The Tongala Tortoise Trials

Peter was throwing lumps of mud into Coomes’s Channel. He had ridden his red mountain bike down the flat road from the small township of Tongala in northern Victoria to the channel hoping to find some of his friends there.

“Where are you going?” said his mum.

“Off riding on my bike,” said Peter.

“Don’t go near that channel,” said his mum, “and make sure you wear your helmet.”

(Not really Coomes Channel but it would look something like this.) (Flickr download with thanks by - yewenyi)

Peter didn’t say anything as he rode away and his helmet dangled from his handlebars all the way to the channel. When he got there he was alone. None of his friends were there.

“They must be still at Vacation Activities.

The lumps flew through the air and into the irrigation water like army mortar rounds.

Eeeeeeeeeeeehhh! Splash! “That’s one.”

Eeeeeeeeeeeehhh! Splash! “That’s two.”

Eeeeeeeeeeeehhh! Splot! “Hey what did that hit?”

Now there’s not a lot of life in an irrigation channel. You do get some fish and some shrimps and insects like Water Boatmen. You do see cormorants and the big black and white pelicans chasing fish, even the odd snake.

But that wasn’t what Peter hit. What Peter hit was a tortoise and, boy, was that tortoise angry. That tortoise started swimming towards the bank of the channel. It climbed up the bank and waddled over towards Peter’s mountain bike. It opened it’s mouth and, chomp, it bit right through one of the tires.Pssssssssssssss.

“Hey, you stupid tortoise, leave my bike alone!”

Peter picked up a big rock above his head to drop on the tortoise but the tortoise waddled off into the long grass and reeds on the bank of the channel. Peter followed holding up the rock ready to drop it on the tortoise. The tortoise walked into a hollow log and disappeared.

Peter stood there with the rock still above his head looking for the tortoise.

(Flickr download with thanks by - poppalina )

The tortoise wandered out the other end, around behind Peter and bit him on the toe.

“Owwwwwww!”

Peter tripped over the log. The rock went flying through the air and landed on his head. Whack!

He was knocked out. The tortoise waddled off back into the channel. Splash.

Peter’s girlfriend, Corrie, arrived at the other side of Coomes Channel. “Peter, are you here?”

As she walked past the irrigation wheel she saw Peter’s red mountain bike lying beside the channel.

“Come on Peter I know you’re here somewhere.”

Then she saw him lying on the ground by the log and the rock beside his head. She jumped into the channel, swam across and started to give him the ‘kiss of life’.

“Wake up Peter, wake up.”

She could see his chest moving and felt his heart beating.

“Come on Peter, wake up.”

She grabbed Peter’s bike helmet off his handle bars, dipped it in the channel and manage to carry enough water back to splash on Peter’s face.

That did it. Peter woke up and when he saw Corrie’s worried face he said, “What happened?”

Corrie said, “I dunno. Maybe you fell off your bike and hit your head on this rock.”

“Oh yeah, that right. There was a tortoise in the way.”

“Lucky it wasn’t a Red Belly Black Snake. My dad said you have to watch out for snakes and fallling branches from Gum Trees.”

“Oh what would he know?”

“He’d know enough to wear his bicyle helmet.”

And do you know what? From that day on, Peter did too.

Created by Daryll Bellingham
with the assistance of the audience at
the Tongala Library Vacation Activities Storytelling Show,

Wednesday 7th January, 2004.
© Daryll Bellingham

Original story was published here : http://plainstalking.deni.net.au/storiescampTongala.html

Podcast recording of this story can be found in the menu bar or here.

I'd like to put a map with Coomes's Channel marked for you but unfortunately I can't because I don't know where it is so, if any reader can pinpoint Coomes's Channel on a Google Map for me, can you please send me an email with the map. Here's some possibilities.

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Aidan and the Murray Cod

Sometimes a story that is created with an audience works really well. 'Aidan and the Murray Cod' is one such story. I've been telling it regularly since 2004 for audiences from about 5 years and up. Young children like it, primary school children like it and adults like it. Probably more importantly I like it so I go on telling it.

Where can you read it? Well you better go to the first place we published it at http://plainstalking.deni.net.au/storiescampasrochie.html

The story is lots of fun especially if you give in to the energy of it. I like finding different ways for the audience to join in.

Where did the story happen? Right here -



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Now I happen to know that there are plenty of fishing tall stories out there and if you reckon you've got one to beat 'Aidan and the Murray Cod' then I would like to hear it. Maybe we could publish it in 'austoryplace'.

Daryll Bellingham.

Raisin Toast, Brianna from Bribie and the Fish

Here's a story about a young girl called Brianna who lives on Bribie Island with her grandfather. Brianna helped me create the story when she was a patient in the Mater Children's Hospital in Brisbane in 2001. You can find the original story at http://www.storytell.com.au/lpstories5.html.

		Once morning Brianna was having raisin toast for breakfast with her Grandma and her Grandpa on the front verandah of their house at Bribie Island. Brianna really liked staying with her grandparents. One day her Grandpa took her fishing. Brianna caught a fish and Grandpa, who said that he was the boss of the world, put the fish into a bucket full of water so that Brianna could take it home and show her mum. When everybody had a look, Brianna brought the fish back to the water and let it go. As they were sitting there eating their toast, they heard a strange noise. It sounded like - 'rrrrrrrrrr, clunk, eeeeeeeeh, bump, sssssssssh, urrrrrrrrrrh, eeep.' "What's that?" said Brianna. "Oh, that'll be Garry the Garbo," said Grandpa. " I told him that it was our turn to have our rubbish picked up today, so here he is picking up the wheelie bins." "Can I go and have a look?"said Brianna. "Sure. Don't fall in." Brianna ran down the steps and onto the footpath and watched as Garry the Garbo pulled the levers on the truck that sent the pickup arm out to grab Grandpa's wheelie bin, flip it upside down above the garbage truck, give it a good shake for the rubbish to fall out and then put it carefully down on the footpath again. Garry gave Brianna a wave as he drove on to the next house where he did it all over again but it wasn't just rubbish that fell out of the truck this time - a big, silvery fish flipped through the air and landed with a bump on top of the truck cabin. "Hey. What's on top of my truck," called out Garry the Garbo. "It's a big fish Garry," said Brianna. "It so looks funny!" Garry the Garbo got out of his truck and had a look. "Oh what a little beauty. Now will I take him home to cook or put him back in the sea?" "Put him back, oh please put him back," said Brianna. "I'll get a bucket off my Grandpa." Well that's what they did. Garry put the fish into the bucket of water and together they took it across the road, under the paperbark trees and over the sand to the waters edge. They carefully tipped the fish into the water and watched it as it flipped a little and started to swim away. "Goodbye fish," said Garry the Garbo. "Oh, I forgot to give you a kiss." The fish swam in a circle and came right back to Garry the Garbo's feet. Garry bent down and gave the fish a kiss on its lips. "Oh yuck," said Brianna. "Well better get back to work," said Garry as the fish swam away and Brianna went back to finish her raisin toast with her Grandma and her Grandpa. A 'Sweet Stories in the Pop' Story created by Daryll Bellingham, storyteller and Brianna, a patient in the children's ward at the South Brisbane Mater Hospital during a storytelling session in the Radio Lollipop studio with the Thrilling Thursday Team. 29/11/2001 © Daryll Bellingham. ('Sweet Stories in the Pop' is a Queensland Storytelling Guild project funded by a Year of the Volunteers grant.)