I can picture the red dirt, the pandanus and the towering spear grass nourished by wet season rains. The creeks crossing the road looked deceptively cool in the thick tropical heat. They reminded us that human endeavour had limited control over the forces of nature here.
My husband David and I and our two boys, three-year-old Dom and two-year-old Darcy, were heading to live and work on Nauiyu Aboriginal community, located on the banks of the Daly River at the top end of Australia. We left Melbourne on Boxing Day, sad to farewell family but excited about heading north and to somewhere different and unknown. Even the cold drizzle of Ballarat seemed like a fitting toast to our journey.
We
took our time travelling across the country, everything beyond Adelaide
completely new to me. In the hours and hours of driving, taking in the
changing landscapes and the enormity of the country around us, the urban
clutter in our heads slowly receded. Such vast areas were beautiful but
strange to city eyes. When the kids asked, ‘How far left to go?’
I told them: ‘Just two more streets left, but one is rather long,
it’s called the Stuart Highway.’
We welcomed in the new year in the backpackers section at Yulara. There we were sitting under the stars, everyone wearing their post-Uluru sunset glow and enjoying the balmy evening and a beer. At some stage I decided to ring a friend in Sydney and share my new, relaxed sense of time and place. Whoever answered the phone politely reminded me of the time difference and mentioned that time still mattered to many. Back to the stars.
As we drove down the Daly road, we came across the stark contrast of cleared land and the sign indicating the turn-off to Tipperary station, one of the large stations in the area. How differently European eyes saw this land! The Irish name touched some distant chord of a heritage I hardly knew and to a Victorian girl the sight of cleared land was comfortingly familiar. In the last leg of the journey, some flickers of doubt began to creep in. We knew nobody there, we were unfamiliar with the culture, language, landscape, the people. What were we doing?
‘Dave, what if no one knows we are coming? What would we do? Have we got anything in writing about this job?’ We had left our home and jobs, said fond goodbyes to everyone we knew and travelled 4000 kilometres with the kids, ready to start this new life.
‘No’, he answered. ‘We just arranged it over the phone … I’m sure it will be ok.’
It was ok and we slowly settled into some wonderful years of living with the Nauiyu community who, with generosity and humour, opened up their world to us. The different environment and culture challenged us in a million different ways: not only the heat, the language, the countryside and wildlife, but more fundamentally how we look at the world and our place within it. We bumbled our way through many new experiences. Time and space took on new meanings for us, less about possessing it, more about belonging to it.
Often it was a case of letting go—in the early days one of our new friends gently directed our eagerness to know more about language and culture when she sighed and told us to stop asking so many questions and just allow time to take things in. Such gentle mentoring helped us to see that it was not about acquiring knowledge but understanding the importance of relationship — between people and with the land, if we were to understand anything about life in our new home.
Living at Daly river was also an opportunity to see how people struggle
valiantly to keep the community together as they face the daily problems
that afflict indigenous communities around Australia.
It is a different pace as people go about their lives in the community,
the kids and teachers to school, others to the health clinic, the council
offices, maintenance depot, the store, the women’s and arts centre—so
different to the anxious rush of city life. The habit of hurrying was
hard to shake. No matter how slowly I tried to walk, the kids would laugh
and tell me I walked like a robot.
My eyesight for bush tucker was also very under-developed. When we went out looking for bush plums, tomatoes or yam, my eyes would miss what others would see in an instant. I remember too, the bemused expressions of the older women watching my tangled strands of merrepen fibre as I attempted the ancient skill of weaving a dilly bag, something their graceful fingers made look so easy.
There were many opportunities to go out bush—fishing, hunting, visiting people and places. Crowded into the car, we would drive long stretches of dirt roads through the bush and then come upon lush waterholes covered in waterlilies, or creeks and rivers full of fish, turtles and birdlife. In such breathtaking beauty, it was not hard to feel the sacredness of the land.
Hand lines would be thrown into the water for barramundi, bream or turtle, a fire made and billy of tea put on, sometimes damper cooked on the coals. The café lattes I once revered were replaced with warm sweet tea. Amidst the sounds of birds and insects, the quiet chatter, the squeals and laughter when a fish was caught or lost, it was awesome to think of the enduring connection between people and land spanning thousands of years.
When we visited new country it was important for us visitors to be welcomed properly. An elder, or someone who belonged to that country, would pour water from a stream or billabong on us. The water would mix with our sweat and flow back into the stream. In this way our scent was spread through their country and the spirits of that country would know us. It was refreshing, both the coolness of the water in the tropical heat, and the welcoming way it was done, an invitation to be part of their life and culture.
Ten years later, back in Melbourne and with two more children, I am grateful for the strong and enduring friendships that grew from our tentative beginning. As outsiders we were made welcome and were privileged to share in their love and connection to the land. How our country yearns for more of this.
Louise and family lived for three years at Daly River in the mid-nineties.
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