Moreton Memories

My first year of studies was in 1981 doing the Bachelor of Built Environment and the Faculty of Built Environment. On the first day of classes we were assembled in The Black Hole, a lecture theatre in the old D Block that was painted black, for a lecture from the Dean, Prof Tom Heath. There were 72 people in the cohort that year, studying architecture, industrial design, town planning, urban and regional planning, building or quantity surveying.

He told a story about an apprentice warrior of an old monk who for years did nothing but menial work all the while subjected to random attacks from the old man’s stick. Over the years he became adept at dodging these surprise attacks but was taught nothing about fighting. Finally the apprentice demanded, “Master, when will my training begin?” to be told, “It is almost complete: none can touch you.” We took this to mean that during our studies we’d be asked to do a lot of weird stuff that wouldn’t make much sense at the time. That turned out to be true.

Our First Design Project

After the lecture we were taken to the large F Block studio on Level 2 (the space now divided into three or four interior design studios) and told to design tents. That week each of us created three tent designs, with models for each, making use of a white polyethylene sheet, 1.8 by 2 m and as much dowel or other materials as we could find in the Workshop. I don’t recall any other classes that week but I think we had them—in my first semester we had 36 hours of classes each week—a far cry from the typical 14 to 16 students have now.

In Week 2 we made our best design. We were taken to the Ithaca TAFE college to use their sewing machines—most of us had never used a sewing machine before let alone an industrial model.

Our First Field Trip

In Week 3 we found ourselves on the Friday night barge to Moreton Island. We loaded our gear, including our newly fabricated tents, onto a huge four-wheel drive trucks and piled ourselves into the back of two others for what seemed like a wild drive through the darkness of the island interior before reaching the Blue Lagoon campsite. That first night we all slept together under a single tarp in the clothes we were wearing and with first light we set up our tents.

During the next five (?) days we went sketching, had guided walks from Don Kells, our resident environmentalist and built elaborate sandcastsls. A walk to the lake turned into a surprise, fully-clothed swim across it and those of us who didn’t feel confident of the swim walked around the northern edges through a stinking bog. Some of us carried watches and eye glasses belonging to those who made the swim and I remember some of these items being lost as we tried to jump across one of the deep boggy holes on our journey. We went back later to dive for them but I don’t think they were ever recovered.

We seemed to have lots of time without much supervision but no one got hurt or lost. Some tents didn’t last and a few people slept under the stars. I don’t remember what we ate but I suspect we brought and prepared our own food. I remember the staff, Frank Lambert, Jim Hutch, Dennis Hardy, constructing a gas powered oven in the side of dune to bake themselves some bread.

It wasn’t an easy experience but it was enjoyable and memorable and we made firm friends, some of whom I still know to this day.