Australia 4
15 May 2011
Pink and grey galahs, red and green parrots, rainbow bee-eaters, red and yellow ochre, red dragonflies…
The trip has gradually turned from a simple, rather touristy, roadtrip into a cultural adventure.
Thanks mostly to Jen’s research, which meant she interviewed half of Broome in about 6 days, we are getting tips of where to go, people to see, invitations to dinner… this part of Australia has a far stronger indigenous identity. We have stayed in indigenous run campsites on the Ardi (Dampier) peninsular and Jen’s search for a contact she wanted to interview turned into a drive around the corner (several miles, but it’s all relative) and a fascinating local man who has set up a whale research centre in the bush, right on a bay which is one of the world’s most important calving grounds for humpback whales. He singlehandedly managed to dissuade the government from building a gas hub there, but they are trying again a few miles down the coast as that apparently won’t affect the whales… He took us for a drive to ‘the creek’, which in my book is a small rocky stream. This one was several miles along the largest, most beautiful white sand beach, where he stopped off to do some net-fishing, to a vast, pristine, silent estuary, stretching for tens of miles. He took us to see the mangrove forest, we agreed politely, both having seen mangroves, but not mangroves the size of two-storey houses. He encouraged us to slide down the dune ‘you have to see it from the bottom, but don’t go into the mud’. Nothing on earth would have persuaded me onto the mud – the forest seemed primeval: I am sure dragons and pterodactyls live in there still. It was eerie, quiet, shafts of golden setting sun tried to penetrate a few feet into the gloom and there was a sweet, rotten smell of mud and the cries of distant birds.
We drove back along the beach with the sun setting purple and red and gold over the smoke-blue sea. Fish leapt in shoals out of the water, oystercatchers and plovers raced our vehicle and then veered off across the silky water.
It turned out he needed some architects sketches of a building on the rocky outcrop above the beach – he could get some money for the building if he could convince investors the place would make a nice area to bring groups of children to teach them about marine science, so the next morning found us back there, him driving us around to viewpoints, me sketching sites and imaginary buildings for him. I don’t pretend to be an architect, but they seemed to be good enough. I hope the project goes through. I was paid in recordings of whalesong from that very bay.
Now in Fitzroy Crossing, we enjoyed a superb indigenous tour of local Devonian Reef cave systems with ancient rock-paintings, snakes, spiders, tea and damper, dreaming stories about the blue-tongued lizard, explanations about bushtucker and the tree with permanently black bark like charcoal which was used both to protect skin from the sun and to blacken the skin of halfcaste children to prevent them being taken away from families.
In my limited understanding of aboriginal culture, I know that they do not usually like photos of themselves or pictures, so I am more than surprised when the guide allows me to include him in one of my sketches – I had just assumed I would draw the scene and leave him out. I am even more suprised when he invites us back to his house and asks if I would draw his portrait for him. I am pretty pleased with the result, since it was midday, 37degrees, and dogs were biting my legs as I sketched.
The north west also has very good local community galleries, full of paintings on the walls, on the floor, unstretched on tables and unfinished in corners, as the artists come to these centres to paint.
The Gibb River Road is slowly opening after the huge flooding this year. The campsite we are on was underwater about one month ago and we are about 8 metres above the current water level. The highway is narrow and rather like an english B-road, the unsurfaced roads demand constant concentration, judging holes, bumps, sand, ruts, animals – the driving is not only physically tiring, but requires continuous decision-making.
I’m well into my second sketchbook, struggling to get down an idea of everything we see. We haven’t had to break into the lentils yet, though the local supermarket up here is staffed entirely by 20 year old chinese people who have only a basic grasp of english, you can buy cheese in kilo blocks and packs of meat to last a month – our fridge just isn’t quite big enough.
The Troopy is doing well, loving our gentle introduction to creek crossings (about 6cm so far) and putting up with the boring miles on the highway.
Much sunny, colourful love to you all, full of strange screeches of birds and buzzing and chirruping of insects.