LONLIEST POLICEMAN.

Western Star, 14 October 1938, Page 2

LONLIEST POLICEMAN.

Tlie loneliest policeman in the Australian continent js Constable John Stokes, in change of a watering and tucl base for pealers at Elcho IsTand, a tiny dot on tlie map of Arnheni Land, Northern Australia.

Apart from an occassional Thursday Island pearling lugger, the only visitors he sees are in the Northern Territory patrol boat w-hich visits the Island on aw average of four limes a'year, and wandering aborigines fiom the mainland, rte has no wirejess and no means of communication with the mainland except through native channels. When he wishes to send an urgent message to >hcadquai<ters at Darwin, 400 miles away, he has natives send it by smoke signal along the mainland coast, thence by runners to' Darwin. But his idyllic existence' more tnan compensates fo r the loneliness,- for Elc'.io Island is one of the most beautiful islands on the dreary Arnheni Land ccast, and the most fertile. A golden I beach fringes, every little cove round the island, and there is an ample supply cf fresh -prixti,' water..