David Lewis

Broadcast 6.30pm on 15/03/2004

We hear the tales of adventure of Dr David Lewis, by his son, Barry. Dr Lewis’s hands tell tales of adventure; they read like a nautical chart, etched and lined by time and tide, marking out 83 years of expeditions and endeavours to the ends of the earth.

Tonight on GNT, given that we live on the world's largest island, how do we handle isolation Australian-style?

G'day again, welcome to another week of GNT and four totally different ways of looking at this variegated country and its people. For the purposes of tonight's historical exercise, one of the few places on earth where your nearest neighbour can be a day's drive away. Later, we'll meet a couple of self-confessed galahs, and on the couch, country music star Beccy Cole, somebody who really gets around. Before Beccy, though, a bloke who's made a serious effort to spend time alone and out of the way, a guy called David Lewis.

DR DAVID LEWIS: I think adventure is important to a human being because I think we're all born with an outgoing curiosity, curiosity for what lays on the other side of those ranges. Water can clearly be a barrier to contact between different places, but can be also a highway. The ocean, to me, I think, has been a pathway to many adventures, many projects, much learning. I think, in any enterprise, the dream, the vision, comes first. And then you have to work out how you're going to make it happen. I've never been interested in things that you just watch. I want to participate. And I hate the absurd concept of trying to conquer a mountain or an ocean and things like that. Such rubbish. But you want to be at one with them and share their enormous strength, power, terror and beauty. I read about this first single-handed race from England to America that was due to be held in 1960. It took me something like 51 days, I think. I finished it. I was third. It was pretty slow. I think the hook was firmly embedded thro
ugh that race.

BARRY LEWIS: There would always be piles of boat gear around and, you know, everything... There was always boat things, and it was natural. And, "Didn't everyone's father sort of, you know, go off on...go sailing and have funny things happen?"

DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE:

DOCUMENTARY REPORTER: But you're still facing icy conditions, perhaps gales, maybe even icebergs. Are you at all afraid?

DR DAVID LEWIS: Well, er...I expect when I see them, I may be afraid, but...

DR DAVID LEWIS (IN GNT INTERVIEW): The idea of sailing alone to the Antarctic had been around for a long time. And in the end, it happened with the boat 'Ice Bird'. There's something about pioneering on your own that gets you.

DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE RESUMES:

DOCUMENTARY REPORTER: What'll be the main danger you'll be facing?

DR DAVID LEWIS: Well, bad weather probably is the worst because the seas are stormy in the Southern Ocean.

DR DAVID LEWIS (IN GNT INTERVIEW): I ran into winter conditions 60 south, with a cockpit full of snow, and then a series of the most enormous gales. And I was capsized twice and the boat was pretty badly damaged - the mast had gone, of course - and I was frostbitten. Until I devised a workable way of making a small mast, I couldn't, for the life of me, see how I would survive. Ultimately, I reached my objective, and sailed into the American base at Palmer on the Antarctic Peninsula on 29 January, I think it was, in 1973. The first to sail single-handed to this desolate, terrifying continent, this beautiful continent. I think I'd fallen in love with Antarctica. I went back three more times. I was very much struck by the possibilities of small sea expeditions using simple technology. As the boat lifts to the ocean swell, I feel young again. I do find the ocean just as challenging, just as beautiful, as I ever did. On an ocean voyage, I don't feel lonely. You're undergoing solitude, but you have the companionshi
p of the ocean, you're part of the natural world. You do get fascinated with the idea of something and then you go around and do it.

GEORGE NEGUS: Dr David Lewis there, who past away just two years ago at a ripe old 83, having truly mastered the whole solitude thing. And what an articulate and interesting guy he was. Coming up later, Elsey Station, the inspiration for that classic novel-cum-movie 'We of the Never Never'. These days, that romantic old location is under new management, as they say.