Explore the real-world places that appear in Poor Fellow My Country by Xavier Herbert. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include The Esplanade, Darwin, Victoria Hotel, Government House (The Residency), Darwin Wharf, Larrakeyah Barracks and 5 more.
Esplanade, Darwin City — the white town's seafront
The novel's Top End town life, with its white officials, pastoralists, traders and drifters, is centred on the Darwin waterfront and its verandahed buildings. Here the colonial elite's talk of race, land and the approaching war plays against the lives of Aboriginal and mixed-race people on the margins. It is the stage for the novel's political and social debates.
Darwin's Esplanade was laid out along the cliffs above the harbour in the town's early decades as Palmerston. It was the setting for the administrative and social life of the Northern Territory in the 1930s. Much of the old streetscape was destroyed in the 1942 bombing and by Cyclone Tracy in 1974.
The Esplanade is a palm-lined parkland promenade with memorials and interpretive signs on Darwin's wartime and colonial history. It is a popular place for walking with views over the harbour.
Visit: Darwin Esplanade and Bicentennial Park (park)
Smith Street — Darwin's historic pub
Pubs like the Victoria Hotel are where the book's drovers, pastoralists, officials and hangers-on trade gossip, grudges and opinions about the Territory's future. They stand in for the loud, drink-fuelled white male society that Herbert indicts, in contrast to the Aboriginal people who were barred from such bars.
The Victoria Hotel has stood on Smith Street since the 1890s, and its stone building survived the 1942 bombing raids. It has been a gathering place for Territorians for well over a century.
The Vic Hotel is a bar and pub on the Smith Street Mall, popular with locals and tourists.
Visit: The Victoria Hotel (restaurant)
The Esplanade — seat of the Administrator
Official Darwin, with its Administrator, bureaucrats and visiting dignitaries, is the novel's centre of paternalistic policy on Aboriginal people and mixed-race children. The Residency stands for the power that decides their fates while the country drifts toward war.
Built in 1870 as the Administrator's residence, Government House is one of Darwin's oldest surviving buildings. It has survived cyclones, including Tracy in 1974, and the 1942 bombings.
Government House is used for official functions and is open to the public on limited occasions. Its gardens and exterior can be seen from the Esplanade.
Visit: Government House Darwin (historic site)
Stokes Hill — gateway for ships, troops and cargo
The harbour is where the outside world arrives in the novel: ships, soldiers, travellers and the threat of Japanese invasion. The wharf area underlines how exposed the Top End was as war approached in the early 1940s.
Stokes Hill Wharf was the main shipping point for Darwin and was bombed in the Japanese raids of 19 February 1942. The wharf has been rebuilt several times.
Stokes Hill Wharf is a dining and tourist precinct with seafood restaurants and fishing spots. It is also close to the WWII Oil Storage Tunnels attraction.
Visit: Stokes Hill Wharf (landmark)
Larrakeyah Peninsula — Darwin's military base
Darwin's garrison and defence installations represent the war that reshapes the Territory in the novel's later sections. The arrival of military men, and the clashes between army authority and local society, mark the end of the old Top End.
Larrakeyah was established as a military site in the early 20th century and was a key base during the Second World War. The Larrakeyah people are the Aboriginal custodians of the peninsula.
Larrakeyah Barracks remains an active Australian Defence Force base and is not open to the public.
East Point Road — the Territory's prison
Territory justice, with Aboriginal people jailed on thin grounds under a white legal system, is a central concern of the novel. Fannie Bay Gaol stands for that system and its harsh treatment of Aboriginal and mixed-race men.
Fannie Bay Gaol operated from 1883 until 1979 and held prisoners including Aboriginal people convicted under Territory law. It was used by the military during the Second World War.
The former gaol is a museum run by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, with cells, gallows and exhibits.
Visit: Fannie Bay Gaol Museum (museum)
Bagot Road — compound for Aboriginal and mixed-race people
Segregated settlements like Bagot stand in the novel for the confinement of Aboriginal and mixed-race people, whose lives were controlled by government officials. The book's analysis of 'half-caste' policy, and the lives of children like Prindy, is anchored in such places.
Bagot was established in 1938 as a reserve for Aboriginal people of mixed descent near Darwin. It was a site of government control over mixed-race families and was known for its restrictive regulations.
Bagot is now a residential Aboriginal community in Darwin's northern suburbs. It is a living community and should be respected as private homes.
Cox Peninsula — Aboriginal settlement
Aboriginal settlements around the harbour embody the Top End's older society, which persisted despite white intrusion. The novel sets traditional Aboriginal life and law against the colonial town, mourning the lost chance of a shared commonwealth.
Delissaville was established in the 1940s on the Cox Peninsula, west of Darwin, and has been home to Larrakia and Wagait people. It is now known as Belyuen.
Belyuen is a small Aboriginal community on the Cox Peninsula with its own council and arts centre. Visits should be arranged with the community.
Stuart Highway — bush town south of Darwin
The road and rail line south of Darwin carry the novel's travellers between the town and the cattle country. The Adelaide River region represents the bush Top End of drovers, stockmen and Aboriginal workers, where the book's station society operates.
Adelaide River grew along the North Australia Railway and the Stuart Highway, and became a major military base in the Second World War. It has a war cemetery with graves of those killed in the Darwin raids.
Adelaide River is a small township with a war cemetery, a railway heritage site and a roadside stop for travellers.
Visit: Adelaide River War Cemetery (monument)
Mary River floodplains — the cattle-station heartland
The novel's cattle-station world is set in the Top End bush, among floodplains and ranges, where white pastoralists like Jeremy Delacy and the Aboriginal people of the land live in uneasy dependence. Rainbow Valley is fictional, and the Mary River country stands in as its likely real-world equivalent. The station is the book's heart, where family, race and land collide.
The Mary River floodplains were taken up for pastoral leases in the late 19th century, and buffalo shooting and cattle raising dominated the region. The Aboriginal peoples of the area, including the Limilngan and Wulna, were displaced by this expansion.
Much of the area is now Mary River National Park, with wetlands, birdlife and crocodile-spotting tours. It is a popular outdoor destination for visitors from Darwin.
Visit: Mary River National Park (park)
More by Xavier Herbert: All Xavier Herbert books