4WD/camping at Ganami/Wonga creek

Hi all,

Here are some pics from a recent camping trip Sim and I went on with a few mates. We headed to a place called Ganami or Wonga Creek about an hour and a half to the South of Nhulunbuy. Ganami runs into Port Bradshaw, a beautiful spot on the coast. As such it is well known for crocs.. next time we head out this way we will head to Gapuru (Memorial) which is further upstream and therefore apparently has less chance of crocs. While Sim and I have had a few dips, we remain ever vigilant at checking and rechecking, only swimming in shallow, crystal clear waters where an approaching predator can be easily spotted. The locals are far more relaxed and comparatively we are highly cautious, we get the feeling they think we are over cautious.


Our camp site at Wonga Creek was an awesome spot to sleep under the stars in the (sandfly proof) swag for the first time. Unfortunately we had to put up the tarp as dark clouds threatened rain..

Creekside close enough to the campsite. Sim and I saw our first croc in the wild here, a metre long baby saltwater. We kept our eyes well and truly peeled but thankfully we didn't see his mum anywhere!

Great little spot a top a cliff edge over looking Wonga Creek downstream from the campsite. Attempted some fishing here but lost interest quickly after no immediate success...

This mud bath was a bit of fun on the way in, about 20 metres into it the car started to lose power and slow down, but thankfully we hit some more solid ground and the car pulled us steadily out. I am slowly growing in confidence at just how well this 3.5 tonne beast performs in all terrains.

Coming out the other side unscathed, thank goodness!

Em's first river crossing!

Was fun maneouvering up this little incline. Almost lost the left wheel into the ditch....

This was a tight squeeze between the trees on the other side (many of which were scarred with the markings of numerous bullbars before us) and the ditch.

News bites from Nhulunbuy

We have been very lax over the past few weeks, so here are a few headlines from Nhulunbuy since we last posted....

• Sim goes to Brisvegas to pick up our new car – a 1994 Toyota Landcruiser
  
• Sim and Dad travel from Brisvegas to Nhulunbuy

• Em takes a trip to Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island for three days
  


• Sim starts a new job – with Marngarr CDEP (Community Development Employment Projects)
  
• Em and Sim moved out of the little unit into a tiny room in the hospital quarters
  
• Plus... on the weekend we headed out to Bawaka, a beautiful homeland right next to the beach, about 100kms from town. The trip itself was a second option really, after the boat trip we planned fell through due to mechanical issues... The car handled the sand really well, once we had the tyres down to 15psi of course! We spent the afternoon swimming in the shallows (big croc area so can't go deeper), and looking for mud crabs to spear. We ran into some local indigenous guys - who were more than happy to pose for a shot (around 15 in the troopie!).

Check out the posts below for a little more detail and more photos on any of the above...

The new car....

We have hooked ourselves up with a 4wd from a Brisbane car dealer – a mate of Dad’s so we got it wholesale (at the trade in price). It’s a 1994 Toyota Landcruiser, a 6 seater. It’s done about 450,000kms but it’s a diesel engine so apparently they can go up to over 1M kms or so we hear.

I flew down from Nhulunbuy to Bris via Cairns (where I spent a happy few hours acquainting myself with the lagoon by the esplanade, a good coffee and the newspaper – perfect!). Brisbane put on a massive welcome for me – I got caught in an absolute downpour which was great for my Nhulunbuy uniform of thai pants, t-shirt and thongs. Over the week that followed, I spent almost equal time between my Dad’s place on Bribie Island, and my cousin Ben’s place in Zillmere...

I helped Dad build a new roof for his shack, and organised the transfer stuff for the car, which was horrendously complicated for reasons I cannot even bring myself to write about now. There were some light patches in the week though – I went out for some great food (Italian and Persian) with Ben and Amanda (his GF), and went shopping for camping and other essentials (a stovetop coffee maker, a Sherrin football, and star anise to name but a few). Anyway, by the end of that week, the car was ready to go on first its big test – the 4,000 km drive to Nhulunbuy.

Sim and Dad travel from Brisvegas to Nhulunbuy

The big drive went relatively well, bar a few major hurdles, including (a) not being able to turn the immobiliser off in the car, and having to wait 5hrs in Toowoomba on the first day for an auto-elec to fix the problem; (b) having to sleep in the car overnight when all the motels around Longreach had no vacancies, and (c) Dad leaving his medication in Brisbane and us having to bugger around in Tennant Creek waiting for it to arrive by Express Post.

I still haven’t really gotten over the tediousness of driving long stints on such flat and straight roads. Don’t let anyone romanticise about travelling long distances in the outback – its hot, tiring and very dry and there is nothing better than a cold shower at the end of the day.

The track into here from Mataranka (on the Stuart Hwy) is about 700kms long, and its a long red dirt road for the most part, a combination of hard corrugations, sandy bits, and much welcome (albeit short) patches of bitumen. Dad and I drove in Thursday arvo at around 4 and ended up sleeping in the car that night under the most beautiful and brightest stars I’ve ever seen – the milky way is so easy to see out here without the city glow.

I had heard a few stories about people rolling their cars on the track, but it wasn’t too bad after the wet season when the graders have just been in, and the biggest challenge is how long it is – and how long it feels. Arriving back home was so good – the dust on the road had permeated the whole car, our clothes and bodies. It took me a long shower with two shampoos to get rid of it all – crazy.

Dad spent the weekend up here – we treated him to a barbeque at the surf club of course, and took a drive out to little bondi beach for a lazy arvo. We hit the footy for the last half of the game, and had a cook up on the beach while watching the sun go down at Wirrwawuy, our local beach. Awesome times. Sad to see him go on the Monday morning, but it was a big treat to have him here and show him around. Fingers crossed he comes up again.

The footy at Yirrkala - Dhjarrak vs. Gopu (the two top sides) - Dhjarrak Buddy takes a big mark.

Dad taking in the footy on the roof of the landie. Our set up at Little Bondi - a nice half day spent swimming, reading and relaxing

Preparing our tucker for the barbie on the beach

Em takes a trip to Groote Eylandt

I (Em) had my first overnight trip out to Bickerton Island and Groote Eylandt (to the south east) recently. My workmates and I saw people from five different communities, one of which was a mining town, the others were indigenous. The people are lovely and I have really enjoyed getting to know the locals, they are shy and friendly, and have many different and interesting stories to tell. Despite my not speaking their languages nor knowing their culture, I seem to have been able to communicate ok and work as a physio.

I will always remember one fellow I met after being directed through a community (a cluster of seven houses), down the road to the beach, and walking a few hundred metres along the beach to where he was camping with his three wives (yes, this is appropriate in Yolgnu law!) and children. It was the most memorable place to do a physio assessment; crystal clear blue water and white sands! This man was happy to see a physio as he had been walking around (with help) with a ruptured patella tendon.

The flight (another seven seater propeller plane) saw amazingly beautiful scenery as the flight path took us directly over the coast line south of Nhulunbuy to the islands. People pay big bucks to do this as a joy flight so I feel really privileged to get the opportunity to fly for work. I still have another three or four trips while I am here so plenty more flying to be done!

Sim gets a new job with Marngarr CDEP

A little while back I mentioned on this blog that I had met a guy at a buffalo barbeque here - and hit him up for some contacts in the public service for a job. Turns out he is the new general manager of the Marngarr CDEP program - and that he needs a right hand person to help set things up in the early stages... So now I have a job! Formally, I am the Community Development and Employment officer (we made up the title today).

Marngarr has the Gumatj Association as its parent company,and is based in Gunyungara, about 12 kms from Nhulubuy. Gumatj is a local clan up here, quite a powerful one due to tribal hierarchies and a major recipient of mine royalties. The Gumatj leader is Galarrwuy Yunupingu, who incidently wrote an article in the Australian two weekends ago about economic participation for the Yolgnu people and the work that the community is doing in setting up a self sustaining timber mill and cattle station. I don’t know enough about the politics up here, but as a newcomer it seems a good thing to support as it will help the Yolgnu live the way they want to, and will provide resources for the community and real job choices.

Anyway, its nearly the end of my first week, and the 7am mornings have been difficult to adjust to! But I have met some great people and the program is slowly getting on its feet. The past few days have been all about paperwork and ticking federal government boxes. Its a great experience for me, esp. coming from a central agency where I am so far away from how things work on the ground... The thing I keep thinking about is how the timing is fairly ridiculous if the government wants to get quality outcomes happening. To get some substantial change out here will be a generational thing at the very least – the closing the gap targets are pretty ambitious if its based on the current population - even the older Yolgnu are saying so.

I do get out of the office though, and on Tuesday we drove two hours to Birany Birany (pronounced Bran Bran) to meet some program participants there... While the paperwork was being done, we played with the kids and took some great photos... One girl had a go on the camera and took some brilliant shots. I am hoping to spend some more time with them as the weeks go past and can’t wait to go to the Garma Festival in a couple of weeks with the team.

Em and Sim move out of little unit into hospital quarters

Shafted? Absolutely. We have had to make way for another longer term physio placement up here and move out of our comfortable unit.. into a motel-like room (two and a half star) in the quarters.

The worst part is that we can’t open the windows to get fresh air – its all about the air conditioning (or so they say) so the windows are screwed shut! Am sure this contravenes some tenancy laws somewhere but we only have a few weeks here. The up side is that we have a few mates just across the hallway so it makes hooking up for drinks and sport a lot easier.

Some more pics

Mark in the square... he goals! Some locals we had a kick around with...

More pics from our first weekend - the roads around turtle beach

Swimming at turtle beach... looks nice but the next day a small croc was sighted 30 mts from the sand.

James, Sim and Em

Heading back to Nhulunbuy on the red dusty roads

the last few days...

Things up here are pretty good – the weather is a steady 29-30°C each day and the nights are a beautiful 24. When it gets down to 28°C it feels positively cool!
We have met a few people here and managed to get a couple of invites out to social events at night – last Friday night we went to the surf life saving club. The Club are set up right on the beach (with a fence around) and every Friday they have a massive barbie, with a bar and everything. You grab a table and chairs, and set up anywhere on the lawn, and have a yarn over a few drinks and a burger while the sun sets. Pretty nice.

At about 11 or so, the gang decided to head to the Walkabout Tavern or the ‘animal bar’ as it is locally known. Its a pretty gross bar in the centre of town that hires hookers to come out from Darwin and Brisbane for a weekend – they serve behind the bar and once the beer jugs are filled with cash, they do a little topless action. Don’t get too excited anyone – they were feral, as were some of the patrons! Our group was attracting a little too much attention from some drunk old white folks so Em and I piked without regret. The Walkabout does have a nice lounge bar near its accommodation section complete with a pool, which is a much nicer way to spend an hour or so.

On Saturday, Em and I hired a 2wd hilux and headed out to Turtle Beach again – stopping at Yirrkala on the way to meet up with some people and watch the AFL. It was great fun - we had a kick with the local kids, and took a few marks from several missed shots at goal. The indigenous guys up here are so fast – that’s the biggest thing I noticed anyway. To my chagrin, the local hawks (Djarrak) team lost!

On Monday night, we went around to Dan the Doctor’s house for a birthday get together – he was cooking up a massive fillet of buffalo that he had hunted out at the Raminginning community (W of here) with a mate of ours, James. There were also couple of Yolgnu families there, and it was great to have a chat with them too – I learnt some Indonesian in exchange for a bit of Italian! The kids were very cute and told me about some local hip hop I need to check out. After talking with them for a while, we have decided we are definitely heading to the Garma Festival while we are up here at the beginning of August – its a five day cultural festival, music, dancing, food, camping etc.

With luck by this time next week we will have wheels (4wd ones!) so we can head out into the country again.

some pics for the text-phobic

some shots of em's first trip (today) out to a remote arnhem land community - Gangan.

Here is our little unit from the outside (bushes on the left are where the toadies hang out).

Inside...

This is our street...


And the bike path we take from the town centre every day (about three trips a day)
Here's the town square. Surrounding this is the Arafura Times office, a butchers, a bric a brac shop, quantas, westpac, Australia Post, and Woolies.
Here's the town square from the south side... Pizza shop, Em's work, Local MP office and Woolies of course.

Em outside her office (which is up the stairs)

Life so far in the Top End....

Darwin

We arrived in Darwin very late on Friday night (2am!)... It seems that most flights into the city get in really late, which (anecdotally) is because the Army or Airforce use the runways during the day.

Anyway, we ventured out of the airport into a beautiful 24 deg night, sorted out the shuttle bus to our hotel (with two bikes, two bags, a laptop and a backpack, we certainly were a hit with the driver!). Looking around at our fellow passengers, its funny but I kind of felt like we were hanging out with some real aussies – you know, tougher and harder working the land sorts. The weather also makes me feel like its more raw up here – like you have to strip off all of the accoutrements of Melbourne and get down to the basics again.

We hit the sack straightaway, as the last week in Melbourne had really drained both of us with all the organising, packing, working and going away events.

The following morning we ventured out into the main street of Darwin – Mitchell St – for breakie. Darwin is a strange sort of town to start with – its like the main street of any town, like Frankston for instance ;), but with heaps of hostels and hotels, and more pubs. Its got country folk with tans up to their shorts line, aboriginal people looking quite skinny compared to the whiteys, townies, and heaps of young european tourists.

There was one terribly ironic view we got on the main street – diagonally across from the territory housing office there was a massive public housing block that had been rubbished, with fences broken. But they do seem to be quite particular about their hours of work... which are common in the NT - Em has them too.

Its probably a good time to come up here as I think we have been way too spoilt in the south – in the culinary arts in particular – as evidenced by my horror when the poached eggs I ordered came out on tip top white bread.

We then hit the shops for a few hours to get all the summer gear we needed while in the top end. Its the strangest thing, but all of the stores here have the same winter stock (woollen jumpers, overcoats, woollen skirts and pants, skivvies) as in Melbourne, where it is 10 degrees and raining... I don’t know who is running the chain stores these days but they certainly could use a bit of common sense.

We had hoped to hire a car on the Sunday to drive down to Litchfield NP for a look see, but hadn’t taken into account the effect of the start of the dry season – the height of tourist time in the NT. So we put that aside for another day, and pottered around the hotel pool instead, with a slight detour by the pub to watch a dismal Hawthorn loss to the Crows.

Later that day though, we headed out to the famous Mindel Market, an awesome set up right next to the beach – complete with food stalls, hippy clothes for sale, and amazing live music (from jazz, to electronic didgeridoo and bongos). Very relaxing and a great source of some more summer gear.

On Monday Em headed out to attend a number of meetings with NT Health people and services, who she will have contact with while working in East Arnhem land. I did some more shopping.... yes there is a pattern emerging.

Nhulunbuy – Getting there and getting sorted

At 5.45pm we boarded the plane to Nhulunbuy – a 30 seater propeller driven thing... which makes a very loud sound as it flies along. We even got in flight service which was nice. We saw some amazing scenery from the plane, but once the sun had set it was pitch black until the lights of the runway showed up about 1hr 20 from takeoff. This was our plane...

It was much cooler than Darwin when we got out of the plane in Nhulunbuy – about 20 degs. We were picked up in a troopy by Craig, Em’s manager from the Aged and Disability Program. We got dropped off at our little unit – complete with a lounge, stocked up kitchen, laundry, bedroom and ensuite, not to mention a backyard to boot! Its got ceiling fans in every room, and an airconditioner in the lounge and bedroom which is nice to put on for a few minutes to take the edge off before bed.

I was the first into the unit, and was met by some of its lingering inhabitants (read - cockroaches) for a few seconds until Em quickly dispatched them. The cane toads out the front aren’t exactly my best friends, but we are moving closer to speaking terms as the days go on. Craig had sorted us out with some dinner and basic supplies in the fridge, and Em’s colleague Hillary had also dropped off some tea, sugar and muffins as a welcome as well – really thoughtful after the trip and newness of it all.

We have only been here a week but the people we have met so far have been incredibly welcoming and friendly. Its nice to get a hello from most people you walk past, and have a chat to people in the shops. Craig picked us both up on Tuesday morning, and took us to get our alcohol permits, tenancy forms signed, and Dhimurru permits for travelling outside of the leased town of Nhulunbuy into Yolgnu (the local Indigenous community) lands. I was also introduced to all of Em’s workmates, which was really nice.

We also stopped in at the local IGA because ‘market day’ was on – every Tuesday the barge from Darwin arrives with all the food and supplies for the town so the stores are on sale to get rid of it while it looks fresh and tastes good. Prices are halved, which brings them to the equivalent of Darwin prices – in general the basics are quite expensive here and anything more than that can be prohibitively so. Anyway, we stocked up with an entire box of fruit and veg including watermelon, bananas and pineapple. I love the summer fruit!!!!

Nhulunbuy – first impressions

I keep describing Nhulunbuy as a 1970's rural Vic town (like an outer suburb of Shepparton) that has been picked up and transported to remote Australia. So, as we ride around town on our bikes, shop in Woolies, swim laps in the olympic sized pool and play tennis at night under lights, we can't help but feel that while this is vastly different to the home we know and love in Melbourne, it isn’t really reflective of the broader region.

We haven’t really had much interaction with the Yolgnu people, save for Em getting herself invited onto the court of a kids beach volleyball match at the pool. There are many Yolgnu people in the town square, which is amazing for us given how isolated from indigenous people we are in Victoria. Hopefully we will learn a few Yolgnu words while we are here so that we can talk to people in their own language rather than rely on English all the time. It could be harder than Italian though!

The weather up here takes some getting used to – its around 30deg each day. The heat around 2pm is oppressive but we are adjusting and the night-times are magical. We have stocked up on cold water in the fridge, and I have been known at times to stick my head in the freezer or run outside in the neighbour’s sprinklers when things really hot up.

Adventuring

This weekend we went camping overnight with a couple of medical students (James and Dayton) that Em met at the hospital. They had access to a 4WD so we were able to drive roughly 25km south to a place called Numuy (Turtle Beach).

The water was pristine and beautiful to swim... and of course there are salt water crocodiles... We ended up at a beach nearby - Little Bondi - where we felt a little safer going in as the local surf life saving club (!) was out patrolling for crocs in a rubber dinghy, about 50 little nippers and their parents in the water, people snorkeling, spear fishing and throwing around the tennis ball...almost like port phillip bay, but a little more dangerous! This is Little Bondi from the bluff (pic courtesy of google images). Imagine about 50 more 4wds on the beach, and a red and yellow lifesaving tent near the far end of the beach, complete with flags.

Of course we have left our camera in Melbourne (most of these pics are from my mobs) but James has taken some great shots and we will post them shortly. We are hoping to head out to Cape Arnhem this weekend by jumping on to yet another pre-organised camping trip. Its supposed to be amazing... very wild with beautiful beaches. Although I may be a little more circumspect about the swimming without any locals or surf club patrols around!

We have been inspired to look around for our own 4wd soon so we can take full advantage of the local area, and of course to do a bit of a trek across to Broome after Em finishes work if we can wrangle it.

Lazy days – for now

At this stage, Em is pretty busy getting set up and aquainted with the way things work up here - both at the hospital and on the community outreach side of things. While Em works, my day consists of a little reading before getting up, a slow breakfast, some internet time, and some more reading. Then Em gets home for lunch. After that, I head out to the pool for some swimming and poolside reading... this is the view from my towel!
Em meets me after work and we do a few laps of the pool for exercise... then head back home for dinner, or to the courts for a hit of tennis. So far I have read three books:
- Excellent Cadavers by Alexander Stille
- Royal Exile by Fiona MacIntosh
- The Godfather by Mario Puzo
And am halfway through The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. Will shortly post a little review on each as requested by my lovely SPB colleagues. Speaking of work, I am keeping an eye on The Age, and saw that the successful tenderers for the Carlton Redevelopment have been announced. Finalmente! I hope its all going well at DPC.

I have recently applied for a policy officer job with the Community Stores program, a part of the NT intervention that relates to the provision of healthy food in remote locations for the indigenous population, who are on income quarantining. The good thing about it is that it is supposed to be based in Darwin, but the director has let me know that an outposting will be fine so I will be travelling around the area a bit as a result. The politics of the intervention (and this part of it) is very new to me, and very varied depending on who you speak to, so I was a little concerned about getting involved - but I have heard some really good reports on the benefits it is having for women and children in particular. I only submitted the application on Friday, so we will see. If that doesn’t work out, I am keen to do something in the broader area so I am not just hanging out in Nhulunbuy the whole time.

If anyone feels like being old fashioned, we are contactable via snail mail c/o the Nhulunbuy post office, Nhulunbuy, N.T., 0881 (apparently may even take weeks unless you post express, however we have not yet tested this theory!). Otherwise, email is good – sgianfrotta@cyberq.net.au or el2burnell@live.com.au

Will write more soon.

Take care,

S and E
xxxxxx

a bit more on nhulunbuy for the stats fans out there...

NB: courtesy of NT Tourism