The Kimberley: Day 5

On The Road To The Mitchell Falls

One of the places we stopped was an Aboriginal burial ground. Glen told us not to take cameras in, it was bad luck. He also told us we didn't have to go in if we didn't want to then started to tell us all about the area, the burial rituals and how to behave in a place like this. Glen was adopted by an Aboriginal family and grew up in a remote settlement in the Daintree, Queensland. As a result he knows more than most white guides about Aboriginal culture, we were lucky to get him for this tour which did focus quite a lot on Aboriginal rock art and their beliefs, its not something I'm normally interested in, I just wanted to look at the pretty waterfalls and the Bungle Bungles but the way Glen talked and his obvious passion for the subject did instill some sort of interest.

And here's where things got weird. Mary, a Kiwi lass living in Sydney who alternated between talking like she had the mental age of 8 ("ooh look at the little fwroggy!") and intelligent conversation had snapped a small branch off a tree and was circling it around her head, body and ankles. Ok, maybe she has OCD. If she has OCD she needs rituals like that to function, right? Even I have certain rituals I need to go through in certain situations but I do them in my head to avoid freaking people out any more than a pierced, tattooed lesbian from Stockport already would.

At this point, Glen had started talking with a strong Aboriginal accent and dialect which is recognisably Australian but they sometimes structure their sentences slightly different, use distinctive words white Australians don't and their accent stands out from white Australians an all. If you spoke to an Aborigine on the phone you'd be able to tell. He told us that he would let the old people at this site know we were coming and they didn't have to fear us and they were welcome to look into our hearts. Ok, fair enough, this was a wee bit odd but hey, its his thing and we were in his world now. Cool. As we walked into the burial ground he called out in his local Aboriginal language and we all followed, Mary clapping rhythmically.

We all wandered round mainly in silence, it was a burial ground after all and the bones and skulls nestled in a hole in the rocks reminded us of this. Then Glen separated the guys from the girls and led, me, Lil, Pam, Pat, Isabelle and Mary to a section he said was only for the women. This is common in Aboriginal culture, there are places only men can go and places only women can go as well as places everyone can go. He told us to go in and take our time, take it all in and left us at the entrance. It was at this point Mary turned round almost in tears and said loudly, "I would like to lead the women back to this place! Does anyone have a problem with this?"

A problem? Nope, no problem at all, Crazy Lady! She started walking into the area, clapping rhythmically again and shouting loudly about respecting the guardians to the right or something. I fled back to the blokes to talk about footy and beer where Dick was wondering what Glen thought he was doing, letting a load of women go off on their own, it could only mean trouble.

I was chatting to Pat and Lil about what happened a bit later on, Pat said she thought Mary was on some sort of spiritual journey. Well she's on fucking something anyway. I mean, she's a nice enough lass and her heart's in the right place but she's a fucking nut job.

Windjana Spirits

Clean And Plyed With Booze

Anyway, we looked at some more Wandjina art that we could photograph then headed to Drysdale and the hot showers where I removed all excess body hair before it tried to dredd and settled down with a cold beer.

Fucking bliss.

I curled up in my swag that night, content and at peace with the world, hoping to fuck that someone had remembered to hide the sharp implements from Mary.

written by  Koala Bear on July 21, 2007 from Drysdale, Australia
from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
tagged RoadTrip and Kimberley
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