gorged out


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Published: May 6th 2007
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a gorgea gorgea gorge

the gap west macdonall mountains
Blog 16
Well and truly gorged
We found 2 things nice in Darwin , the garage where the van was being serviced ran a shuttle service into town and dropped us off in the centre of Darwin, we saw a tour bus stop and went to the information booth in the middle of the shopping mall , it was here we met our first nice thing in Darwin. We asked if it was here we purchased tickets for the tour bus , that’s right, but what did we want to see? Just the museum in fact we had already seen the other attractions , as mentioned in the last blog , ’’oh you don’t want a tour ticket then , they are 30 dollars each , if you go round that corner , catch a number 4 , for 2 dollars they will drop you at the museum. ’’ What a nice kind lady, she said as an aside , ’’I shouldn’t have told you that’’.
The museum was a large modern airy building , Dave had fretted that it would probably be just like the others we had visited, full of everything anyone had ever owned but no longer wanted, how surprised we were, the first room was a display of aboriginal art , we were shown one of the first paintings done by Albert Namatjira , and the last he painted.
Albert was born in Hermannsberg in 1904 , as a boy he had been interested in the way Rex Batterbee painted landscapes in watercolour , he was eager to learn water colour techniques , and Rex was happy to teach him. His paintings are now very famous , especially the way he captures the Ghost gums. In 1957 Albert was the first Aboriginal to be granted Australian citizenship , as a citizen he was able to buy alcohol at a time when it was illegal for an aboriginal to do so , and true to aboriginal custom , he shared it with his community, he broke western law and so had to be seen to be punished , He was taken to jail for 6 months. In fact he was taken to one of the remote stations and stayed there for 6 months painting then brought back when his release date came ,so that he could walk out of the jail door to the awaiting press, justice
where?where?where?

rozwel australia style
was seen to have been done. I was disappointed to learn that the dot painting we accept as aboriginal art , only started in the 1970’s , but that’s another story. There is now a Hermannsberg school of art , it is a very exclusive group all are aboriginal. Albert had 5 sons and 5 daughters , one of his granddaughters still paints , in water colour of course.
The next room we wandered into was full of stuffed creatures , possums , echidna , fish , jelly fish , I was interested to see the box jelly fish , there were snakes and spiders , in fact anything that was cute and furry , to anything that could make you slightly crook , to anything that could kill you , the smaller the creature the more deadly it seemed.
We visited the cyclone Tracy exhibition, I didn’t realise it was back in 1974, I have to wonder why Darwin still looks much like a building site. Very few historic buildings remain yet I read in the paper there are plans to redevelop one of these, the Wah Chin building they wanted to build a high rise apartment building ,
darwindarwindarwin

strange rocks
with such a spacious country surly they could build somewhere else.
The service revealed the van would need one of the front tyres replaced , having got one in the middle of nowhere one would have thought it wouldn’t be a problem in the city of Darwin , one was ordered and would arrive in 2 days.
Eventually we leave Darwin we retrace our steps south our first night we spend at the Umbrawarra gorge , there are a pleasant group of people here all making there way down to the lake , they invite us to join them , each evening hundreds of brightly coloured bee eaters would fly over the lake and roost in the trees , and what a wonderful spectacle it was .Our next stop was Katherine gorge , here we took a cruise down the gorge , the steep sided red rock in the early afternoon sun was stunning .From here we went to Cutta Cutta caves , we had a good guide , he explained that cutta in aboriginal means star, cutta cutta meant many stars , in here was a crystal waterfall , and crystal pillars , they are the best caves I have been in. And so back to Daly Waters, this time we stay overnight , There is live entertainment every night the place is packed , tonight’s performer was a lady with a sax .From here via Newcastle waters , which was once a big droving centre , now a ghost town even the bar and shop are no more , just a school, we go to Banka Banka , this is a working cattle station , in the evening there is a slide show and talk about living on a station , it was very interesting , the main homestead was many miles away from the camping area where we were. There were 65,000 cattle , the homestead was like a little village , 6 children used the classroom with a governess , lessons came via the school of the air. A cow a week was butchered to feed the little community , ringers , cowboys , fencers , an engineer , to look after all the machinery, tractors and pumps , and several others ,it was very interesting.
Our next stop was the Devils Marbles , there was a campsite there so we were able to watch the sun set on these strange formations while we ate our dinner , the only thing to spoil the peace was somebody had bought a didgeridoo, that sounded like a pained cow about to give birth, and the sun rise with an early cup of tea, splendid.
We did stop at Tennant Creek to do a gold mine tour , the first thing we are told having paid our money , donned our hard hats and ear mufflers , is that this is not and never was a gold mine……. We go down a tunnel and see how mining has changed over the years from when Mick the miner tunnelled with just a pick and shovel making a narrow tunnel just big enough to crawl into , through larger cavities where compressed air rock drills operated to the installation of air shafts and lifts , to even bigger cavities where now they drive trucks and lorries about, it was interesting , but I wanted to see a gold seam.
Still heading south we divert to the east to a place called Gemtree along the Plenty highway. On arrival we book the gem fossicking tag along tour , we would be supplied with all the equipment needed to find garnets . Full of anticipation , and singing , hi ho hi ho it’s off to work we go , we set off early the next morning for the gem field , armed with a pick and shovel 4 sieves and a washing tub and 5 gallons of water. We were given a demonstration , then left to our own devices , we dug we sifted we washed and held the sieve up to the sun , in our first dig 7 bright red gems shone out among the stones and gravel, many were just chips , we had to find stones at least 4 mm across to be cut into garnets. We sifted a lot of dirt and gravel but at the end of the day covered from head to foot in red dust we had found loads we returned to have our stones assessed 10 stones 4mm , 3 stones 4.5 mm ,5 stones 5mm ,and 3 much sort after 7x4mm,one was selected to be cut and set into a gold necklace. That evening we sat with other fossikers , they had been to a different field looking for Zircon , we compared finds, Mick and Muriel , Eunice and Peter fossicked a lot , in fact Mick was a stone cutter and Muriel said that if he lived to be four hundred he still wouldn’t have enough time to cut all the stones he had collected , they were impressed with our finds , especially as we were first timers, they would be going to the gem field we were at the next day. We would be doing no more fossicking until our sore backs were better , it wasn’t the digging, but holding the sieves up to the sun , you just don’t usually use those muscles. We talked about where we had been on our travels , on mentioning Eulo, Peter said he knew the owner of the Eulo Queen Hotel , ‘’Ken and Marlene ‘’ I said , we related the tale of the sheep shearers and the fruit cake , it turns out Ken and Peter had worked together many stories were swapped we had a really funny evening in wonderful company.
And so once more we drive south of the tropic of Capricorn , it was now less humid , we arrived in Alice Springs midday , we had been reading in the newspaper, in the weeks before about the terrible crimes here even in daylight , extra police would be drafted in, we thought it was pretty scary five years ago when we were here but it seemed worse , while we were shopping a person was frog marched out of the centre amid much shouting , alcohol is a big problem with the indigenous people also petrol sniffing , just the other day a 12 year old boy died ,he had found some petrol in an abandoned car. The fuel you buy in Alice is treated somehow to make it unsniffable , which has reduced addiction, and alcohol is restricted , you cant buy a box of wine until after 6.00pm and only one box per person. I think this just pushes the problem further into the evening , not many walk the streets at night , we have selected an hotel with its own restaurant when we meet Linda , too risky after dark to go out for a meal. We left Alice as soon as we had restocked and headed for Trephina gorge in the East MacDonnell ranges. This is a birdwatchers paradise, here we met a lady from Southbourne , she was Dr. Rhodes receptionist, small world.
We have decided there are four types of Australians , those that drag boats all over the country looking for water for fishing , those with binoculars around their necks looking at the sky , those that fossick there eyes always scanning the ground for that good shiny stone , and those that live in cities looking in shop windows. The first three types we find really interesting , sharing their knowledge with us, we now know what fish we can eat , if we ever catch one, I have got a fishing line, Ken from Eulo gave it to me, we also know the names of many of the birds not in our book of Australia’s book of 100 most common birds , and what stones to look out for, if there is quartz nearby gold isn’t far away. This morning we awoke to the dawn chorus of thousands of green budgies, this really is a beautiful spot.
Sun drenched red cliffs soar all around us and large white ghost gums line the dried up river bed, the sky is brilliant blue, the air is clean and fresh, just got to get the paints out…….it’s hard to capture it still the sky was easy, just blue but not bad, better than my attempt at the devils marbles. At night we see shooting stars , planets , satellites and the milky way. We cook in the open and no longer share our meals with hundreds of flies , and as it is so dry we are not bothered by mosquito’s , we swim in a waterhole in the gorge , the water is refreshingly cold . Do we stay here or see the west MacDonnell ranges. Back to Alice for fresh bread and meat and vegetables , then we head west along the Namatjira drive , we are driving down a valley the red hills either side lightly covered with gum trees and scrub bushes its beautiful. Our first night we arrive at Ellery Creek Big Hole, there isn’t much shade but it is late in the afternoon and we stop for the night. In the morning a group of school children arrive we watch them swimming in the big hole , this is very deep and very cold , but they are having a wonderful time , it’s Anzac day so there is no school , these children are at boarding school and so the teachers take them bush camping .We head on for Ormiston gorge , this is luxury bush camping, flush toilets and a shower , there is a track that will take us to the top of the gorge we climb to a lookout the view the sheer sides of the gorge ,the water holes and mostly dry river bed, we look for black footed rock wallabies, we climb back down into the gorge , clambering over boulders all the colours of the rainbow, it was a good to reach the swimming hole 2 hours later, we just plunged in fully clothed as many do. Here our neighbours were an Australian couple of Dutch origin they had taken an afternoon trip to the next gorge at Glen Helen ,there is a resort there , not so much a resort in the true sense but a bar and a few huts you could sleep in and an ablution block, but out here beggars can’t be choosers ,and tonight there is a folk and blues night , would we go with them they will drive. How could we refuse, I can’t get my head round this , we are in the middle of a vast country, in the middle of nowhere with people we just met and there are these two brilliant musicians , entertaining us while we relax on red leather sofas , shoes removed and feet up and a cold glass of wine . Life doesn’t get much better than this. Linda has arrived safe and sound we are heading for the big rock , thanks for all the presents post card and school photo , my chloe how you have grown


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