Cairns Again

Well, I'm back in Cairns again after my camping trip. We had a wonderful time, and I'll write a bit more about it in a moment, although it could be some time before I get any photos up. Only two people were allowed to bring cameras on the trip, so I'm at their mercy as far as pictures are concerned. But here's a little synopsis of the past few days:

Sunday morning Bronny and Lila dropped me off at the Tropical Queenslander, some random hotel in Cairns, where we had a decidedly mediocre brunch. I said goodbye to them and went with my group and my backpack to the sidewalk, where there were two jeeps and two Land Rover-y things (troopies) waiting. We all dropped our gear into the trailers behind the troopies, and piled into the cars. Typically, I was in one of the troopies, which had sideways-facing back seats and not much space for eleven people (although fortunately we only had seven in ours). And we started driving. And driving. And driving.

They made us leave our phones and gadgets behind, which was a good thing. But we also had to leave our watches behind, and operate on "Murri Time." Our two guides were of the Murri tribe, and "Murri Time" essentially implies that things happen when they need to and take as long as they need to.

So I have no idea how long we drove, but eventually we ended up at a campsite, which is used every other year as a meeting place for 13 (?) Aboriginal tribes. The quinkan inhabited this campsite, and he would come and scare you if you were somewhere you didn't belong. The quinkan can be friendly or quite nasty, and he appears in a lot of Aboriginal art.

We made camp and pitched our two-man tents over on some open grass which was, unfortunately, occupied by citrus ants. Citrus ants are quite harmless, except that they tend to bite. Hard. Uncomfortable, but harmless, and they don't itch or leave welts, which was some consolation. The first tent that Kevin, my tent-buddy, and I got out was a lovely tent except for one slight complication: the complete lack of poles. Fortunately, however, we found an extra tent.

After our housekeeping was done, we went over to our little kitchen and started making dinner. It was dark by then, so I'm still not really sure what kind of fish I cooked, but cook it I did. And sausages, and a variety of vegetarian foods. Someone got the bright idea to make about 40 gallons of rice (only a slight exaggeration), so we had plenty of that, too. And after we ate and cleaned up, we sat around on the ground and listened to Russell.

I must pause here to mention Ian and Russell, our wonderful guides. They were a couple of retired Aboriginal fellows, and they come on the SIT camping trips every year. Russell is very knowledgeable and open about his culture, bush food, hunting, stories, you name it. He's a bit quiet in person but is great when speaking to groups of people. Ian talks less about his culture, but occasionally surprises you with a little factoid or an observation. He pointed out three black cockatoos in the top of a eucalyptus tree on our drive there (he was driving the troopie I was in). He's approachable, friendly, and loves to talk. His grandson Giovanne (spelling?) came with us on the trip, and the two of them were always looking out for us, giving us lollies, making sure we didn't get dust in our eyes, and so on.

Sunday evening Russell told us this story:
In the Dreamtime, the curlew and his mate laid eggs and hatched their young. One day, the parents left the baby curlews alone for a few hours. The owl noticed the lonesome babies, and called the dingo into his cave. He told the dingo to go and eat the babies. When the curlews returned, there was nothing left of their young. The curlews began to cry in mourning, and they continue to mourn their young every night, to this day. But the father curlew was angry, and knew that the owl and the dingo were responsible for the death of his babies. He told the kangaroo to graze outside of the dingo's den. When the dingo came after the kangaroo, the curlew killed him. Then the curlew went to the owl's roost and challenged him to come down and fight. The owl was a coward, however, and would not fight. Because of this, he is forbidden to show his face in the daytime.