The roar of air-conditioning woke me up well before my
6.30am alarm. The sun had only been up half an hour or so and it was already
pushing 35 degrees. Welcome to the top end.
We had 2 hours to ransack Katherine Coles and grab as many
creature comforts as we could fit into our three trolleys. Perhaps excessive
for three girls heading away for only a month, but you can never have too many
Zooper Doopers.
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| Sustenance! |
Our Linkz representative, Ashton, had the good grace to
drive us two hours west of Katherine to the Victoria River Inn where the
next leg of our journey began. The early start and frantic supermarket trip had
left us exhausted but even with one eye closed it was impossible not to notice
the stunning landscape unfolding in all directions. Heading west, the landscape
changes rapidly from dense tropical greenery around Katherine to wider green
spaces and towering blue and ochre cliffs as you enter Gregory National Park.
The red earth stays constant.
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| On the road |
At the Inn we met Helen, the newest member of the Yarralin
support team and our lift. A self-confessed no-nonsense, "typical westie
bogan" with a keen sense of practical social justice and a secret penchant
for "all that hippie stuff, like incense", Helen spent the next three
hours navigating a precarious 150km 4WD track and giving us the play-by-play on
life in Yarralin.
Life here moves to its own rhythm. Things happen when they
happen, and that's the way it's always been. Do the best you can; the people
are polite, gracious, and ever-appreciative.
Don't swim in a river unless the locals do first, and always check your
toilet for frogs.
Our new Yarralin digs turned out to be the old police
headquarters - a collection of four shipping containers. Three serve as our
bedrooms and with their chilly air-conditioning, comfortable beds, and white
exterior, sit somewhere on the scale between fridge and home.
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| From left to right - Miranda, Rosalie, Clara |
Following Helen's advice, I duly checked my bathroom for
frogs and discovered three living in the toilet cistern. The best approach is
to flush first, lest they jump on you at an inconvenient moment. So far, so
good. Hopefully the four of us can share a bathroom harmoniously.
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| Green tree frog/toilet friend |
Wandering around the community, the children at first kept
their distance, wary of these strangers disturbing their peaceful afternoon but
before long a group of boys followed by cheeky dogs approached us and insisted we
watch them do backflips. We followed them to a series of dirt mounds about 2m
tall which they ran up, barefoot and fearless, and backflipped off the top,
their heads clearing the ground by barely a centimetre. We watched, breathless,
as they backflipped again and again, egging each other on in language. If only cirque du soleil cast their recruiting net a little wider...
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| Cedric, McWade, Glen and Junior |
We couldn't explore the whole community this afternoon
because this weekend is Ceremony and the side of the community which borders
sacred ground has been vacated. Storms are brewing overhead but the kids say
they won't come because someone will sing them away so that the rain doesn't
disrupt Men's Business. Three boys have been selected for initiation into
manhood. As long as Men's Business continues we need to keep our distance, and
can't look in the direction of the sacred ground.
As dark descended, I headed into my little fridge for the
night. Erring on the side of caution, I decided to check between my sheets for
strange bedfellows and, sure enough, discovered a small white lizard, about
20cm long, quite comfortable thank-you-very-much, nestled within. It's not personal, but I didn't want to wake the
community with my scream at 3am when he jumped back into bed so I decided the
lizard and I would have to part ways. As he shuffled across my floor, I grabbed
him, stuffed him into a pillowcase, and emptied it onto my doorstep. He scrambled off into the heat, happy for the
change, and I retreated, a little more wary of my "sanctuary". Here's
hoping he wasn't waiting for a friend...
