Bio

Dr Graeme Dobson

Graeme was, is, a traveller. The day he was born his family moved. They came back for him and his Mum, but it was a pretty accurate predictor to his life. When he was 17 he left NZ for Brisbane and drifted up the east coast, working at whatever came along—cane cutting near Cairns, prawns in Karumba, labouring on a road out of Borroloola, cattle near Daly River. He reached Darwin about 6 months after leaving NZ, and a few weeks later was on a rusty cargo boat to Singapore, and on to Hong Kong, then Japan. Some forty odd countries later he's still looking, learning, experiencing.

Along the way he learned a bit about the world, including the rougher aspects of it that he'd never met growing up in rural NZ. And some of the seamier aspects, too, in Kings Cross, Singapore before it was clean.

Then a wife, Barbara, and three kids only made the travels a more civilised, a bit more upmarket.

From the day he arrived in Darwin Graeme was a 'Territorian' at heart and no matter where he went, it always drew him back. The NT was good to him, it gave him an education—a Degree in Applied Science, an MSc and eventually a PhD (although technically that came from the ANU in Canberra). Along the way there were 2 Prime Minister's Awards, a Churchill Fellowship and a prestigious Federal Fisheries Scholarship.

Barbara was a teacher then, and she won a year's teacher exchange in Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast. It was her turn to do something different. And it was very different. Graeme ended up working on an archaeological dig—interesting, fascinating, muddy, cold, and it rekindled an old interest in history.

Back in the NT his work and study regularly took him along the north coast, and later to the Eastern Indonesia islands, especially the Spice Islands. It gave him the opportunity to see and study some of the remotest and most fascinating places on Earth, and the privilege of getting to know some the Indigenous people of Arnhem Land and the King Sound in WA.

The linked histories of Eastern Indonesia and Australia's north coast fascinated him—today they're separate backwaters, but they were once included in the realms of powerful Kings and Sultans, players on the world stage with histories that match any in the world for drama and intrigue. Deep in Arnhem Land, Graeme discovered a long forgotten relic of those times that was to consume his interest for more than ten years and ultimately prove nearly a thousand years of Australian contact with the outside world.

In 2006 health concerns saw them move to NZ to be closer to Barbara's elderly mother, and the change of scenery saw Graeme take on a new direction - writing, mostly for NZ environmental and agricultural publications. But he didn't abandon his marine science altogether, he developed feasibility studies and business plans for local Maori aquaculture projects and researched historic Maori fishing methods.

Now they're back In Australia, living on a hill overlooking Gympie and wondering what happened, how they got there, and what's next. In the mean time they're building a new house, Graeme's writing books, and his son wants him to go back into business with him.

To misquote the 1970s Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, 'Life was not meant to be boring'