...

..turning Thursday Island into a musical melting pot.

Traditional island music blended with blues, folk, country

and a dozen other styles, forming a heady brew,

which is at once familiar yet all its own.

# I want to dance... #

# Welcome

# We say welcome to the Torres Strait... #

I'm on my way to meet a musician who's spent a large part of his life

writing music about this place.

At 84 years old,

he's one of Australia's oldest recording artists.

With two ARIA awards under his belt, Torres Strait islander,

Henry Gibson, or Seaman Dan as he's much better known, has helped

take the music of his homeland to the world.

# ..For a happy memory. #

How long have you been making music?

Oh, started at eight and...

started recording about 70.

That's a bit of a gap.

-Started making music at eight and started recording at 70?

-Yes.

# Once he was a young man... #

Dan filled that lengthy gap with a succession of different jobs.

In the 1950s, he strode the seabed as a pearl diver.

Which is you?

Right. Now that's a diver. That's proper.

That's the real thing. That's the real thing.

Yeah, that's the one where you've got a cable going up to the boat

and people with pumps.

Those seven years spent underwater seeped into Dan's song writing.

# ..Is a young man

# When he talks about the sea. #

Some of my songs is all about pearl diving and what I see

on the bottom - sharks and gropers - and they come into my music too.

Dan's life changed in 1999,

when music producer Karl Neuenfeldt happened to catch him live.

The minute he started singing I thought,

"Well, this gentleman has an excellent voice,

and he was writing songs about his life experience

as a diver and then I said,

"Well, I think I'll take a punt on this one."

Half a dozen albums later, this man from TI

has found an audience well beyond Torres Strait.

It makes people happy.

When I'm performing, doing a gig and people are smiling, I think

to myself I must be doing something right, everyone is smiling.

Do you think you'll ever retire?

Er...no. While the voice is still there, I'll keep singing.

# Are you from TI? Are you from TI?

# Well, I'm from TI too Pleased to meet you

# Well, I'm from TI too. #

Take it home!

If I had to sum up Torres Strait, I'd say it's a world between worlds.

Sandwiched between oceans, this island-flecked passage,

so steeped in history, is a source of never-ending surprise and wonder.

The Torres Strait has been unforgettable for me.

The tropical heat, the humidity, a sense of a place apart.

The strait has seen many people come and go for thousands upon thousands of years

and many of them have claimed ownership,

but spend some time here and one simple thing seems obvious -

the islands belong to the islanders just as they always have.

Next time, we're off to Norfolk Island.

Dr Alice Garner meets the descendants

of mutineers on the bounty.

It's just amazing what he did.

I mean, it was a hanging offence to mutiny.

And I discover the man behind

a chilling account of Norfolk's cruel convict past.

"I have suffered both mental and otherwise.

"These are trials which no heart can know of."