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Trail:

To the Ends of the Earth

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Dennis himself was off work due to problems with gout and cardiac arrythmias. Gout is caused by a build up of urates in the system which can commonly result from a breakdown in the enzymic regulation of the urea cycle and nitrogen metabolism. Interestingly, chronic manganese intoxication interferes with the enzyme arginase which plays a crucial role in this cycle. Since arginase is an enzyme that is normally activated by the manganese 2+ form, overall inactivation of the enzyme will occur in circumstances of both manganese deficiency and manganese intoxication - but only when manganese 2+ has been transformed into its 3+ form, since the manganese 3+ valency will fail to activate arginase into its fully fledged operational state. This can occur when those who are sufficiently ‘tanked up’ with manganese are simultaneously exposed to devices that emit low frequencies of radiation - these frequencies being absorbed by the manganese which consequently oxidizes the metal into its 3+ reactive form. Dennis not only lived adjoining a low frequency radio emitting facility, but he also sat alongside a low frequency radio phone system hooked up in his work cab.

Dennis was no time waster, and I was quickly shuttled off in his pick up truck into the remote out backs of the rainforest. After a detour where we inspected some Aboriginal handprint rock art cast across the face of sandstone outcrops in the middle of the forest, we arrived at the site of the former Emerald river mission . 

The old RAF runway was barely visible - a mere straight track of crumbling concrete that was becoming increasingly encroached by the stringy back tee tree boughs. 

I allowed my imagination to reflect on some of the tense wartime dramas that must have occupied this space during those bygone times; but it was too far gone now - the last ghosts of dogfights fought with the Japanese over the New Guinea jungle were long suffocated beneath the dense barricades of cycad and prickly pandanus that had so rapidly retrieved their native terrain.

I stuck my sampling trowel into the former gardens of the Emerald mission - now a patch of rejuvenated forest. I was pleasantly relieved that this ground was not so tough as the ground I had been sampling back at the Angurugu Mission gardens; where I had experienced great difficulty getting the trowel to penetrate the sharp topsoil that was intensively concentrated in manganese pesolites (pebbles). I also noticed that these samples were considerably more lightweight than the soil which I had drawn back at Angurugu; possibly indicating the lower concentration of manganese metal in these soils than back at Angurugu. If the soil analyses turns out to confirm my suspicions of this manganese differential, then this would explain why the neurological problems first began after the Aboriginal clans had moved from the Emerald River Mission into permanent residence at Angurugu - the most intensive manganese hotspot on Groote.

We set off again, next stop was Mud Cod Bay - the area of seacoast where Captain Flinders had commented on the unusual hostility of the local Aboriginal clan there. The flamboyant foliage of the rainforest was blurring past the cab. As soon as Dennis got relaxed back at the wheel again, he soon began to open up over his interests in my whole investigation. He talked about the abrupt psychiatric and neurological demise of some of his co workers in the mine. A guy called "Monkey" had started to experience sudden, unprovoked fits of rage and aggression , as well as insomnia, tremors, depression, fatigue, cramps and unmotivated crying fits - the text book symptoms of manganese intoxication.

Monkey had been invited to meet me at a party in the mining town of Alyangula that night. He had some interesting analytical data collected from the sampling of his blood, where manganese levels were above the excess limit and magnesium was in the low range. I later came across many more white mine workers who had discovered the exact same abnormal mineral profile in their blood .

A huge lorry "train" of manganese passed us on the dirt road. Dennis broke off to tell me that there was "one hundred and fifty tons of manganese shit in there". He then rattled on into the realms of yet another strange story about a past ‘blast’ worker at the mine called Walter - a German character who went around in Bavarian Lederhosen shorts all day. Walter would suddenly fall asleep whilst drilling holes for the explosive charges, or, much to the annoyance of his employers, whilst driving the 150 ton train of manganese. 

Other tales that I heard later from the local storybook of Alyangula - the miners’ village - reported how Walter used to fall asleep whilst peddling his three wheeled push bike. Not long before he reluctantly had to quit bicycling altogether, there had been constant sightings of Walter peddling up hills only to observe him a few seconds later descending backwards after he had fallen asleep!

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Last updated 09-Feb-2007