Currently, not many of us are moving around. COVID-19 has killed travel, at least for a while. When travel comes back Lazarus-like in the future, the first trips will almost certainly be on home turf. After several months of restrictions and lockdowns, international travel is becoming a memory and is likely to remain so for a year at least.
Travel in Australia will be the thing, so I’ve been thinking about the places in the wide brown land I’d like to get to again. I’ll be writing about some of them to hopefully whet your appetite for when we can all visit some of the destinations for which Australia is rightfully famous.
I’m going to start with one of my favourite places on the planet – the Kimberley in Western Australia. As Dan Sultan sings:
‘When you can hear the Kimberley calling
Then you know that it’s time to get moving’
That song brings back a flood of memories and makes me want to get back up there again as soon as I can. Last time, I went on a fantastic trip to the stunning Geikie Gorge. That trip with a mob called Kimberley Wild Expeditions gave me more in a personal way than I expected. Here’s what I wrote about it:
“You are dead, mate,” Bill says, fixing me with a steely look. I swallow hard, and a woman behind me gasps. Bill is a big man and a member of the local Bunuba group of Aboriginal people that fought a guerrilla war against nineteenth-century white settlers in the Kimberley, so he has my full attention.
“George here saw it happen,” Bill continues. Others on our tour of Geikie Gorge turn to look at George. “You and George were out hunting when you fell over a cliff to your death. But the question is: did you fall or did George push you? Did George kill you after you argued over the spoils of the hunt?”
Bill devises the hypothetical crime to help us understand the workings of Aboriginal law while we enjoy some bush tea at a campsite on the banks of the Fitzroy River. We have just cruised on the river for an hour beside Geikie’s spectacular gold, grey, pink and white limestone cliffs. We are here during the Dry, when the water is calm and shallow, but in the Wet the rampaging river can rise 16 metres as 30,000 cubic metres of water per second rush through the gorge. This torrent carved the cliffs over thousands of years.
Geikie Gorge is actually part of an extensive barrier reef that skirted the coastline of the Kimberley 350 million years ago in the Devonian period. Movements in the earth’s crust pushed the Kimberley area upwards, exposing the reef as a limestone range that towers over the savannah.
The walls of the gorge contain fossilized marine life from a period before the existence of mammals and reptiles. Today freshwater crocodiles descended from dinosaurs, line the banks of the gorge as we drift past. Unlike saltwater crocs, freshwater crocodiles eat fish, birds and frogs, not people. They only get snappy if you annoy them, so theoretically you can swim in the gorge, although there are no takers in our group. The river also contains freshwater sawfish and stingrays as well as the bizarre striped archerfish, which shoots down flying insects with jets of water.
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| A river cruise with expert guides is the best way to experience Geikie Gorge. (JM) |
During our cruise to the campsite, Bill pointed out some of the birdlife of the area, including wrens, warblers and bowerbirds. Although we are hundreds of kilometres from the ocean, sea eagles visit the gorge. Colonies of fruit bats also live here.
But Bill’s descriptions of Aboriginal life for the Bunuba people are a highlight of the tour. The Bunuba have lived in the region for over 30,000 years, and Bill points out that any group of people with such a long history must have a strong, workable culture. Bill describes in detail the complex kinship structures of his people and the strict rules about who can marry whom. He even gets a cheer from several members of our group when he reveals that under traditional Aboriginal law a mother-in-law is not allowed to be in the same vicinity as her son-in-law.
As we sit in the shade at the campsite surrounded by river gums, tropical paperbarks and native fig trees, Bill continues his quest to discover exactly how I died.
“George here reckons he didn’t push you, but we have ways of finding out if he’s lying,” Bill says. “Some elders will visit the area where you fell, and they’ll examine the ground for footprints and the grass for signs of a struggle. These blokes can tell from looking at the ground exactly what happened. If George is lying, he’ll pay the penalty as a murderer.”
“And don’t worry darling,” Bill tells my wife reassuringly. “Now that your hubby’s dead, we’ll find a good looking new bloke to look after you.” Did she smile and nod a little too readily?
“Now the elders have looked around at the top of the cliff and reckon George is guilty of murder, and the penalty is spearing,” Bill continues. “George has to stand still while some of the best warriors hurl their spears at him from a distance, but these blokes don’t miss. They can hit a running wallaby from 50 metres, so George knows he’s a dead man.”
Bill then gets the group to vote on whether George should be speared. Surprisingly, despite our white laws on capital punishment, most of the tourists - including George’s wife - say ‘yes’. George shuffles in his seat and looks dejected. One woman, however, asks if anything can be done to save George.
“If you want to save George you can volunteer to stand in front of him and try to deflect the spears with a very narrow shield,” Bill answers. “You’re risking your own neck to do it, but if you succeed against the odds George will have to do what you tell him for the rest of his life.”
We finish our bush tea and climb aboard the boat for our trip back up the magnificent gorge. We all know that here, in one of the most remote places on the planet, we’ve just learnt something about the world’s oldest culture, and about ourselves. George and I probably learnt a little more than the others.
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Kimberley Wild Expeditions have regular tours from Broome to Geikie Gorge that include the Darngku Aboriginal Heritage Cruise
