Steve & Me

by Terri Irwin

  Sitting at dusk with the kids in the boat, all of a sudden the trees came alive. The bats took flight, skimming over the water to delicately dip for a drink, flying directly over our heads. It was as if we had gone back in time and pterodactyls flew once again.

  It was such an awe-inspiring event that we all fell quiet, the children included. The water was absolutely still, like an inky mirror, almost like oil. Not a single fish jumped, not a croc moved. All we heard were the wings of these ancient mammals in the darkening sky.

  We lay quietly in the bottom of the boat, floating in the middle of this paradise. We knew that we were completely and totally safe. We were in a small dinghy in the middle of some of the most prolifically populated crocodile water, yet we were absolutely comfortable knowing that Steve was there with us.

  “One day, babe,” Steve said softly to me, “we’ll look back on wildlife harvesting projects and things like croc farming the same way we look back on slavery and cannibalism. It will be simply an unbelievable part of human history. We’ll get so beyond it that it will be something we will never, ever return to.”

  “We aren’t there yet,” I said.

  He sighed. “No, we aren’t.”

  I thought of the sign Steve had over his desk back home. It bore the word “warrior” and its definition: “One who is engaged in battle.”

  And it was a battle. It was a battle to protect fragile ecosystems like Lakefield from the wildlife perpetrators, from people who sought to kill anything that could turn a profit. These same people were out collecting croc eggs and safari-hunting crocodiles. They were working to legalize a whole host of illicit and destructive activities. They were lobbying to farm or export everything that moved, from these beautiful fruit bats we were watching, to magpie geese, turtles, and even whales.

  That trip was epic. Every day was an adventure. Bindi sat down for her formal schooling at a little table under the big trees by the river, with the kookaburras singing and the occasional lizard or snake cruising through camp. She had the best scientists from the University of Queensland around to answer her questions.

  I could tell Steve didn’t want it to end. We had been in bush camp for five weeks. Bindi, Robert, and I were now scheduled for a trip to Tasmania. Along with us would be their teacher, Emma (the kids called her “Miss Emma”), and Kate, her sister, who also worked at the zoo. It was a trip I had planned for a long time. Emma would celebrate her thirtieth birthday, and Kate would see her first snow.

  Steve and I would go our separate ways. He would leave Lakefield on Croc One and go directly to rendezvous with Philippe Cousteau for the filming of Ocean’s Deadliest. We tried to figure out how we could all be together for the shoot, but there just wasn’t enough room on the boat.

  Still, Steve came to me one morning while I was dressing Robert. “Why don’t you stay for two more days?” he said. “We could change your flight out. It would be worth it.”

  When I first met Steve, I made a deal with myself. Whenever Steve suggested a trip, activity, or project, I would go for it. I found it all too easy to come up with an excuse not to do something. “Oh, gee, Steve, I don’t feel like climbing that mountain, or fording that river,” I could have said. “I’m a bit tired, and it’s a bit cold, or it’s a bit hot and I’m a bit warm.”

  There always could be some reason. Instead I decided to be game for whatever Steve proposed. Inevitably, I found myself on the best adventures of my life.

  For some reason, this time I didn’t say yes. I fell silent. I thought about how it would work and the logistics of it all. A thousand concerns flitted through my mind. While I was mulling it over, I realized Steve had already walked off.

  It was the first time I hadn’t said, “Yeah, great, let’s go for it.” And I didn’t really know why.

  Steve drove us to the airstrip at the ranger station. One of the young rangers there immediately began to bend his ear about a wildlife issue. I took Robert off to pee on a bush before we had to get on the plane. It was just a tiny little prop plane and there would be no restroom until we got to Cairns.

  When we came back, all the general talk meant that there wasn’t much time left for us to say good-bye. Bindi pressed a note into Steve’s hand and said, “Don’t read this until we’re gone.” I gave Steve a big hug and a kiss. Then I kissed him again.

  I wanted to warn him to be careful about diving. It was my same old fear and discomfort with all his underwater adventures. A few days earlier, as Steve stepped off a dinghy, his boot had gotten tangled in a rope.

  “Watch out for that rope,” I said.

  He shot me a look that said, I’ve just caught forty-nine crocodiles in three weeks, and you’re thinking I’m going to fall over a rope?

  I laughed sheepishly. It seemed absurd to caution Steve about being careful.

  Steve was his usual enthusiastic self as we climbed into the plane. We knew we would see each other in less than two weeks. I would head back to the zoo, get some work done, and leave for Tasmania. Steve would do his filming trip. Then we would all be together again.

  We had arrived at a remarkable place in our relationship. Our trip to Lakefield had been one of the most special months of my entire life. The kids had a great time. We were all in the same place together, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

  We were all there.

  The pilot fired up the plane. Robert had a seat belt on and couldn’t see out the window. I couldn’t lift him up without unbuckling him, so he wasn’t able to see his daddy waving good-bye. But Bindi had a clear view of Steve, who had parked his Ute just outside the gable markers and was standing on top of it, legs wide apart, a big smile on his face, waving his hands over his head.

  I could see Bindi’s note in one of his hands. He had read it and was acknowledging it to Bindi. She waved frantically out the window. As the plane picked up speed, we swept past him and then we were into the sky.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Batt Reef

  It was a beautiful spring morning in September when I started packing for my trip. I was always excited to be heading for Tasmania, because it has got to be one of the most beautiful places on the face of the earth. There were five of us: the children, Kate, Emma, and myself.

  The journey down meant a stopover in Melbourne, then a bumpy, turbulent ride over to Tasmania. Between the tip of South America and Tasmania, there’s nothing except clear blue ocean, so the weather gets up a lot of steam. The infamous Roaring Forties winds crash through on the western side of the island state. I looked down from our small plane and saw some of the waves that Steve loved.

  About two hundred miles off Tasmania’s western shore is Shipstern’s Bluff, with some of the biggest and best surf in the world. This is “big-wave” surfing, where the surfers have to be towed in, and it is not unusual to have sixty-foot faces on the waves.

  Probably only around 5 percent of the surfers in the world would dare to even approach Shipstern’s Bluff. As our plane made its approach, I saw sets of ragged, white-topped waves heading toward shore. I myself was not much of a water person, but I really enjoyed photographing or filming Steve in action.

  We’ll have to come back, I thought. Steve and Bindi could surf here together now.

  But this trip was all about Tasmanian devils and snow. We were heading for Cradle Mountain to show Kate her first snow. The Sunshine Coast never gets any of the white stuff, so there are quite a few people there without firsthand experience of it. On the way to the mountain, we would stop at a beautiful little wildlife park near Launceston.

  The park did its part by taking in orphaned Tasmanian devils. The mothers had died from the facial tumor disease ravaging the island’s devil population. The park’s goal was to determine whether the mothers had communicated the disease to the next generation. This trip would be to see the offspring of the babies who had survived.

  We landed in Launceston, and I felt as though we were embarking on a great adventure, showing my friend
s the beautiful Tasmanian countryside. We had rented a pair of small cottages. It was cold, but the air was clean and fresh. Bindi, Robert, and I snuggled down in one cottage, while Emma and Kate had their own cottage nearby.

  The next day was Sunday. In Australia we celebrate Father’s Day in September, so it was natural for us to try and get in touch with Steve. I knew he was filming somewhere off the Queensland coast.

  On board Croc One, along with Steve and Philippe Cousteau, was a toxicologist named Jamie Seymour. They planned to study several species of dangerous sea creatures, with the double goal of understanding their place in the environment and teaching people how to frequent Australia’s waters more safely.

  We tried to get through to Steve on the phone, but of course he was out filming. I spoke via satellite phone to another Kate, Kate Coulter, a longtime zoo employee, with her husband, Brian. We all took turns talking to her.

  “Steve captured a huge sea snake,” Kate said. “He said it was the biggest he had ever seen. He said, ‘Thick as my arm, no, thick as my leg.’”

  Kate knew Steve well, and she conveyed his enthusiasm perfectly. She told us she would pass along our messages.

  “Tell Daddy how much I love him and miss him,” Bindi said, and Kate told her she would. Robert wanted immediately to go see the big sea snake his father had caught. He didn’t quite grasp that the Cape was thousands of miles away.

  At the Launceston wildlife park, we met the new generation of baby devils. They were tiny, smaller than guinea pigs, and just starting to emerge from their mothers’ pouches. Their mothers had been lucky to survive DFTD. An entire generation of devils could have been wiped out.

  The park reminded me of our own Australia Zoo when it first started out. It was a family operation run by Dick and Judi Warren. They were both warm and friendly and eager to talk. Judi made us toasted sandwiches and hot drinks, while Dick told stories of satirizing the Baby Bob incident.

  “I dressed up like Steve in a blond wig,” Dick said. “Then I took a little baby doll in with the devils and fed them while holding this little doll.”

  He checked to make sure I was laughing, and I was. “It ended up on video on one of the ferries here on the island!” Judi said. Australians enjoy laughing at themselves and paying out on others. I’ve always found it refreshing.

  We toured the park, seeing parrots, wombats, and tiger snakes. “Koalas and primates,” Dick said. “We’ll get some koalas and primates and then we’ll be set.”

  I thought back to how many times Steve and I had said something similar. “Just one more species and then our zoo will be done.” I was coming to realize that Australia Zoo would never be done. There were too many species in the world that needed our help.

  Steve had tried to reach us after our Father’s Day phone call. There was no way I could have realized that, because I didn’t have any mobile phone reception at the cottage. He was back on Croc One and trying to get hold of us via satellite phone. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t be in range again until the next day. We enjoyed our dinner, built a huge fire, and snuggled down for the night.

  We didn’t hurry ourselves the next day. We meandered west, stopping at a raspberry farm and at the Honey Factory in Chudleigh. They featured a beehive behind glass, and we loved watching as the bees worked on their honeycomb. They never stopped to say, “I wonder what the meaning of life is.” They just kept building.

  The Honey Factory also featured a plethora of bee-themed products: bee gum boots, bee back massagers, bee umbrellas, and a bee trolley for the kids to ride on. Bindi sampled every single flavor of honey that they had. She bought a wristwatch with a bee on it. Robert picked out a backpack.

  “Robert,” I said, “that backpack is great. It has bees on it.”

  “It has one bee on it,” he said, correcting me.

  “Oh, okay, one bee,” I said, amused at my son’s seriousness.

  We spent the last hour of the morning at the Honey Factory. As we walked out the door, Bindi looked at her newly purchased watch and said, “It’s twelve o’clock.” We all stopped for a moment and considered that it was twelve o’clock. Then we got into the car and left.

  Our destination that day was Cradle Mountain National Park. We were still not in mobile phone range, so I planned to check in when we reached the resort, where we had rented rooms. We wanted to hike the mountain to the snowline.

  We drove into the Cradle Mountain resort still munching on raspberries. Emma and Kate waited with the kids in the car.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” I said. “I’ll check in and we’ll head to our rooms.” The currawongs were calling, and a padymelon, a small version of a roo, hopped off a wall just at the edge of the car park as I went in.

  “Where’s all the snow?” I asked the woman behind the desk.

  “It snowed this morning,” she said.

  “Well, good,” I said. “There’s hope.”

  Then she passed me a note. She said, “Frank called from the zoo.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said. “I haven’t called the zoo all day, and Frank is always trying to track me down.”

  “Why don’t you come take the call in the office?” she said. I thought that was a little odd, since when I had been there before I’d always used the pay phone near the pub at the resort. But I entered the office and sat down in a big, comfortable chair. I could see the car park out the window. Emma and Kate were still out at the car. Robert had fallen asleep, and Kate sat inside with him. Bindi smiled and laughed with Emma.

  “How you going, Frank?” I said into the phone.

  He said, “Hi, Terri. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for a while.” His voice had a heavy, serious tone.

  “Well, I’ve just got here,” I said. “Sorry about that, but I’m here now. What’s up?”

  “I’m sorry to say that Steve had a bit of an accident while he was diving,” Frank said. “I’m afraid he got hit in the chest by a stingray’s barb.”

  I’m sure there wasn’t much of a pause, but I felt time stop. I knew what Frank was going to say next. I just kept repeating the same thing over and over in my head.

  Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.

  Then Frank said the three words I did not want him to say. “And he died.”

  I took a deep breath and looked out the window. There was Bindi, so happy to have finally arrived at one of her favorite places. We were going to have fun. She had brought her teacher and Kate. She was so excited. And the world stopped. I took another breath.

  “Thank you very much for calling, Frank,” I said. I didn’t know what I was saying. I was overwhelmed, already on autopilot. “You need to cancel the rest of our trip, you need to contact my family in Oregon, and you need to get us home.”

  So it began.

  I knew the one thing I wanted to do more than anything was to get to Steve. I needed to bring my kids home as fast as possible. I didn’t understand what had been going on in the rest of the world. Steve’s accident had occurred at eleven o’clock in the morning. The official time of death was made at twelve noon, the exact time that Bindi had looked at her watch and said, for no apparent reason, “It’s twelve o’clock.”

  Now I had to go out to the car and tell Bindi and Robert what had happened to their daddy. How do you tell an eight-year-old child that her father has died? A two-year-old boy?

  The person they loved most in the world was gone, the person they looked up to, relied on, and emulated, who played with them in the bubble bath and told them stories about when he was a naughty little boy, who took them for motorbike rides and got them ice cream, went on croc-catching adventures and showed them the world’s wildlife.

  I had to tell them that they had lost this most important person, on this most beautiful day.

  Emma came in and I told her what had happened. Suddenly I felt very sick. I didn’t know if I could stand up, and I asked to use the restroom. Then I realized this was the exact time for me to be strong. For years I had cou
nted on Steve’s strength. At six feet tall and two hundred pounds, he was a force to be reckoned with. But he always told me there were different kinds of strength. Steve said he could count on me to be strong when times were hard.

  I thought about that, and I suddenly understood there must be a reason that I was here and he was gone. I needed to help his kids, to be there for our children. All I wanted to do was run, and run, and run. But I had to stay.

  With Emma at my side, I went outside and climbed into the car. Bindi had opened up the raspberries again. I put them away and sat her down. She knew instantly by my face that something was wrong.

  “Did something happen to one of the animals at the zoo?” she asked.

  “Something happened to Daddy,” I said. “He was diving, and he had an accident.” I told her everything that I knew about what had happened. She cried. We all cried. Robert still slept.

  It was back and forth, in and out of the resort now, making phone call after phone call. The challenge was getting home. I couldn’t comprehend the massive response by the press—we were being tracked down like prey, the helicopters already hovering in the air. Taking a commercial flight home was out of the question, so we managed to find a charter plane.

  “We can drive,” Emma said gently to me, meaning herself and Kate. We had to get to the airport and run the gauntlet of the media. I suddenly felt a real desire to take charge, to be in control and not to fall in a heap. I knew I needed to be strong.

  “I can drive,” I said.

  It was on an impossibly narrow, winding section of road that Robert decided to wake up. So I had to drive and at the same time tell my son what had happened.

  “Where’s Cradle Mountain?” he asked.

  “We had to leave Cradle Mountain, Robert,” I said. Then I explained to him that his father had had an accident. He asked me to explain everything again, and I did for a second time.