Recently, I was messaging David Clarke who's spent nearly twenty years at Lockhart River where he works for the Aboriginal Shire Council. As he puts it, "I've done my share of wandering but my bones urge to ultimately rest here. It's strange where life carries you."
He also knows David Glasheen of Restoration Island and went diving with Hubert Hofer when he was still at Bamaga. And if that wasn't enough, he also spent time in Rabaul, Kavieng and Kieta. It's a small world indeed!
Then he told me about another mad Austrian. Not that Schicklgruber chap, but Hugo Julcher who for many years lived at the mouth of the Olive River before he went missing in 2003. I pricked up my ears, and what transpired was a very strange story about a very strange man. "I doubt if anyone has written up Hugo's story", he added. Well, here it is:
For about ten months of the year, Hugo Julcher and his then companion Heather Schlaegl used to share their remote shack some forty-seven nautical miles north of the Lockhart River with about a dozen resident crocodiles and who knows how many local snakes and cruising sharks.
It was built from flotsam and jetsam found on the wide, white beaches within easy walking distance of that lonely shack. An old sail made up one wall and an old tarp provided half the roof, and all sorts of odds and ends had been turned into just about every stick of furniture.
Hugo came to Australia from post-war Austria in the early 1950s. He was promised work in his trade as a cabinet maker but none was available when he arrived, and so he worked in just about every other job you care to name in every state, including buffalo shooting in the Territory.
How he ended up at the mouth of the Olive River seems to be lost in the mist of time. Eventually, he married Heather from Cairns, and brought her seven hundred kilometres north. They lived mostly on fish and bush tucker and, according to the occasional visitor, didn't waste any time worrying about the crocodiles that lived within a few steps of their hut.
Heather died back in Cairns sometime in the late '90s, and Hugo was again living alone in his remote piece of paradise. Then, in March 2003, he failed to meet a boat that was to get him supplies from Cairns.
The Missing Person Notice reads, "Last seen on Oliver River Camp 47 Nautical Miles North of Lockhart River by friend Graeme ROBERTS, Hicks Island. JULCHER failed to meet a ship scheduled to transport him to Cairns on the 13/3/2003, has not been located since this date", but people think the crocodiles finally got Hugo, the hermit of Olive River.
I've since lodged an application with the National Archives for access to his early immigration papers. It's the least I can do for one of the last of a vanishing breed who came in their thousands from all over Europe after World War II, seeking work but also looking for lots of adventure.
