Queensland floods: Cape York sings praises of tinnie Gavin and rescue Magoo
When the time came, the heroes of Rossville didn’t hesitate to come to the rescue of trapped friends and neighbours.
As rain fell in grey sheets and the floodwaters rose in cut-off Rossville, Gavin Dear jumped in a tinnie and did what he could to help.
Neighbours, friends, complete strangers – it didn’t matter. The self-styled minstrel of Cape York Peninsula grabbed anyone he could reach and pulled them to safety.
Above him, the man they call Magoo was doing his bit in a mustering chopper, swooping in to save 16 people trapped on the roof of the inundated Lion’s Den Hotel, the water churning around them. To the amazement of all concerned he flew them out one at a time.
Cometh the hour, cometh the men who made the difference between life and death on remote Cape York Peninsula.
The heroics of Mr Dear and Magoo – actual name Brett Little, of Lakeland – earned a shout-out from Anthony Albanese on Tuesday, and the enduring gratitude of a close knit community still reeling from the maelstrom that struck it.
“These are the stories of which every Australian can be proud of, the very essence of the Australian character that shines through – the true Australian spirit that we see time and time again,” the Prime Minister said.
It all started for Mr Dear, 57, on Monday morning when he saw on Facebook that people were stranded on the roof of the Lion’s Den, where he performs regularly as a singer. By then, an “ocean of water” had invaded the hamlet of 200, 40km south of Cooktown.
He jumped in his kayak but quickly realised it wouldn’t do. Assisted by son Albert and daughter-in-law Georgie, he got a tinnie going and motored to the 143-year-old pub. On the way, they heard a plaintive cry.
It was someone they knew from the pub, Wayne, huddled in a tree. They got him into the dinghy. Then they saw Mr Dear’s friend, Six Foot, a diminutive gold prospector who had taken refuge in another tree after he was caught with his three dogs in the torrent. The poor animals were washed away.
Six Foot was “shaking like a leaf”, nearly at the end of his tether. He had almost been “squashed” by a shipping container that had been pulled into the flood. “We thought, ‘OK, we’ll get these two fellers back because they’re real desperate’,” Mr Dear told The Australian.
He was back on the water, making for the Lion’s Den, when Magoo’s chopper, a white Robinson R-22 used for cattle mustering, clattered overhead. It had room for a single passenger.
Never mind. Magoo brought it down again and again, somehow holding the machine steady while those trapped on the roof climbed aboard, one by one. He dropped each survivor at the local airstrip, where they were welcomed with blankets and a hot drink.
“It was just amazing to see him go and get those people off … they were miserable, cold and wet,” Mr Dear said. “They’re all fine now so thanks, Magoo.”
The man of the moment was out of contact on Tuesday, still in the teeth of the action as the floods moved west across the peninsula.
Magoo’s effort to get into the air during the emergency was a feat in itself; according to friends, to reach the chopper at Fairfield Station, 20km northwest of Laura, he had to cross raging creeks by boat and traverse kilometres of waterlogged country on foot.
On Sunday, he rescued two Melsonby Station rangers stranded on a rooftop, in a dress rehearsal for the drama at the Lion’s Den.
Mr Dear said he had never met Magoo – the “real hero of the story,” in his telling – but would like to buy him a beer at the Den.
In Wujal Wujal, south of Rossville, giant army Chinook helicopters arrived to airlift the 400-strong population to a relief centre in Cooktown. The mainly Indigenous township had been without power and was low on food after being lashed by Tropical Cyclone Jasper last week.
After chairing a meeting of the Queensland Disaster Management Committee attended by Mr Albanese, Premier Steven Miles said one home had been destroyed, 15 severely damaged, 50 moderately damaged and 92 homes affected by the cyclone or flooding across the peninsula. An 85-year-old man remains missing from the township of Degarra.
Mr Miles promised support was coming. “I know that you’re tired and wet and uncomfortable, but help is on its way,” he said.
Additional reporting: David Murray, Mohammad Alfares
Albanese ‘no sook’ over Qantas upgrades fiasco, Butler declares
Health Minister Mark Butler has offered a strident defence of Anthony Albanese, speaking out against an unnamed ministerial colleague that accused the PM of having a ‘massive sook-up’ over media coverage of his Qantas flights upgrade controversy.
Pauline Hanson racially vilified Mehreen Faruqi, court finds
The One Nation leader racially vilified the Greens Senator when publishing a tweet telling her to ‘piss off back to Pakistan’, a Federal Court judge has found.