Show-stopper scene in a tense drama
By SIMON BEVILACQUA
Sunday Tasmanian
May 1, 2005
DAVID Wenham was speechless after flying over Tasmania's Recherche Bay last week.
The Australian actor is not usually lost for words.
Words are his trade. Wenham did not become the hottest property in the Australian film industry without the gift of the gab.
His roles in hit television drama SeaChange and films like The Lord of the Rings, The Bank, Gettin' Square and Three Dollars rely on his mastery of the spoken word.
But the sight of the bay left him mute.
As the helicopter hovered 1000m from the ground, about 20 swans paddled on Black Swan Lagoon below.
It was the perfect Tasmanian autumn day, crystal clear and mild.
The ocean between Tasmania and Antarctica can whip up some of the fiercest storms on the planet and throw them at the shores of Tasmania's southernmost tip. This day, however, it was heavenly calm.
Waves rippled onto the sparkling sands on a remote beach on Recherche Bay's north-east peninsula.
Wenham, no script to prompt him, simply shook his head and let his mouth hang open.
Later, when the 39-year-old actor's feet returned to the ground, he explained his inability to speak -- he was moved by the beauty.
"You can't help but be affected by it because it is extraordinarily beautiful, it's like nothing else I've seen," he said.
The Recherche Bay story has been reborn and history is on a collision course with the present.
Private landowners David and Robert Vernon entered a contract with timber giant Gunns to log the bay's north-east peninsula.
The Vernons have acted in accord with Tasmania's Regional Forest Agreement in their plans to log a coupe of about 100 hectares.
With the Tasmanian Government's approval, a road has been built through a wildlife sanctuary to allow the logging.
A 100-metre no-bulldozer zone has been implemented around the peninsula's shoreline and the possible site of a French garden and observatory.
However, a grassroots campaign to stop the logging has grown, led by former school headmaster Bruce Poulson, former lawyer Greg Hogg and other concerned locals.
The Greens also championed the cause.
Greens leader Senator Bob Brown took Wenham to Recherche Bay after using the same see-it-for-yourself tactic with Labor numbers man Graeme Richardson in the 1980s and former Labor leader Mark Latham before the last federal election. The strategy was again effective.
"Recherche Bay is obviously of great cultural significance to this country," Wenham said.
"It's not as well known as it should be but it's obviously played a huge part in Australian history and it's something we should absolutely treasure.
"To go in there and log is destruction, it's cultural vandalism."
Senator Brown also took Wenham to the Styx forest.
"It's amazing to stand here under this tree that's been here maybe 500 years and hear that it is one of the largest living things on earth, bigger than the dinosaurs, it's overwhelming," Wenham said.
"We could use this as a wonderful asset. There are thousands of people who want to see these forests from all around the world."