In 1987, primarily through a body of work surrounding the world heritage listing of Kakadu National Park, I was the joint winner of the Electronic Journalist of the Year award for the Northern Territory.
I shared “The Eric” with my colleague Phil Smith, who had a reputation for the quirky stand-up.
In 1987, the lease on the satellite monitoring base, Pine Gap, near Alice Springs was up for re-signing by the Federal Government.
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It wouldn’t be the Top End without a bit of barramundi fishing.
While a keen fisherman myself, in 1987 I covered the annual Barra Classic, on its return to Corroboree Billabong.
One of the benefits of working in smaller TV newsrooms is that you do get to do a bit of everything.
In August 1987, I was heading for an early finish to my day when asked to cover a media conference with Australian band INXS, and songstress Jenny Morris.
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In June 1987 I was asked to take a camera crew and helicopter to Victoria River to cover the search for two Western Australian fishermen who had gone missing.
The two men, father and son Marcus and Lance Bullen, had left their wives at the Victoria River Roadhouse to go fishing. They had spent the night at the roadhouse and were expected to be back in time to move on that day.
Soon after we arrived the police made the grizzly discovery, the two men had been found murdered.
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Sometimes as a reporter you get to go to those beautiful, out-of-the-way places most only dream about.
One of these is Coburg Peninsula, the original European settlement in the Top End.
One of the countries largest mango plantations was established on Manbullo station.
The plan: to take advantage of an earlier growing season to get mangoes on supermarket shelves before the Queensland crop arrives.
While in the Top End I came across a number of cattle properties which were diversifying into tourism.
One of these was Woolner Station, where the pastoralists were using off-season mustering helicopters as observation platforms.
Growing up in the bush I’ve always enjoyed doing stories on wildlife.
In this case the story was about some unusual pig-nosed turtles, something I had never come across before.
In 1986 Pope John Paul II visited Australia.
My colleague Phil Smith got the job of covering the Pope’s visit to Darwin while I was sent to Alice Springs to cover his visit to the Centre.
