How Cyclone Yasi helped Kenn Parker build his home among the cassowaries

Australia Broadcast Center

25-04-2025

It's a birdwatcher's paradise, a 10-acre plot of tranquillity that Kenn Parker calls home.
In this isolated patch of rainforest on the doorstep of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area in northern Queensland, he lives a quiet life observing the natural world around him.
Kenn Parker says he is endlessly fascinated by the natural environment around him.
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"There's never a dull moment. There is always something happening," Mr Parker says, as he sits on the verandah of a purposefully built bird-watching hut.
"One minute it might be a cassowary or a bandicoot, or a wallaby or a snake. They just keep coming and I love them."
Kenn Parker's house includes a small, three-sided bird-watching shelter where he welcomes visitors.
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ABC News: Baz Ruddick
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But of all his forest neighbours, the most intriguing are the cassowaries — often deemed the most dangerous birds in the world due to their razor sharp claws and powerful legs.
"I didn't think I was going to be living this close to cassowaries. But they just arrived one day and they haven't gone,"
he said.
Since purchasing the property in 2000, Mr Parker estimates he has seen 42 chicks grow up, some of whom have returned as proud fathers with their own offspring to show him.
Mr Parker loves the quietude of the rainforest.
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His fascination with these extraordinary birds, which are raised by the male parent, has led Mr Parker to document their behaviour.
"I videoed them all from tiny little chicks — three days old and four days old. They've just grown up around me," he said.
"
The dad will bring the chicks back and go, 'Hey, look what I've got'. They're very good dads.
"
Cassowaries often visit Mr Parker's house as they move through the forest scratching for food.
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ABC News: Baz Ruddick
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While he has affectionately given nicknames to some of the more frequent visiting birds — Duchess and Danger — Mr Parker maintains a safe distance and never approaches them.
He believes that when the cassowaries are close to his house, they don't find his presence threatening and are therefore less of a danger to him.
"When I get out and go into the forest it's a different story. You have to be careful. You are a human. You are a problem," he said.
Mr Parker exercises caution around the cassowaries.
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ABC News: Baz Ruddick
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The night the wind howled
Mr Parker is accustomed to solitary life, having spent many decades living at sea and travelling on sailboats.
In 2000, he decided to put down roots among the trees.
He purchased the 10-acre block at Bilyana, north of Cardwell, for just under $50,000 using a compensation payment he was awarded after a workplace accident.
"As I started to walk through [the forest] there was a little pink native hibiscus and I knew from that moment this property was going to be mine,"
he said.
Mr Parker's small house was built in 16 days using timber from trees felled by Cyclone Yasi in 2011 for the frames.
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ABC News: Baz Ruddick
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When he began living on the block, his home was an old campervan with a pop-top roof, which was perfectly serviceable until Tropical Cyclone Yasi unleashed its fury on North Queensland in February 2011.
The Category 5 storm remains one of the most devastating to ever cross the Australian coast.
As Mr Parker sheltered in his van, he could hear trees and huge branches falling all around him as gale-force winds tore through the rainforest.
Damaged boats are stacked on top of one another at Port Hinchinbrook boat harbour in Cardwell, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011, as a result of category 5 tropical cyclone Yasi.
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AAP: Dave Hunt
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"I had the roof tied down and I can see it starting to lift so I'm hanging on. It's roped but the wind is picking it up, dropping it, picking it up, dropping it," he recalled.
"Then this wattle tree just came down and went 'bop' and kept the roof down all night."
Downed trees and signs litter the foreshore at Cardwell, days after Cyclone Yasi.
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He felt safer with the tree anchoring his fragile abode, but was afraid for the animals who called this part of the forest home.
At first light, he climbed out of his battered van and was shocked by the destruction around him.
The view, normally obscured by trees, opened up and he could see Dunk Island 30 kilometres to the north-east and Tully to the north.
The frame and roof trusses were cut using a portable mill loaned to Mr Parker by a friend.
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ABC News: Baz Ruddick
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"The first little bird I saw was a little blue wren. It made my heart sing. I nearly cried because I thought if that little bird can survive then the cassowaries and all these other little animals, they're going to be alright," he said.
The house that Yasi built
Mr Parker never planned to build a permanent structure on his property.
"I wasn't going to build here because there was no way in the world I was going to cut these trees down. I wasn't even going to build a track,"
he said.
But with his campervan ruined, he decided to put all the fallen timber around him to good use.
Friends whose properties had also been hit brought him extra wood, and with their help and the use of a portable mill, Mr Parker set to work using the timber to build the frames and trusses of a small house.
Mr Parker spends time repairing electronics at his kitchen table.
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ABC News: Baz Ruddick
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"Two or three big blue gums came down so we cut them up," he said.
"It all came from here except the pine … I cut this [timber] really fresh within two or three weeks of it coming down and it cut dead straight — perfect," he said.
In just 16 days, Mr Parker had a small but liveable home. The kitchen and bathroom are still makeshift and the place is run on five deep-cycle batteries — recharged by the sun.
Mr Parker says one day cassowaries arrived at his property and now they visit him regularly.
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ABC News: Baz Ruddick
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Adapting to life in the rainforest has come with its challenges.
"There is no water but there is a spring, so I invented a pump that pumps water up the hill and puts 5,000 litres of water in those tanks there a day," he said.
"I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
"[I love] the quiet at night. You might hear an owl or a scrub fowl, you hear frogs — but it's so quiet. And the stillness."