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Australia Moort Mia Mia
My Austrafamily's mia mia/Aboriginal style tent with paperbark The end of last week was a laidback trip down south. We've heard the whole time we've been here the south would be incredibly cold. Freezing even. I had dad ship me long underpants from Sydney just for the trip. How cold was it, you ask? Oh about 18 or 19C. Upper 60s. That's freezing cold to Australians, or at least Perth-ians. Perthites? You get it.
Day one was a quick drive to Mandurah. Really the only thing school related we did was point out a road or two with a Nyungar name and learn the word for pelican... which I've forgotten. We checked into our incredibly nice cabins where I got a room and a queen bed all to myself and 3 other girls slept in a loft above me with 6 beds in it. We ate a place called The Hog's Breath Cafe, an American themed restaurant. It was a lot like walking into Lone Star Steakhouse. There were American license plates all over, but none from Arkansas. The best thing about it was that the menu said, "100% Australian." Sure guys.... sure.
Day two was driving another 2 hours south and heading to an Aboriginal heritage
Looks like Ireland, hu?
This was a man made waterfall dug into the rock underneath a stream to make a well for the Ellensbrook colony of Dutchmen. But it looks Irish to me center where a Nuyungar bloke named Josh led us around a bush trail telling us how his ancestors (as in his grandparents) would use the land for everything they could possibly need. We saw examples of mia mias, tents made of sapling trees, vines, paperbark, and grasstree leaves. We also saw how they Nyungars would make traps to catch big goannas. It looked like something out of acme. It was just a little rock holding up a bigger one, the goanna goes in looking for shade and I'm sure you can figure out the rest. At the end of the bush walk we all sat and watched Josh make fire from nothing but bark, resin, and the stalk of a grasstree. He made a knife for us in the fire out of more resin, roo poo, coal, and broken conch shell pieces. After demonstrating boomerang and spear throwing he sat in front of us to play the digeridoo and kangaroo skin bongos. It was incredible. It was as if five men were playing at once. We left to a bbq of venison and steak and spent the night listening to Dane Cook and playing cards.
Day three was the
day of Shelle.
The day started with Ngilgi (pronounced nil-gee) cave. It was breathtaking. I've seen beautiful caves, this one is at the top. I've never seen so many stalactites in one place. And I got to smell that familiar scent I love so much. The photos do no justice to the place. The cave itself has a story with the Nyungar people. During the dreaming, the time of the world's creation, an evil spirit took up the cave as his own. He was luring women and children into the dark cave and they were never seen again. The good spirit of the sea heard about this from the grieving people and he sent a spirit of the rivers and streams, Ngilgi, to defeat the evil one. They fought for a very long time and that fight carved out the big rooms that people can now walk in. Finally Ngilgi had the evil spirit beaten and tired and to get away from him, the evil spirit burst through the ground, making the opening we entered from. From then on the cave was a holy and happy place. Before we went in we pinched our scent off of our skin
Ellensbrook surfing shore
I've never seen waves like the ones we came up on here and mixed it with a touch of soil to sprinkle into the mouth of the cave. In this way we were paying respect to the beliefs of the people, and letting Ngilgi know that we were going to be going into the cave. It is his resting place, and we were welcomed there, but a small sign of respecting, taking less than ten seconds to perform, means so much to the people who believe in him. At the bottom of the first room Josh played his didge for us again. It was even more amazing down there from the echo and ambiance. I took my time and I was always the last one, thirty steps behind the group and feeling all alone. Don't worry, mother, it's a self guided cave anyway with only two true rooms. Very small.
After the cave we took a trip to Margaret Valley and had fantastic fish and chips and amazing honeycomb flavored ice cream. It reminded me of Coldstone when I get a pinch of honey in my cherry cake double take. Mmmm cherry cake double take. From there we went to Ellensbrook.
Ellensbrook is the site of the initial landing of
Digeridoo echo
A Nyungar guy named Josh played his didge for us in the cave. It sounded amazing the Dutchmen and the English in WA. Why they picked that spot, I have no idea because the water around there is extremely treacherous. The waves were swelling up to 15 feet when we were there, and Len tells us that's kids stuff compared to what it does in other seasons. All you can see there is the coast and big green hills only a few hundred meters away. I can image they'd be very worried once they landed. And close to death by crazy big waves before they did.
Next was Madfish and Howard Park winery, which was a wonderful end to a wonderful day. Or at least that's what I thought, until the day picked right back up and lasted into the night. We went back to the cabins, and four guys showed up. One was Josh, two were his cousins, and the other was a friend of our teacher Lisa who brought us fresh catch from his fishing trip that day. Yay! So we grilled some fish and had some wine and Josh and his cousins played the didge, bongos, and guitar all night. We danced to 80s music and weird Australian music until we all
collapsed from exhaustion.
The next day wasn't a big deal, except for the giant herd of kangaroos. Yes that's correct. A giant herd of kangaroos. It was flippin sweet. And the famous Bootleg Brewery, that happened too, but I like kangaroos more.
That's it for now, I'm going to write another entry straight away. I knew this one would be long so I didn't combine, but don't you worry, just give me an hour or so.
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Dad
non-member comment
Herd-a-roo...
has to leave lots of kanga-poo. Be careful where you step.