Since crossing the border to Queensland we have been traversing the remote north west of Queensland - the Savannah country comprising the Gulf and the tablelands. The landscapes (roadscapes) are vast and endless; we spent nearly two whole days driving through flat grazed lands stretching further than the eye can see, just a skinny grey line of road cutting through the wheat-coloured grass under a washed-out sky, a mirage infinitely unreachable but always there at the tip of the road, blue and shimmering, playing tricks with our minds.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
A Mule and a Flea
Wyndham..
I'm falling in love with the Kimberley. Wyndham is a very interesting town. Desolate and quirky in equal measure, depending on where you look, and with what eyes. The isolation and remoteness gives the town a unique aesthetic, untouched by contemporary city life, but it is more than merely historic: it is strange. The kind of place where a scruffy donkey will follow you around the caravan park, peeking ears and eyes over the pool fence as you plunge into the chilly water. A place where derelict shacks and abandoned pick up trucks sit at the bottom of massive dry mountains; where every shop window on the main street is smashed; where the petrol station is the tourist bureau; and a cow grazes among a litter of stray kittens in an overgrown vacant lot. We watched on, gleeful, as a local mob squealed and ran giggling through the streets, following a girl who had caught a snake and was chasing her terrified mum with it, just for fun - pointing the stick that held the deadly reptile, draped and angry. We took a drive to the port and photographed most of the buildings there. Afterwards we watched the sun set from the Five Rivers lookout, which offers a spectacular panoramic view of the port, the mountain range, the mud flats, and the shabby little town that sits in the middle of the empty wilds.
I'm falling in love with the Kimberley. Wyndham is a very interesting town. Desolate and quirky in equal measure, depending on where you look, and with what eyes. The isolation and remoteness gives the town a unique aesthetic, untouched by contemporary city life, but it is more than merely historic: it is strange. The kind of place where a scruffy donkey will follow you around the caravan park, peeking ears and eyes over the pool fence as you plunge into the chilly water. A place where derelict shacks and abandoned pick up trucks sit at the bottom of massive dry mountains; where every shop window on the main street is smashed; where the petrol station is the tourist bureau; and a cow grazes among a litter of stray kittens in an overgrown vacant lot. We watched on, gleeful, as a local mob squealed and ran giggling through the streets, following a girl who had caught a snake and was chasing her terrified mum with it, just for fun - pointing the stick that held the deadly reptile, draped and angry. We took a drive to the port and photographed most of the buildings there. Afterwards we watched the sun set from the Five Rivers lookout, which offers a spectacular panoramic view of the port, the mountain range, the mud flats, and the shabby little town that sits in the middle of the empty wilds.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Derby to Fitzroy Crossing: Mowanjum and the Prison Tree
On our way out of Derby, we stopped at Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre, a 100% Aboriginal owned non-profit organisation that exhibits and sells local art, mainly traditional ochre paintings. The gallery was almost meditative in its opening hour. Hundreds of depictions of Wandjini covered all the walls, fixing hollow eyes upon me, and I felt I was being scrutinised. Wandjini doesn't have a mouth. Everything can be said in silence.
The Prison Tree is defaced with etchings of tourist names; I wondered if it was hypocritical to feel so infuriated by this, when I had been so mesmerised by the engravings at the Burrup Peninsula, which are really a sort of prehistoric graffiti. A group of obnoxious English backpackers had disregarded the sign at the perimeter that marked the mighty old Boab as a sacred site, and were posing inside its bulbous hollow in a most cliche manner. The sign warned that it was inhabited by spirits and snakes and i secretly hoped that one or the other might bite the larrikins.
A long time ago, the 'blackbirds' plucked the Looma people from their inland country, and took them to the coast, making them divers for pearls. Even out here, where Aboriginal groups are proud and their stories are strong, the people are displaced. Everywhere: the displaced.
The Prison Tree is defaced with etchings of tourist names; I wondered if it was hypocritical to feel so infuriated by this, when I had been so mesmerised by the engravings at the Burrup Peninsula, which are really a sort of prehistoric graffiti. A group of obnoxious English backpackers had disregarded the sign at the perimeter that marked the mighty old Boab as a sacred site, and were posing inside its bulbous hollow in a most cliche manner. The sign warned that it was inhabited by spirits and snakes and i secretly hoped that one or the other might bite the larrikins.
A long time ago, the 'blackbirds' plucked the Looma people from their inland country, and took them to the coast, making them divers for pearls. Even out here, where Aboriginal groups are proud and their stories are strong, the people are displaced. Everywhere: the displaced.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Twiggy Cuntry
Song: "The Earth Died Screaming": Tom Waits.
It was time to leave the cool blue and velvety green mood of the Gascoyne, and find the Pilbara, with the promise of work and accommodation in Tom Price, oasis and adventure in Karijini. From Exmouth, we went the Warlu Way.
The Gascoyne is so green at the moment, many of the road shoulders have actually been mown. The balance is tipped since the rain. On Burkett Rd, we found the locusts. Some were as big as birds - massive wings, large carapaces; nothing cute about these critters. The swarms of insects were thick and buzzing, smashing into the grate that protects our windscreen. I was watching one after another of the bashed and twisted exoskeletons as they writhed then clicked back into shape, unpeeled and with a flicker of their wings, sprang boldly into the sky.
Along Burkett Rd we watched the landscape altering before our eyes: bushes and wildflowers were replaced by stark white trees, pink tinged grasses, deep red dirt, and piles of small round boulders that in the distance had seemed like mountains. "Twiggy Country" Gav calls it. We're in the Pilbara.
It was time to leave the cool blue and velvety green mood of the Gascoyne, and find the Pilbara, with the promise of work and accommodation in Tom Price, oasis and adventure in Karijini. From Exmouth, we went the Warlu Way.
The Gascoyne is so green at the moment, many of the road shoulders have actually been mown. The balance is tipped since the rain. On Burkett Rd, we found the locusts. Some were as big as birds - massive wings, large carapaces; nothing cute about these critters. The swarms of insects were thick and buzzing, smashing into the grate that protects our windscreen. I was watching one after another of the bashed and twisted exoskeletons as they writhed then clicked back into shape, unpeeled and with a flicker of their wings, sprang boldly into the sky.
Along Burkett Rd we watched the landscape altering before our eyes: bushes and wildflowers were replaced by stark white trees, pink tinged grasses, deep red dirt, and piles of small round boulders that in the distance had seemed like mountains. "Twiggy Country" Gav calls it. We're in the Pilbara.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Goulet Bluff
on the World Heritage Drive, Shark Bay
Over the glittering bay: rocky orange hills, sparse scrub - a silent moonscape. Only us and our blue bus. Yes there are places like this, existing for people like us, ranger-registered spots to stay the night. No facilities, no need. No people. No breeze.
The beach is shells and dark green dune bushes. There is a sandbar slinking off to the north, pointing out to the cliffs and the empty distance. Within the curve of the sandbar is a shallow pool; ruts under the water from four wheel drives indicate this pool is temporary, tidal. There is a thicket of underwater bushes, half-drowned and strangled with dried and caked seagrass and dirt. The boy is immediately drawn to the dirty warm shallows. We stomp along the shelly troughs of car tracks, towards the bushes that are half-submerged.
I notice a jeep rumble in from over the bluff, kicking up dust and barrelling down to the rocks near where Gavin is practicing casting his new rod and reel. A couple jump down, slamming doors, and begin walking towards the tip of the sandbar. I'd been absently strolling through the shallows, being led by hand by my enthusiastic child. I notice the water is over his waist now, his clothes all wet. The floor is cloudy as we are kicking up more debris. A school of small silver fish slips past our ankles. I want to turn around, to drag him out of his path into the depths of the dull waters. I gasp as my foot falls through a false bottom of earth. I notice that submerged there are large scabs of dry sand all around us raised like trap doors, habitat, perhaps, for whatever might lurk in this strange tangle of land and sea. I am losing my nerve. I try to calm down. Unlikely there is anything here but a small school of common darts, trapped at high tide. "I'm too used to the city" I mutter aloud, my heart quickening. I want to relax here. I need to toughen up, be less jittery. It's not so spooky. It's peaceful here. Deathly peaceful.
I notice the couple from the sandbar walking over to Gavin. I try to coax our son back towards the cold, shelly shallow where we entered the water, but he is a toddler, so I have limited influence on our direction. He starts to tantrum. I do too. I want to know what the couple are discussing with Gavin. I pick up my wriggling son, cradle him in my arms as his little feet kick out to the side. Stomping through the soft bottom carrying a 14kg uncooperative child is hard work, and it seems an age before I reach the dry sand. By now the couple have climbed into their jeep and are turning it around, out through the scrub and over the crest. We are alone again. I put Elliot down on the soft dry sand and he giggles as we approach Gavin, who looks a little shell shocked. The man had come to tell him "You do realise where we are, don't you mate? These are subtropical waters ya know."
Stonefish.
"I can tell you this much: I wouldn't be letting my kid walk around barefoot in those waters..."
It's peaceful here.
Here in the quiet and the stillness of the beachscape.
Over the glittering bay: rocky orange hills, sparse scrub - a silent moonscape. Only us and our blue bus. Yes there are places like this, existing for people like us, ranger-registered spots to stay the night. No facilities, no need. No people. No breeze.
The beach is shells and dark green dune bushes. There is a sandbar slinking off to the north, pointing out to the cliffs and the empty distance. Within the curve of the sandbar is a shallow pool; ruts under the water from four wheel drives indicate this pool is temporary, tidal. There is a thicket of underwater bushes, half-drowned and strangled with dried and caked seagrass and dirt. The boy is immediately drawn to the dirty warm shallows. We stomp along the shelly troughs of car tracks, towards the bushes that are half-submerged.
I notice a jeep rumble in from over the bluff, kicking up dust and barrelling down to the rocks near where Gavin is practicing casting his new rod and reel. A couple jump down, slamming doors, and begin walking towards the tip of the sandbar. I'd been absently strolling through the shallows, being led by hand by my enthusiastic child. I notice the water is over his waist now, his clothes all wet. The floor is cloudy as we are kicking up more debris. A school of small silver fish slips past our ankles. I want to turn around, to drag him out of his path into the depths of the dull waters. I gasp as my foot falls through a false bottom of earth. I notice that submerged there are large scabs of dry sand all around us raised like trap doors, habitat, perhaps, for whatever might lurk in this strange tangle of land and sea. I am losing my nerve. I try to calm down. Unlikely there is anything here but a small school of common darts, trapped at high tide. "I'm too used to the city" I mutter aloud, my heart quickening. I want to relax here. I need to toughen up, be less jittery. It's not so spooky. It's peaceful here. Deathly peaceful.
I notice the couple from the sandbar walking over to Gavin. I try to coax our son back towards the cold, shelly shallow where we entered the water, but he is a toddler, so I have limited influence on our direction. He starts to tantrum. I do too. I want to know what the couple are discussing with Gavin. I pick up my wriggling son, cradle him in my arms as his little feet kick out to the side. Stomping through the soft bottom carrying a 14kg uncooperative child is hard work, and it seems an age before I reach the dry sand. By now the couple have climbed into their jeep and are turning it around, out through the scrub and over the crest. We are alone again. I put Elliot down on the soft dry sand and he giggles as we approach Gavin, who looks a little shell shocked. The man had come to tell him "You do realise where we are, don't you mate? These are subtropical waters ya know."
Stonefish.
"I can tell you this much: I wouldn't be letting my kid walk around barefoot in those waters..."
It's peaceful here.
Here in the quiet and the stillness of the beachscape.
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