Tim Winton on coming face to face with a dugong – and finding a kindred spirit

When you hold a 450-kilogram dugong, you can feel where their shoulders used to be, says author Tim Winton. “Their body shape is so similar to ours. And I don’t know if it is about them having two nostrils like us, compared to a dolphin or a whale, but their face looks more like ours,” he says. “When you look into its anxious eye and feel its breath, you know it’s a relative.”

Tim Winton picks parasites off a whale shark’s mouth, under strict protocols, in Ningaloo Reef.Credit: Violeta J Brosig/BlueMedia Exmouth

It’s not often you get to hug megafauna, but in Ningaloo Nyinggulu Winton does precisely that, under strict protocols with scientists who tag and track the remarkable creatures for the first time. In fact, he gets up close and personal with many species – from whale sharks to loggerhead turtles – in the three-part documentary he wrote and executive produced, and which airs on the ABC this month.

In 2018, when Peter Rees, who made Mythbusters, approached Winton with the idea, the 62-year-old novelist was not enthusiastic. “Because I don’t want to be on telly and I don’t know anything about writing natural history television.”

Before long, he was enamoured of the vision for the show, to be made by Rees’ Artemis Media in association with Matter of Factual – and that is fortunate for anyone interested in the natural world. It’s an extraordinary program, something of a love letter to the part of the world he has championed for decades. Going beyond the blue waters of the Ningaloo, Winton extends his focus to the Exmouth Gulf and Cape Range in the show, pointing out that the World Heritage listing bestowed on Ningaloo was also meant to cover the gulf but commercial interests intervened to excise it.

Indigenous people were closely involved with making the program, which documents the traditional owners, who only received native title in 2019, returning to Country. “There’s a settler myth that persists like a noxious weed, terra nullius,” Winton says in the show.

“What’s happened to Australia in the 200 years since colonisation is catastrophic compared to 60,000 years of responsible tenure. It’s just about self-control and respect.”

Despite his clear love for and longstanding commitment to this part of the world, Winton says he was out of his comfort zone during about 400 days of shooting. “At every stage of this process I was the only person in the boat, in the cave, in the water or on the mud who didn’t know what they were doing,” he says with a laugh.

The poetry and beauty of Winton’s words, which have led to him being so highly regarded as an author, are again at play here, and this series is something of a call to arms. Wild places and wild creatures need our help, now more than ever, he says, and it’s amazing what can happen when we make choices that put life first.

Winton in a bait ball at Coral Bay.Credit: Violeta J Brosig/BlueMedia Exmouth

Just 20 years ago, Ningaloo was saved by ordinary people. Winton is optimistic but argues we need to be more militant.

“This is a place where we can learn from, because people have done it right in the past and they’ve done it right in my lifetime. I just don’t buy into the defeatist, nihilistic doom and gloom scenario. I think it’s fine to feel anxious, because you should, but bloody do something about it. Get organised and take action.”

Tim Winton is in conversation in Castlemaine and Kyneton on May 13; Brisbane on May 14; Sydney on May 15 (sold out); and Fremantle on May 17 (sold out).

Ningaloo Nyinggulu screens on ABC TV and ABC iView from May 16.

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