Post 22 - Greetings From Northern Territory's (NT) Top End - Part 2 : Kakadu & Arnhem Land - Journal

Greetings from Kakadu and Arnhem Land in NT’s Top End!! We have loved Kakadu so much that we extended our stay! Overall we were here for 6 nights which means we have absolutely broken the statistics for how long people usually stay here! Of the 220,000 that visit Kakadu each year, the average length of stay for everybody is just 1.5 days! Staggeringly though, more than half of this number don’t even stay overnight - they are just on a day trip out of Darwin! For us that beggars belief - for how on earth can you really start to FEEL all of what Kakadu is, is if you are only on a day trip??! Even in our 6 days here we didn’t get to see it all - but then we had made a conscious decision about that. Our aim in visiting the Top End was never to “see it all” and so our agenda has definitely been to try and avoid the crowds as much as possible and to have as much of a wildlife and cultural experience as we could. This has meant avoiding some of the touristy gorges and swimming holes not only in southern Kakadu but also in the much touted Litchfield Park near Darwin, and Katherine Gorge further south of Darwin. Aside from wanting to avoid all the tourists though, our decision was also due to the fact we were feeling a bit “gorge-d” and “rockpool-ed” out. We also knew that, it being the Dry season, all the numerous waterfalls that the whole Top End is famous for, would not be running anyway. So, as well as continuing to explore and experience northern/central Kakadu, we were also thrilled to visit some of the Mary River region west of Kakadu, and some of the amazing western Arnhem Land over to its east. Mary River region is similar to Kakadu, with all its wetlands and billabongs – it’s just not as populated with tourists. As for Arnhem Land, well, that takes up the entire eastern half of the Top End and is about the size of Portugal! Like Kakadu, Arnhem Land is a place of breathtaking beauty and prehistoric landscapes, these being untouched for over 40,000 years. In many ways we found it to be much more beautiful – which is saying something as we found Kakadu to be stunning! Arnhem Land is aboriginal land where a fascinating mixture of traditional and living culture exists today amongst its 12000 aboriginal inhabitants. Like Kakadu, the aboriginal rock art forms some of the richest sources of it in the whole of Australia and the arts and crafts for sale amongst the most authentic and quality you can buy anywhere. Unlike Kakadu though, you can’t just simply visit here. The whole country is something of a “forbidden land” to the “white fella” and permits are required to travel anywhere inside of its border. (We got our permit via visiting with an aboriginal-owned and-operated day tour but we are most definitely planning to save up and do a much longer visit with guides again at another date. This will enable us to visit exclusive areas not permissible with just an individual permit to travel. Even in one day though, due to the excellent nature of that tour, we were really able to come away with a very good feel for Arnhem Land, and to appreciate some of what it is to be an aboriginal there.) All in all then and as you can imagine, we have had a blast once again in true Flash and Caz stylie and unique cultural and wildlife experiences have continued to abound, providing us with memories to last us a lifetime. The cultural experiences here have been a heady mix of fascinating, and at different times challenging, confronting, humbling and very thought provoking. Overall, we are thrilled to say this entire area of the Top End more than exceeded our expectations, being for us the complete jewels in the crown in terms of NT as a whole. We hope once again that through our stories and photographs, you will be able to understand why we fell in love with the region!


Animal Tracks Safari – a day in the life of two hunter-gatherers

“Hunting is a part of our lives. In Balanda* society instead of hunting you go shopping. We hunt for wildlife, our food, to keep the tradition going. Hunting is used as a calendar – fish time, file snakes time, lots of fruit coming up like yams, mussels. It’s a good feeling to go out and hunt because when you are out there and you get something, after you have eaten it you feel so happy that you worked for it. Hunting is hard work.”
Aboriginal Clan member – name not permitted (*Balanda means white man)

Well, what a rather unique and authentic experience this one was to add to the bag! Travelling in an open-sided safari vehicle, we once again avoided the crowds and joined a few other people on the only day tour that went to an exclusive-access and wildlife-rich 170km square area of land, right in the heart of Kakadu National Park. The day was to be about searching for wildlife and discovering things to do with aboriginal bush life - including bush foods, bush medicine, and fibres used for arts and crafts. We were lucky enough to be joined by two female aboriginal bush guides, Doreen and Sandra, both born in Kakadu and both not that used to being with the “white fella”. The day began by making our way to the Buffalo Farm “homestead”. (This farm was set up over 20 years ago, at a time when all the wild buffalo were culled in the park – the idea was for the farm to provide a local source of bushmeat for the aboriginal communities around Kakadu. It is able to still exist as a result of the sale of our tour tickets). En-route to the “homestead” we were able to spot some of these mighty black beasts, albeit from a distance – but judging by their size and their horns, the distance thing was a very good thing indeed! In the billabongs they were not always easy to spot in and of themselves but their giveaway were often the small white cattle-egret that perched on their backs or heads, a rather strange dual relationship to see!
The “homestead” was typical of other aboriginal stations that we have seen – dust everywhere, junk and debris piled all around the yard and buildings that looked like they fell into disrepair a lifetime ago. We were here to pick up the aboriginal ladies, to get a look at Kenny (a very ferocious 3.5m croc that had to be caught and penned up here in case it did any more killing!) and to grab a quick pose on a real-deal old “bull-dozer” – a mustering vehicle used to drive into wild bulls and buffalo in order to knock them down so that their legs can be tied and they can be caught for branding or loading onto a truck to be transported. The bull-dozer was a particular highlight for me as I have been itching to go bull-dozing for a while now. It didn’t matter that the vehicle was stationary as just sitting in its clapped out seats more than gave me a feel for just how nerve-wrecking it would have been, to have been sat in one of these with a wild horned-buffalo or bull directly in front of you as you push down on the accelerator and drive right into it! (by the way, it doesn’t hurt them, as their weight is the same weight as the car – it just stuns them off balance).
The ladies came on board in much the same fashion as they were to be with us all day – very quietly and with averted eyes. It was interesting how I felt we almost needed to establish eye contact as a way of trying to gain rapport with them but that in fact this was not the aboriginal way at all. As a “white fella” we have no “skin name” (e.g. “brother”, “uncle”, “aunt”) and without that, an aboriginal does not know how they should relate to us, for there are different rules on how to interact depending on your relationship to the other person’s skin name. Our white tour guide for example, has been given the name of “younger brother” and that is the only way that these women could then come on the bus with him. With that skin name in place, Doreen for example, knows that she can boss him around if she wants to as she has the name “older sister”. And with that skin name, our white tour guide knows what the rules are for how he has to interact with Doreen. If he wants to look at her, he cannot do that full on frontal but must stand a bit to the side and look at her from over his shoulder. It was one of many fascinating differences we were to experience between our cultures that day.
Our safari took us past billabongs, open plains and savannah woodlands that contained all sorts of trees and bushes used by the ladies for various things. It was intriguing to watch them, sitting as they were at the front of the bus looking out of the windows with a very keen and trained eye – spotting for anything that looked to be good tucker. They were literally “going to the supermarket” in a way that we have completely lost touch with! What they didn’t know about bushtucker and bush medicines wasn’t worth knowing. Doreen alone, has been walking the bush scouring for tucker for over 40 years now and, this, together with the fact that the first white fella she saw was just 30 years ago, made us feel quite humbled in their presence.
One stop at a particular apple tree literally proved “fruitless” as this “supermarket shelf” had literally “sold out” - other aboriginals had already been by before us to collect! As there were no more apples lying on the ground we had to move on – because as every aborigine will know, the ripest ones are the ones that have fallen and you don’t pick anything else off the tree. In this way the harvesting is sustainable and still leaves the unripened apples for others to collect in due course. Again it was another eye-opener for us to see how our own mass consumerism and lack of harmony with nature and each other, plays out from very different rules. Other stops proved equally intriguing. There was the one where we got to eat green tree ants, skillfully collected from the tree by Sandra and squashed between leaves to kill them – I say “skillfully” because they were climbing all up her hands and arms and trying to bite her! They were surprisingly sweet-tasting though I certainly didn’t feel the need to get addicted to them! Another stop had us searching for sugarbag – a wild and very sweet honey made by the small black native bees here. Doreen and Sandra were able to take us right up to the nest, located inside an open tree branch. Hilariously, all that was there to see was the honeycomb and all the bees, since both ladies had been by only yesterday, coming “shopping” to scrape out all the delicious honey for themselves! Even something as simple as sugarbag became for us a window into the complex world of aboriginal groups and laws. It was really interesting therefore to learn that the two main groups that all aboriginals are split into has very different rules about where it may “shop” for sugarbag – one group can come to the open tree branches like Doreen and Sandra and the other must only collect it from the base of termite nests and trees! It was a surreal thought to imagine this rule transposed onto “white fella” living – imagine a group of us only permitted by law to shop at Coles and a group solely at Woolworths! Another stop had us all bundling out of our safari vehicle onto a terrain of hard, cracked mud replete with big holes where vicious wild pigs had previously been turning up the soil, digging for the water chestnuts we were also about to dig for! I reckon it was harder work for us than it was for the pigs! Everyone was given a very heavy hammer and had to set to, bashing up the hard lumps of caked earth – the Holy Grail being a red water chestnut about the size of a pea located anywhere in amongst any one of those mud cakes. It must have taken us about 15 minutes to collect about 10 of them between us – which was pitiful when you consider our arms were aching and yet Sandra and Doreen will do this for a couple of hours or more to get what they need for their meal! Again, another huge eye-opener into the differences between our cultures!
Boarding the bus once again, we made our way on to our camp for the early evening, stopping en-route to watch Sandra and Doreen collecting the pandanus leaves used for their basketwork and to collect some pungent leaves that would add flavour to our food that night. Even though up until now we had experienced the most amazing afternoon, nothing was quite to prepare us for the sheer stunning location of our dinner camp – the amazing Gindjala wetland (Goose Camp). From late June-September you can witness a spectacular gathering of wetland birds and in particular, thousands of magpie geese. Kakadu is the main stronghold for magpie geese in Australia and indeed this gathering of birds in and of itself formed one of the largest bird gatherings in Australia as a whole. As we arrived at Goose Camp we could honestly say that we have never seen so many birds in one spot! THIS was the Kakadu we had imagined and seen on TV and we were so thrilled to be there! The sights and sounds of this massive gathering were absolutely unbelievable, magical and completely unforgettable. As far as the eye could see were birds on the water and birds flying over the water and the volume of honking was insane! As I stood still, completely marveling at the spectacle of Nature before me, I could absolutely feel the pulse and throb of the mob pulsing and throbbing right through my core and it felt like I was completely connected to it all! It was hard to tear myself away but I wanted to help out with getting dinner ready, so it was all hands on deck to offload the firewood and make the fire. While we and others were doing that, our ladies were busy digging out a ground oven (a hole in the ground) where we would cook our food for the night.
With the fire built and oven dug, Gordon and I put our hands up with a couple of others to get involved with the plucking and preparing of the magpie geese, which had been shot just the day before in readiness for our feast. What an experience that was! I haven’t plucked anything before and I have to say it’s one thing to handle a frozen packaged chicken out of the freezer in Coles – and another entirely to have to handle a frozen big bird with his neck, head, feet and feathers all still intact and just the vaguest or aromas! Urggggh! It was hard work ripping the feathers from its belly and not so nice having to handle the bird’s feet as you did so. It was even worse to be plucking the feathers of an initially fairly frozen bird only to find as you went on, that this bird’s body was softening as it “defrosted”! What feathers weren’t up my nose were littering the ground like confetti! By now Sandra and Doreen were feeling a tad more relaxed with us all and were having quite a giggle at how clumsy our plucks were and how long it was taking us versus them. I was glad that albeit through our rather dismal plucking efforts we were nevertheless connecting with these women in some way. Watching them both take the geese onto the fire to burn off the remaining soft down, then bring them back to their places so they could cut them up for cooking, was quite something. Finally, magpie geese, buffalo meat and a couple of big, fresh barramundi were all placed down in the camp oven, with the pungent leaves placed on them, stones put on top of that, followed by big sheets of paperbark placed over the whole (like a fully fitting lid) and dirt shoveled on top of the bark in order to prevent any air getting in.
By now the sun was beginning its setting and the honking geese had turned up the decibels rather incredibly! At one point something disturbed them and you have never seen so many birds leap out of the water and flap into flight – it was the most magnificent thing to see and hear! Also magnificent though, was just sitting there and, with the setting sun as a backdrop, watching numerous whistling kites circling and swooping down in front of us, to pick on the discarded raw goose meat and bones. Soon, fresh damper was brought up from the coals and we ate it before dinner, smeared with butter and drizzled with golden syrup – it was the best appetizer we think we have ever had! Some of us watched how Sandra made bush string from the fibres of the pandanus and how Doreen made a bush bracelet from those same leaves – I had a go but I was all fingers and thumbs and lacked the millennia of “bracelet-making-from-pandanus” expertise in my “white fella” DNA! Dinner was then served and we tucked in to more damper with wonderfully cooked barramundi, and chunks of tender goose and juicy buffalo meat. And, as the darkness began to set in, Gordon and I just had to duck out of clearing up duties and simply stand there arm in arm, looking out at the fading billabong scene and the expansive Kakadu starry sky.
As we finally drove out of Goose Camp the headlights from our bus lit up a hungry dingo which had moved in for our scraps and I was reminded of the wonderful symbiotic nature that living in this way allows. On the way home, as a red moon slowly rose, Sandra plucked up the courage to do her first ever speaking on a tour or in a microphone and it was to tell us all the names of her family. Shy and quietly spoken we all strained earnestly to hear her tiny words. It took her about 5 minutes to name them all! The vast list of members and how they all inter-relate, was a fascinating insight into the complex nature of aboriginal tribes and clans. It was indeed a fitting end to what had been an amazing and unforgettable journey of experiential discovery into aboriginal ways, culture and life!
Before this blog entry regarding our safari day can receive its final “full stop” however, there just remains for me to include below a poem, written by bush-poet Gordon and inspired by one very annoying woman on this trip – annoying because of her lack of photography etiquette, especially around aboriginals! We hope you enjoy!

The First Shot

The Bum waddles forth – gunna beat that lot
Arms thrust out to get the first shot
To be the first one there – that’s the game
Got the prey in sight – ready, steady, aim

Lens poked anywhere without a single thought
No bloody clue about permission sought
Not a single thought that they may intrude
Bloody camera hog, just plain bloody rude.




Western Arnhem Land – tasting the fruits of a “forbidden country”

Today, too many Balanda*. Some alright maybe, whitepella, whitepella, more and more, pushing blackfella out, maybe push him on the rock. It was blackfella country before. You cannot push him out with money, or bulldozer. This is Bininj** country. We have to stay here forever
Worgol Clan (* means white man/whitepella ; **means aboriginal)


As we reach the first lookout of our climb up Injalak Hill, the absolutely breathtaking vista of western Arnhem Land spreads out before us, quite different to anything we have seen in Kakadu. Dominating the skyline are two large sandstone monoliths. One of these is the hill that we are forbidden to photograph today. The reason for this is that there is an important and sacred initiation ceremony taking place there – “secret young-man’s business”. Of course, now we are here, we comply with this earlier request out of respect. In any case, no-one is interested in testing any bad karma that may come their way for flouting sacred business! We have only been stood here seconds - before Gary, our aboriginal guide for the day, sits himself down ahead of us all on the huge ledge of rock that looks as if it is precariously perched off all the others around. For a good few minutes he has his back to us and is silent, jutting out into the ancient landscape that he is immediately at one with. There is something about the silence and about the way that he sits, that humbles us and makes us all feel like we shouldn’t move or talk either. He is commanding the most amazing presence and the hairs on my arm are tingling with his energy. And then he speaks. His voice is so quiet and we have to strain in order to understand the pigeon Aboriginal-English that he uses. He talks about the white fella and how he came barging in on the black fella, not wanting to listen to what the black fella knew or had to say. About the white fella stealing the land, stealing a generation, wanting to dominate and to conquer, to impose white fella values and strip the black fella of his. There is no malice or attack in his voice - just a simple statement of the wrongs we have done. It is a powerful moment and I am humbled further.
I look back out across the landscape, to the small aboriginal township of Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) that lies close to the border of Kakadu and the mighty East Alligator River. About 12,000 aboriginal people live in this town and its outstations - including skilled traditional painters, bark painters, basket weavers, and screen printers. They are surrounded by the vast floodplain and permanent billabong full of wildlife that I am gazing upon now. Most of these aboriginals combine traditional practices with modern ones – this means that they might go out for a hunt but be back to watch the 6pm news! What I am looking out onto is an entire area not openly available to the white fella. You need a permit to come here at all, unless like us, you are on an authentic, cultural tour owned and run by the Traditional Owners. It really is like a mystical “forbidden” land that has been little disturbed for over 40,000 years.
All of a sudden Gary gets up and says we have to leave this lookout now. He tells me as we make to go, that he has just seen a sign coming from across the sacred hill forbidden to our cameras – a mirror being reflected off the sun to alert him to move us on. It is incredible to think that while we were all there looking out at the scene unawares, that this exchange was taking place between him and other aborigines. I don’t know it yet but it’s just one of the episodes today where, in the midst of another culture, I am in the “not knowing”. We continue on with our climb up Injalak.
Injalak is famous for some of the best rock art examples in Western Arnhem Land and maybe even in Australia. Being on the tour we get to visit and experience sites such as this one that are usually off limits to others. In just a few minutes of walking we arrive at a large rock shelter with a big overhanging “ceiling”. On that ceiling is rock art even more amazing than what I have been seeing at Kakadu. Unlike Kakadu though, I am allowed to get up close to the paintings by lying down on my back on the cool, raised, stone floor and gazing up at the gallery of art laid out for me, while Gary starts to explain some if what we are seeing. I am compelled to be still within myself as I feel the energy of this place and, as I rest here, different layers of paintings from over the centuries start to emerge from out of the stone.
We continue clambering up, across and over the rocks, narrow chasms and shelters of Injalak Hill. There is a coolness bouncing off the sheltered stone that is a welcome reprieve from the hot sun. As we stoop down, squeeze through and generally rock hop I know I am walking and treading paths that aborigines have used here for hundreds of thousands of years before I even existed. Here, walls keep in secrets that rock art does not reveal and for me, the energy of ancestors is all around - in the breeze that cuts through a chasm, in the paintings, in a burial cave, or on a dimpled rock once used for grinding seeds or ochre for painting. At one point it is amazing to actually see a shelter that up until about ten years ago, Gary and his own family had been using in the Wet season for sleeping, cooking, and teaching. As I stand there and look at it, I am struck by how sad it is that Aboriginals don’t paint on actual rocks anymore, now that they rarely live in rock shelters like these now. That, whether it’s a good thing or bad thing, after more than 20 or 30,000 years of rock shelter living, it’s been the contact with the white fella that has resulted in rock art falling by the wayside.
Gary leads us on, stopping now and again to explain rock art. He smells of sweat and yet it’s a good smell, almost earthy. He speaks in a soft voice most of the time, using words sparingly. I have noticed this before with aboriginals and I think they are just more comfortable than us, with saying less. Sometimes there is humour and enthusiastic encouragement – “Did you make the photo? Please, make the photo!” Even though I have taken enough photos, I don’t wish to offend so I duly click the camera at paintings so high up on a ceiling or rock face, that I am more than inclined to believe Gary’s adamant story that they were painted by the first spirit beings before the creation of man. After all, how on earth could any human have got up that high to do it?!
It is striking to me how Gary knows his way around intimately and yet to me it all appears as a maze! I watch him as he walks ahead of us, nimble and sure footed, a well-worn plastic drink bottle hanging off the back of his head, secured at his forehead by some bush string. He is gently singing something to himself and it sounds like all the songs of all his ancestors before him. I feel the singing has some significance, that it means something - but I cannot understand the words and again I am forced to “not know”.
After about two fantastic hours on Injalak Hill, we climb back down, say goodbye to Gary and make our way across to the Injalak Arts and Crafts Centre. Here displays of some obviously top quality, beautiful and authentic aboriginal artworks are available for us to buy and it kills me that I have no house to put anything in – I love everything I am seeing! Still, I buy a necklace that doesn’t take up any space in our already crammed 4WD and feel good that at least the sale of this goes towards directly benefiting the community. (unbeknownst to me, Gordon has bought a beautiful piece of sculpture for my birthday, and instructed them to post to his mum for safekeeping in Sydney. It is a piece I was particulary in love with - a carved and painted wooden Magpie Goose! Stunning!)
Lunch for the day takes place on an exclusive boat cruise on Inkiju billabong, a billabong more beautiful than anything else I have seen in Kakadu - even Yellow Waters! It is a completely idyllic scene, serene and lush, the waters liberally covered with pale lilies and lined on one side with rocky, low escarpments. As we eat our lunch watching the crocs lazily half submerged and lurking, an interesting and thought provoking discussion starts up between us and our guide, about the destructive things happening in aboriginal communities both here in Arnhem Land today and elsewhere – about the problems with alcohol and easy welfare money that continue to contribute to the potential future demise of these people and their culture – and in short, how the white fella has kind of stuffed it all up. It is a sad situation with no clear-cut solution and we talk it through some more later on as we access Hawk Dreaming back in Kakadu, another restricted and exclusive area with more wonderful views.
As we get dropped off back at our car, there is much food for thought from yet another unforgettable experience in the NT and we have been touched by it all forever.
(Note: For any of you interested in reading a current book on the plight of aboriginals, I can thoroughly recommend “Balanda – My year in Arnhem Land” by Mary Ellen Jordan. It is described as “a quietly gripping, very personal take on Australia’s deepest dilemma” and is one of several books on the subject that I have devoured since being in the NT. For anyone with more of a mind for historical perspectives,, then also the brilliant book “An Intruders Guide to East Arnhem Land” by Andrew McMillan, comes with the thumbs up from me!)