GREY NOMADS AND BLACKFELLAS

My last blog entry was rudely interrupted by a sudden need for a nap. So herewith are some observations on the people of Top End – specifically the Grey Nomads and the indigenous Australians. No doubt I’m going to offend someone, or possibly everyone, with this blog. So apologies in advance!

We always knew we would eventually find ourselves on the Grey Nomad circuit – and we hit it full on when we pulled into Wooliana, the camp on the Daly River where we caught those big fish so many of you have commented on. Grey Nomads, for the uninitiated, are the countless retired Australians who are “living the dream” of travelling endlessly around Australia with their caravan, their wife and their fishing rod. (This sounds familiar, I know, but I promise you, WE ARE DIFFERENT.) Anyway, I’ve learned some things about Grey Nomads in the last couple of weeks. First thing is that for many Australians the Grey Nomad life is not a one-time only lap around Australia. Instead it is sort of the Australian version of owning a place in Florida (Canadians will get the analogy). They go home to their southern lifestyles through the summer months, but when winter hits they get back into their caravan and head north often returning to the same places year in and year out. So, as you can imagine, during the winter the popular camps and caravan parks feel like a senior’s community centre. You might think that an annual sojourn to the far north of Australia would be a life for adventurers – but not so. It’s like the suburbs meets the outback. Every day the same routine – check your traps for bait, cuppa tea with the neighbours, a spot of fishing in your tinny, rest for awhile, group drinkies in the central meeting spot, dinner, a bit of TV, sleep, start again.

Dennis is going to be irritated with me for being so disparaging, and would quickly point out how very nice everyone in the Grey Nomad communities really is. And it is absolutely, 100% true. Salt of the earth, warm, friendly, wonderful people for the most part. I think it is fear of growing old myself (or should that read “being old”) that provokes a somewhat negative reaction. The worst part of being on the Grey Nomad circuit is the assumption that I am part of the flock. I swear I’m going to punch the next person who asks me if I have a senior’s card!!!

I talked in an earlier blog about my observations on aboriginal Australians. I remain torn between frustration and sorrow at their plight. (By the way, the man in the picture left with Dennis is part of the frustration - drunk, reaking and doing nothing.) We have actually had a few closer encounters over the last couple of weeks and I thought I would share these with you – and for the most part I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.

First we met Larry Johns in Timber Creek – a tiny town in the NT close to the WA border. We spoke to Larry over a cuppa at the local supermarket for quite some time. Larry is of mixed blood and was part of the “stolen generation” – but one of those who was grateful for the experience. The boys’ home in Darwin was full and one of the local stations agreed to take him on at the age of 6. He was home schooled along with the two daughters of the station owner until he was 12 and the girls were sent off to boarding school. He learned all about managing animals and a station by working the land. Eventually he left the property with money in his bank account (having been taught the value of saving) and went to Wyndham to earn a living. He explained that “in them days you either worked for a living or starved, there was no sit down money” – a fact which he feels strongly had worked in his favour. Eventually he got a job as the weed controller for the WA government centred in Timber Creek – a job he has held for 35 years. He plans to retire next year, having enough super set aside, and hopes to set up a small tourism business in his retirement. I don’t need to tell you that this is not a “typical” aboriginal story. To all my left leaning friends – don’t worry, this has not left me thinking that it would be a good idea to take aboriginal children and have them raised by white people! But it did illustrate for me the importance of education and having role-models who value education, as well as the potentially destructive force of welfare.

Then we went to an aboriginal Corroboree at Kununurra. This was fun, and had the feeling of being the “real thing” rather than a tourist attraction. Most of the audience was aboriginal people and/or white people from the local community. The whole thing was more like party games than a professional show – with people shouting over each other to veto certain songs or change the order. In the middle of one of the dances an old woman suddenly started heaving pieces of wood at the ground and it turned out she was killing a snake. There was a lot of joy and laughter in the whole affair. What worried me was the sense that this was like a children’s play – I tended to find myself thinking “ahhh isn’t this cute”. It’s a dreadful paternalistic tendency that I feel plagues the aboriginals themselves and our own ability to change things.

Finally, we met Ted Hall who ran the tour at the Argyle Diamond Mine. His story was the most inspirational, and has given me more hope for the future than anything else I’ve seen thus far. When the diamond mine was first opened the mining company (not sure if it was Rio Tinto at that point) paid each of the neighbouring aboriginal communities about $350K in royalties for the rights to mine the land. The money went directly to the community and as has happened with so much money that has been poured into aboriginal communities the money was wasted – frittered away on cars, alcohol and hand outs to relatives in other areas. As a young man Ted was part of a group that saw this happening and spoke up against the elders – demanding that the money be better controlled. For their efforts they were evicted from the community. They moved into town and started to petition the mine itself, asking for their help in forcing the elders to better manage the money. The mining company, not surprisingly, said “not our problem”. All seemed wasted until about 5 years ago when the mine realized that it had come to the end of the open pit supply of diamonds and it needed to move to underground mining….which meant a renegotiation of the royalties. Now many of those young men who had spoken out so loudly in the early days were elders themselves and found themselves sitting at the table with the mining company. This time they negotiated royalty payments to be paid into a trust for the aboriginal communities, with a board of directors who would decide how the funds would be invested. Since that time the money has been used for micro-loans to assist local people in setting up businesses, and has been spent on health and education programs in the community. We keep hearing how the aboriginal people need to start taking responsibility for their own problems and be part of the solution. Here, at last, was an example – it is not only possible, it is already happening.

Here endeth the lesson.

But before I go a couple of side notes from here at Diggers Rest Station. Our adventures continue – yesterday we had a near miss with a croc and helped to give birth to twin goats. The croc story, of course, is somewhat exaggerated. We went for a walk on the Diggers Rest property and had to take our shoes off to wade across a creek. Dennis didn’t think this was a good idea, “it’s croc country” he said, but I told him not to be a wimp. As it turned out when we got about 100m downstream from the creek crossing we spotted a salt water crocodile peering menacingly above the water. Dennis now counts this as a near miss! The goats were a much more up close affair. The owners of the station had gone into town to see the John Farnham concert and left a young German girl named Sinadoo in charge of the station. Just before we started cooking dinner Sinadoo came running in to say that one of the goats had given birth to twins. It had been a breach birth and the mother was now too exhausted to move. She needed our help to lift the goat and her babies into the truck so that she could get them inside and away from the dingoes. So off we went on our goat rescue mission. Mother and children are now both doing well!

And now I’ll see if the goat rescuer himself is available.

Larry , suggested a book “Beyond the Big Run” in which he is mentioned growing up on the Station. The big run is VRD or Victoria Downs, I purchased the book and have just finished it, a short version is that life was tough, the land in this part of the country was first survey in the 1840’s and large leases were granted to open up the country, no roads and few services if any. The book is a transcript from Charlie Shultz who at 19 was put in charge of a station and remained there for 40 years, Charlie is not politically correct and talks of Black fellas, white fellas and yella fellas about Aboriginal camps with guns and spears, people dying terrible deaths from what now seem very minor health issues or accidents. Cattle being driven from Queensland in the War and how the Government thought the Japs were coming so they gave the stations guns and ammo to defend themselves.

While in Kununarra we drove up to Wyndham for the day. No visit to Wyndham would not be complete with the obligatory visit to the Croc farm and we were there for the feeding, you get to see first-hand the power of these perfect killing machines, a timely reminder for the rest of the tour. The other interesting thing about Wyndham apart from being home of the Big Croc is that 5 Rivers run into the sea, the King, Ord, Forrest , Pentecost and the Durack Rivers: massive amounts of water. Wyndham also has the highest number of lightning strikes in the country so you may now be getting the picture of what a wild place this can be particularly when you throw in a Cyclone or two. The Cyclone warning signs are similar to the fire Danger signs down south and the day we were there the warning was LOW.

Enough now and we are off tomorrow to El Questro, that’s after a spot of fishing, horse riding and a station dinner tonight.

Keep those comments coming we enjoy the digs and feedback.

One final note from Stephanie. It should be noted that station life has not become much easier than it was in the days that Dennis describes. Next time you feel that work is overwhelming spare a thought for Australia’s station owners – most of whom now operate full on cattle and/or sheep stations AND bed and breakfast style tourist retreats with only a husband and wife team plus the odd backpacker. I can’t imagine leading a life where you go to bed exhausted from a day of mustering, then have to be up in the middle of the night to deliver a calf and then rise and shine to cook up a feed for your houseful of of lazy tourist – all of this with a smile! That’s not to mention the stress of spending 24 hours a day with your partner and I won’t even talk about the weather. If anyone has a hankering to live on the land, think again!