Cape Grim Descriptive Writing
I used to love Cape Grim. It was an unspoilt coastal wilderness. My father and I would hike there every weekend in spring, when the heat wasn’t yet unbearable and the fresh breeze would caress the light beads of sweat on our foreheads. We’d go down the hidden path on the cliffside to the white sands below. It was a tranquil place down there where the soft sunlight would shine down from the boundless blue sky, dyeing the sea hues of orange and magenta.
Now I can’t even bear to think of Cape Grim.
***
The mayor’s room was small and square. The corners of the wall curled inward where the cheap paint was beginning to peel and rot. The light that shone through the cracked window started to fade as I recalled Mr Nungarin’s rapid words.
“Remember, your research task for the holiday is the Cape Grim massacre.”
Shortly afterwards, I visited the local library. Everywhere you looked, there were neat rows of books, bean bags, and comfortable leather chairs. I can hear the muffled stillness and the occasional laughter of children, and I can picture the librarian’s blank face when I asked her about Cape Grim.
I followed her instructions and found myself at Dewey decimal 994.4, Australia -- non-fiction. There was only a small stack of books from …show more content…
I took James Boyce’s Van Diemen’s Land: A History, one of the latest. I flicked through books titled Tasmania’s History, only to find Aboriginals being described as “those who ate lizards” or “those who hurled boomerangs and spears.” According to Charles Dickens, they were “men, women, children who heaped upon the floor like maggots in a cheese” and deserved to be “exterminated”. I looked up once more and found Tony Taylor’s History Betrayed. “The key to historical denials is self-deception” I read, “which transforms into an attempted deception of others.” If the Aboriginal tribes who died in Cape Grim massacre existed at all, they were barely a footnote, an ancient
Now I can’t even bear to think of Cape Grim.
***
The mayor’s room was small and square. The corners of the wall curled inward where the cheap paint was beginning to peel and rot. The light that shone through the cracked window started to fade as I recalled Mr Nungarin’s rapid words.
“Remember, your research task for the holiday is the Cape Grim massacre.”
Shortly afterwards, I visited the local library. Everywhere you looked, there were neat rows of books, bean bags, and comfortable leather chairs. I can hear the muffled stillness and the occasional laughter of children, and I can picture the librarian’s blank face when I asked her about Cape Grim.
I followed her instructions and found myself at Dewey decimal 994.4, Australia -- non-fiction. There was only a small stack of books from …show more content…
I took James Boyce’s Van Diemen’s Land: A History, one of the latest. I flicked through books titled Tasmania’s History, only to find Aboriginals being described as “those who ate lizards” or “those who hurled boomerangs and spears.” According to Charles Dickens, they were “men, women, children who heaped upon the floor like maggots in a cheese” and deserved to be “exterminated”. I looked up once more and found Tony Taylor’s History Betrayed. “The key to historical denials is self-deception” I read, “which transforms into an attempted deception of others.” If the Aboriginal tribes who died in Cape Grim massacre existed at all, they were barely a footnote, an ancient