Camping... The Final Installment

Tuesday morning I saw a little wallaby outside of my tent when I got up in the morning. He was very cute. We had sort of a relaxing day on Tuesday, staying around camp and just hanging out. We painted boomerangs in the morning, and learned to throw spears, which was a good time. Although I don't think I'll be spearing any wallabies more than about fifteen feet away. The Aboriginals use a spear thrower, called a woomera (sp?), to extend the length of the arm. We were throwing the spears at abandoned anthills, which made nice, large targets. Russell also took us out for a short walk, and we talked about some of the plants we saw and their Aboriginal uses. We also got Aboriginal names, just for a lark, over the course of the week. Mine was Biligi (sp?), which means the first light.

Took my first "shower" on Tuesday, in the shallow part of the stream near our campsite. Since I a. had no soap and b. couldn't have put soap in the stream anyway, I decided to try out soap leaves. Soap trees have an obliging tendency to grow near water, and if one picks the young leaves and rubs them together with water, one gets soap suds. No joke. They actually get you pretty clean. Although I felt a bit primitive, standing in a stream rubbing leaves in my hair.

On Wednesday we headed out of camp in the troopies after breakfast (did I mention that we had to ford a stream to get in and out of camp?), and stopped at a few places in the national park, which is enormous. The first place was quite a large lake, which I'm told is the dumping ground for problem crocodiles. I'm being quite serious. We saw one, fortunately far enough out that we had to use binoculars, and there were some brave (or possibly just stupid) ducks paddling dangerously close to him. We also saw a wide variety of lovely birds, mostly in the crane family I believe, and a snake. A copper-tail, to be precise, which is quite poisonous. He was about five feet away from us, but hell-bent on catching the dragonflies that were flying over his head. So he pretty much left us alone. In Australia, home to the most poisonous snakes on earth, one must only worry about the snakes on the ground. For some reason, none of the tree snakes are poisonous. Go figure.

The second spot we visited was, unfortunately, also the site of the annual International Convention for Mosquitoes and Other Bloodsucking Vermin. But it was very interesting, otherwise. It had sandy ground and lots of tree cover, and several murky, crocodile-infested bogs. Crocs like murky water because there's lots of sediment for them to stir up and hide in. We looked around the bogs and found crocodile slides, which are belly-prints of crocodiles sunning themselves.

The third spot was my favorite. We were all getting a bit cranky after the mosquitoes made mince-meat of us, and we were looking forward to lunch. We were driving along on more bumpy, dusty roads when Merrell's jeep stopped. She was stuck in the sand. So, we all piled out and Russell managed to get the jeep un-stuck. Conveniently, Merrell got stuck about four metres away from our next stop. So we didn't have to go back to driving. We had stopped at an intensely sunny, sandy spot in between a billabong and a small stream, and it was shallow enough to get in the water. Russell had brought some fishing lines, and we went fishing in the deeper water. We used live bait, which was a bit sad for those of us who didn't catch anything, myself included. But Carolyn caught a Mangrove Jack, which is the same as a Red Snapper in the States. And Drew caught something else. Russell cooked them up later, but I missed out on eating them (I was throwing spears away from camp with a few other people, and didn't hear about the fish in time). It was nice just to sit in the sun, though.

That evening we talked about some more current issues in the Aboriginal communities, particularly the issue of stolen wages. Throughout most of the latter half of the twentieth century, Aboriginals who worked had their wages paid into a government account. They needed the approval of a police officer to withdraw their own money, and Aboriginals haven't, historically, been the best of friends with the Australian police. So basically, there are millions and millions of dollars worth of stolen wages still sitting in government accounts, and no one (being the government) can agree on what to do with the money.

We also got a little more historical background on the Aboriginals. For example, it was perfectly legal to hunt Aboriginals, with a permit, until the 1960s, because they were considered part of the fauna of Australia. What is striking to me is what a young country this is, and how much the issues with indigenous rights highlight that fact.

On Thursday we broke camp and said goodbye to our beautiful little spot in the desert. It was amazing how much it had come to feel like home. We drove, and drove, and drove until, sometime in the late afternoon, we came to Cooktown. If it isn't obvious, Cooktown is the coastal town that was established in the spot where Captain James Cook landed. Not very large, but a pleasant spot, overall. We stayed at a public campground that had a lot of tree shelter, but was definitely a bit closer to civilization. I was actually a bit disappointed to be so near people again, but warmed up to the idea when The Incredible Merrell lent me her shampoo and told me where the showers were on Friday morning. But anyway, returning to Thursday, we made spaghetti for dinner, and had a short conversation about who-knows-what. While our comrades made dinner, a couple of us took Russell aside to talk with him about how the concept of Dreamtime fits into modern life, which was the topic of our interview project for class.

Friday was a quiet-ish day. We did some things around camp, notably making beaded things. Russ showed us how to make string out of a fig tree by pulling out the fleshy layer between the bark and the wood. If you roll this up the right way, you get incredibly strong, thin string. Even more notably, I started a fire with a stick. I know you're all impressed. Don't try to hide it. If you take a perfectly straight stick (there's a type of cycad, I believe, that is often used for firesticks, and we collected some along the side of the road) and drill into a soft wood very hard and fast, you can get the dust to ignite. And if you happen to be holding it over a bit of that dry stuff that looks like burlap and hangs off of palms, well… you're in business. There are few things that I've done that were as satisfying as blowing on that spark and watching it flare up. Maybe I won't be a total bit of moronic croc-food if I get lost in the bush.

Friday afternoon we went to an old bridge on quite a large river, not sure which one, and fished for a while. A couple people caught small fish, but only one person got one that was legal size. Interestingly, if Russ had been on his traditional land, which is Hintchenbrook Island, and had caught a smaller-than-legal fish, he could have kept it and eaten it. The government has made attempts to recognize the hunting practices of Aboriginals. Because the Aboriginals' food chain requires them to eat the entire fish (or other animal), they need to hunt fewer fish than a European, who would probably eat only the fillets. So the Aboriginals, on their traditional land, are excused from certain hunting and fishing regulations.

After dinner on Friday, we sat around and Russell played us some songs on his guitar—quite a wide variety of songs, one of which he wrote for the SIT kids a couple of years ago. We had a good time, and I got to do a little playing myself. Uncharacteristically, I was up for a few minutes after everyone had gone to bed, and had to fend off a few slightly inebriated Germans who wanted nothing more than to borrow one of our Jeeps. Apparently they forgot that four wheel drive is a necessary feature in the outback. So I told them that they were welcome to wake my extremely fearsome native guides in the tents behind me, but that, alas, I didn't have the keys. They stumbled confusedly off into the darkness, never to be seen again.

On Saturday, we headed back to Cairns. Stopped at a pretty spot in Cooktown on the way out, and also at a convenience store, where Ian got us some Tim Tams. Lunch on the last day was at another lovely swimming hole. Actually, it was a sizeable river, but there was a section that was calm enough to swim in (and croc-free, and really, really deep). So we had more swimming than lunch, really, but that was all right. It was interesting, but we were all a bit reluctant to get in the potentially croc-infested water until Russell got in. Somehow, that confirmed its safety. As silly as it sounds, if Russell took us out tomorrow and jumped over a cliff, I think that most of us would follow him. There's just something very trustworthy about him.

We also stopped at Black Mountain, which is one of those amazing little geographical blips that happen sometimes. In Black Mountain's case, a mountain got crushed up into lots of teeny bits and pushed further out of the ground. The end result is a full-sized mountain made entirely out of bare, black boulders. There is a network of caves underneath, where lots of people have gotten lost.

We got back to Cairns at four-thirty and had a whirlwind unloading of the trailers (the rental cars were due back at five) before heading back to the Greenhouse. I ended up going out for sushi with a few people later in the evening, after another hot shower. It was one of those places where the rolls come by on a little conveyer belt, and you just grab what you feel like eating. I had a tekka roll, something with salmon and avocado, miso soup, and the worst saké I think I've ever had. I was hoping some eel would come by (they had a marinated one on the menu that looked like the stuff that Kim brought on the bluefishing boat), but I didn't see any and the waitress wasn't especially present. Ah, well. The fish was very fresh, at any rate.

Looking at this week, I realize that I've underrepresented Ian. The reason for this is that Ian almost never talked to us as a group, and although I would characterize him as the more garrulous of our two guides, he got shy around a lot of people. Ian was always around, though, chatting about whatever came to mind, pointing out whatever he saw. I had a good time with him when I was making a set of clapsticks out of ironwood. We compared pen knives and talked about sharp objects in general. And he found me a machete, which was infinitely useful.