A new books list

I must say that while we were in Kakadu, we ran into many pushy and rude vacationers. I'm used to people on vacation being super friendly (and with Australians already being such a friendly bunch, imagine them on vacation!), but I was disappointed to discover that these people were not kind! Pushing and cutting in tour lines, squeezing people out so they could take their precious pictures, letting their children run amok, and being loud and disrespectul at sacred sites. Many aboriginal sites and cave paintings are considered sacred. They believe that if certain people see certain paintings, or go in certain spiritual places, evil things will happen to that person or worse--earthquakes and other havoc will be wreaked upon the planet. These particular drawings that we were allowed to see, I imagine, are not of that type but they're still something that should be viewed with reverence. We would have loved to sit down and ponder the paintings, but the constant flow of noisy tourists clomping around (with their even noiser children) was not conducive to this idea. Instead, we found a place in between two groups where we could look at the paintings by ourselves then rush along so we wouldn't be interrupted by the noisy group behind us. And you know what? I think that maybe the Aboriginal spirits were with us that day, and happy to have some respectful revelers amongst the regular flow of inconsiderate tourists. It was a hot day, but we had good cloud coverage so the sun wasn't beating down on us and we also were graced with a nice breeze and an entourage of butterflies. Many of the drawings we saw were of kangaroos, which we read was often to invoke a bountiful hunt. Well, we may have been blessed with just such luck, because we saw a little black wallaby on our way (which the group behind us undoubtedly scared away with all their clamoring about. There was a nice view from the top of that little hike (where, alas, more unappreciative tourist children loitered, throwing rocks at each other and sitting as though in a pout, thinking "how boring"). Marcus and I were bewildered at this attitude, as both of us would have felt so incredibly privileged to have been taken somewhere like this by our parents. Kids can be so spoiled and have an amazing lack of appreciation for the things they are given! Makes me want to tell them a thing 'r two...

Anyway, we enjoyed that particular spot then got in the car and drove off to do another little hike, and afterwards we decided it would be a great idea to go back to the pool from the previous night (where we had to go anyway in order to fill up on gas, which was a rare and expensive commodity during the trip). So we headed back, got gas, and had a dip, then continued on our way to the next camping spot of the night. We were recommended to go to a place called Gunlom, which was unfortunately 30+ kilometers out on a dirt road. We were told not to drive the campervan on dirt roads (and had to leave a deposit of $2,700 for insurance on the van), but we decided we might just see what the road was like. Twenty feet out onto the road and we decided it was probably a bad idea...we sat on the side of the red dirt road, regrouping and trying to find a new strategy. But we were feeling a bit adventurous, so we started down the unsealed road anyway. Um, stressful drive that was, and after going only a few kilometers we decided we were going to stay at the first camping ground we came to. That was a quaint little campground that warned us not to go in any of the water holes in the area due to the presence of crocodiles. Fun. We sat down outside and I taught Marcus how to play Ratscrew and Speed, until the cards got grimy with dust and we got hungry. For dinner that night we had cold, half-hard, leftover spaghetti from the night before (nasty!) and some Easter chocolate. Mmm, great combination.

The next morning we headed out of Kakadu and drove down to Katherine. We were both looking forward to a decent meal after the atrocity of the night before, not to mention a non-port-a-potty bathroom where you could sit in peace without having to worry about a spider crawling somewhere near you. This was Easter day, mind you, so the streets were rather quiet...except for a lot of indigenous people roaming the streets, looking like they had nowhere to go in particular and often sitting in ragged-looking groups in the shade or peering into one of the many liquor stores. It wasn't a comfortable feeling to drive through Katherine, and you certainly didn't feel safe. We picked up a few groceries (and more Easter chocolate), then stopped in at the tourist office to see where we might go to get a meal, and were directed to the local RSL club. We felt strange walking in and seeing not a single person of color in that cool air-conditioned place (not to mention just two other women--it was certainly an outback pub). Marcus remarked at how strange it was that we had seen only one indigenous employee in the whole town. I mean, people in Sydney and most of urban Australia have this idea of indigenous people--they're lazy, they don't work, and then they get all of this support from the government and yet don't do anything with it. They drink, the men beat their wives, and steal from those who have worked for what they have. But they don't go any deeper than that, they don't think about the fact that their ancestors (or the countrymen of their ancestors) kicked these people off of their land and introduced this new way of life that was completely different from their own, where hunting and gathering was not how people lived their lives. These white kids my age, they don't think about how the aboriginal people had their populations wiped out by foreign disease, were enslaved by the colonialists, and were introduced to things (read alcohol) that are not healthy and that they had no history with. Imagine you live your life in a nomadic fashion, roaming from one place in a particular season to another particular place in the next season. Year by year, this is how you live your life until some stranger comes along and says, "You can't come here any more because it's my property." While the aboriginal people may have had borders and territories, there wasn't ownership, and even the territory lines were often blurred. Anyway, you get kicked off the land you've lived on all of your life and these settlements come in, pushing away the wildlife, which then makes it harder for you to live your hunting and gathering lifestyle. These new strangers disrespect those things you hold sacred and they always think they're right. Then again, they have weapons and all kinds of things you've never had or even seen, so who are you to argue? Anyway, these people have been kicked out of their lands, have had their cultures disrespected, and all the while they're trying to hold onto both of these things for dear life. How would you function in this society??? You're still trying to maintain that the way you live your life is valid and important, but it's almost impossible to continue living this way in your world as it now stands. How do you react? You drink to try to forget. You steal, to try to fill the void you have as a result of something that was stolen from you. You speak in a loud voice, to be heard in a place where people try not to see you. It's not so hard to understand...

In the 1970's and 1980's, a few groups of Aboriginal people were legally granted Native Owner titles of major tourist attractions, such as Kakadu and Uluru. Want to hear the flip side? They were granted the land under the condition that they leased it back to the Australian government for tourism purposes. So basically, this land is yours but you have to let us use it. That doesn't sound like ownership to me...though I am one of the many tourists who have gone to visit these attractions. Part of me walked along these landmarks and sacred sites, hoping that these wonderful things I was privileged enough to see weren't the most special sites to be seen. I hope that deeper in the parks exist even greater, more beautiful natural wonders that I don't get to see because in some way these people's culture is being preserved. I hope, I hope, I hope.

I can't say that I know all about the modern Aboriginal situation. It's full of complex issues, full of history, that are difficult to separate and sort through but it's certainly one that needs more attention, open-mindedness, and compromise.

Well, I suppose I'll get back to the actual trip (though this is an issue that can't help but arise again). :)

Upon first arriving in Katherine, we actually drove through town and went 30km south to Cutta Cutta Caves, yet another natural tourist attraction among the many and so naturally we wandered on down. The caves were beautiful. Although the indigenous people knew about the existence of the caves, they didn't go in them because they are underground. Since the underground is also where they buried their dead, they considered it bad luck to spend any time under the ground. The caves were beautiful, though, and apparently were used during WWII as soldier hideouts (though the country was never invaded anywhere near there!). The soldiers had some pretty wild parties down there and spent some time shooting off the stalactites which is pretty uncool. However, it's still a beautiful place and home to snakes and bats, too (we only saw one snake, though, tucked up in its own little nook up in the wall). [insert picture here] After browsing around the caves (and being told by a biker couple not to camp our van anywhere along the streets of Katherine because we were liable to get robbed or some such because there were "blacks acting like blacks"...jesus, could we be any more racist???) we went back to town with hopes of a good meal and finding a decent campground. We sat in the aforementioned pub and drank cool beverages while contemplating racial issues (mostly inside our own heads since these were precisely the kind of people that don't help the current situation), and realized that we weren't going to get a decent meal that night since we weren't supposed to drive after dark (which was the only time food was being served on Easter Sunday). We checked out some camper van sites and ended up in Nitmiluk National Park for the night. We went swimming (praises for the pools at these places!), made dinner (Uncle Ben's skillet rice and beans on toast...weird combination, yet again) and ate more Easter candy and some ice cream bars. Then we took showers (can't express the excitement of cleanliness), saw a huge dead beetle, watched a kookaburra hunting 10 feet in front of us and frogs camped out by the water connections, and went to bed. We woke up in the morning all excited to go get rent canoes and spend the day rowing through the gorge. Big disappointment! The river was closed because they hadn't combed the river yet for possible saltwater crocs. Stupid salties! Poor Marcus was heartbroken--canoeing in Katherine gorge was the thing he had most been looking forward to and we couldn't even do it. So instead, we swallowed our disappointment, ate a hurried breakfast and went on a hike. We saw some kind of big brown snake, and just hurried our little way past, then we saw a nice outcroppint of rocks that invited us to come sit for a while. We were the only ones there which was absolutely delightful. Then we continued our way to the river viewing. After that there was nothing else to be done in Katherine and we decided to head out to Elsey National Park to do some more waterfall viewing and swimming. The nice little swimming hole that says you shouldn't swim before dawn or after dusk due to crocodiles...not sure if I believe that, but I wouldn't take my chances! And below the clearest of clear blue water of a thermal springs. It had a pretty strong current, so you jump into the middle of the stream and float down, trying to dodge the little pieces of green slime that you wouldn't expect to appear in water so beautiful.We were going to stay in a very cheap national park camping site, but it was like a ghost town, and you could almost imagine some scary movie taking place there. Soooooo we opted to stay at over by the Elsey Homestead. Apparently the Mataranka and the Elsey area are home to a quintessential Australian book called "We of the Never-Never" written by a lady named Jeannie Gunn who moved out to this particular bushland (in her time, the station consisted of a million and a quarter acres) with her husband. The story is her account of what it was like to live in outback Australia as a woman back in the day. I'm reading it right now and am having a bit of difficulty with her quotations of pidgin dialects, but it's pretty interesting. It's one of those books that makes you have a great appreciation for living off of the land and getting down to the basics of living--something we don't have much of in this day and age.

Anyhew, at this particular camping site there was a pub and we both got SO excited about the prospect of steak (for Marcus) and a big juicy hamburger (for me). We were both disappointed as they didn't make hamburgers for dinner (bunch of crap!) and the steak was $30+, a price you just don't pay for a pub steak. Our dream dinner had to wait a bit longer. Though we did get some good entertainment during dinner. There was a little kangaroo who chilled out in the restaurant, waiting to get some veggies off of the diners and who had the audacity to hop his way into the kitchen. I think he was successful there... he also decided it would be a good idea to pee in front of our table. That was nice. :) Marcus got to pet him, too, but Marcus is sort of an animal-whisperer and I still have that bit of doubt that would probably invite an animal to bite me, so I kept my hands to myself. We also had some brightly-colored peacocks roaming around the campground and they were fun to watch.

The next day was our first full-on driving day. Our first rest-stop was at Daly Waters, an infamous little outback town with an even more infamous outback pub. Originally Daly Waters was just a refueling station for Qantas planes and this little pub is basically all that's left of its hey day. It's now filled with all kinds of this 'n that, t-shirts and underwear signed by passers-by hanging on the walls and ceilings, expired drivers' licenses, business cards and student ID cards (I found one from UW!) covering the front of the bar. Out back there's a thong tree that is sadly lacking in indigenous Australian species. After Daly Waters we spent our time listening to music and counting down the K's to each new little town which would inevitably fly by, leaving us thinking, "That was it?" Until we got to Tennant Creek, where we had intended spending the night. The town didn't strike us as being particularly impressive, though to its credit, there were buildings all over the place for indigenous people--elders councils, job training and placement agencies, government agencies to work on behalf of indigenous people, etc. That left one feeling hopeful, though there were still fair numbers of people shuffling around, with and without shoes, all outfitted in tattered and ill-fitting clothing that didn't seem make sense being on those people...

We decided to get a head start on the next day's driving and drive the next 100 km to the Devil's Marbles where we could camp out for the night. The Devil's Marbles are these huge granit boulders whose corners and edges have been weather-beaten into roundness, and they sit precariously on top of other round granite rocks looking as though they'll roll right off. The best times to see them are at sunrise and sunset, and we lucky ducks got to see them at both. Pulling into the tourist information stand, we got out of the car relieved to be done with driving for the day and excited that the mosquitoes would be down to a minimum--only to be swarmed with flies. One nuisance traded for another, and I don't know if I can honestly say which one is worse! We hiked out along the boulders for a while, until the flies got to be too much for us to handle at which point we went back to the campervan and got dinner ready (pasta...again) whilst slaughtering the flies that flew inside when we were hurrying our own way in. We watched a dingo walk right past the van, which was fun, and the first time I saw it I wondered if someone didn't just have a bit of a ratty dog they were taking around traveling with them. They howl at night like coyotes, too, which can be unnerving. After it got dark, we ventured outside to find that the flies had gone to roost elsewhere and we sat in our little fold-out chairs in peace, enjoying the quiet, the cool temperature, and the clear view of the milky way, something Marcus had wanted to sit outside and observe from the beginning. Sydney isn't exactly a good place to stargaze and we were quite happy to sit out under the stars in such a beautiful place.