During that first week spent at Tumbling Waters quietly becoming used to our own company and space again- we took to our computers - transcribing Lea’s Dad’s diaries, editing or piecing together his life story, working on Family Histories and writing up the blog.
When heat peaked we’d head off for a refreshing dip in Berry Springs.
We loved to wallow in ‘middle pool’ watching bee-eaters hawking iridescent blue dragonflies hovering above the water or drongos and flycatchers flitting between the trees. These, simply enhanced our whole experience. The cascade itself was a mighty lure to Lea. She delightedly spent long periods of time having gluteus maximus massage, quite sure the vibration to arms, legs, hips and two “maxi-mates” would provide good health outcomes! George booked Skiv in for service. A day in Darwin set when the visit took on greater significance with an invitation to lunch with Jo Vandermark in ‘The Sentinel’. The years peeled back easily as we retraced our road to its entrance – never mind that we required the fourth floor rather than the fifth. It is always a pleasurable occasion to be with Jo and this time round was no less, her watercress soup ever so tasty.
We were drawn to revisiting Dundee Beach – 70 kilometres further down from where we were on Cox Peninsula road. Despite the detours due to culverts washed away during this last WET, the road was a mixture of bitumen and newly graded gravel which made for a pleasant journey down to Dundee Beach. We certainly didn’t recognise the place we’d stayed in previously and later learnt it was due to a cyclone taking out many trees along with the site being cleared for a development that halted midstream. We chose to move further along to Fog Bay and found ourselves a lone clearing suitable for our rig overlooking the bay. In the face of cool sea breezes we enjoyed a marvellous twenty four hours.
Memory is a painter and we painted this day with 0ur outlook from Getaway on the edge of the seacliff ...
Saturday dawned and in came fishermen and crab-collectors that we found intrusive enough to back track to Dundee Downs. At the boat ramp George met friendly Queenslanders Trevor and Rhonda, who directed us to Dundee Downs Bush Camp. This was perfect and Bob, the owner a congenial fellow quick to make us feel at home as he set us up in a beautifully secluded clearing. An evening walk along fire breaks had Lea feeling uneasy over the prominent number of signs saying ‘KEEP OUT’, ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY’, and ‘TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED’. All seemed so unnecessary and vicious - way out in such peaceful surrounds where ‘baddies’ were less likely to abound! Later Bob clarified that most of the properties were empty for a good deal of the time and owners simply covered their legal rights with the signs. Back at camp we found happy hour underway in the central camping area. Trevor and Rhonda’s mob gaily inviting us to join them. Four caravans on holiday, fishing and exploring the Territory together. As Trevor had made an over-supply of stew the previous evening, we were invited to partake of stew filled jaffles. Our meal awaiting us and the mosquitoes chewing us to bits reluctantly had us decline the offer.
Encircled in tall stringy-bark trees, purple turkey bush and noisy kookaburras we had no reason to leave in a hurry. Talk of all the estuarine crocs in the Mackenzie River along with a photo Trevor had taken of a large, brazen ‘saltie’ from their boat close to the ramp, led us to paying visits to the boat ramp to croc-watch ourselves. Nothing... even a night trip failed to produce any ‘eyes’.
Mackenzie Boat Ramp at low tide – fear becomes palpable near the water’s edge.We find it frustrating that others have such close sightings and yet salties prove so elusive to us. Four days later we returned to “Tumbling Waters” and the delights of Berry Springs for another week. Requirement to submit our vote in readiness for the General Elections on the 21st August had us drive into Darwin again and since it coincided closely to our wedding anniversary we hoped a decent film would be showing. There was! “Mother and Child” and an Italian film “I am love” caught our eyes and we promptly saw both, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon with voting in between, fulfilling our cinematic psyches.
One morning, Lea overheard George having a quiet snigger outside. Eventually, unable to contain himself he burst inside quite convulsed, to brokenly try and tell her that some poor blighter was undergoing extreme difficulties trying to fold up his privy-tent. We too, underwent this ghastly process many times in the beginning, only to fail every time to the detriment of our privy-tent. Sure enough, this fellow gave up after an enormous struggle. Days later, during a discussion on roadside camps, a neighbouring traveller happened to mention privy–tents, reckoning “It’s a knack that has to be regularly practised”. He offered to show George how.
NEARLY, but not enough as our tent shredded all the more at the seams and proved face savingly impossible! Comparisons with our neighbour’s privy-tent proved pliability of material to be of vital importance.With another week in Tumbling Waters drawing to a close, itchy feet had us decide to visit another section of the Daly catchment to find “Mt Nancar Hideaway”. George had read about in a magazine. Water supplies in Tumbling Waters had abruptly become turbid and we were reluctant to fill our tanks with this muddy looking water. Thus we stopped en route, for a night in the middle reaches of the Adelaide River in a beautifully shady caravan park with thick green grass underfoot, enabling us to refill our water tanks easily. Once it was cool enough to walk we revisited the War Cemetery and the spots along the river banks that had once given rest and recreation to members of the armed forces.
The Darwin area with its naval base and surrounding group of airfields, was the largest Allied operational base in the south west Pacific. During the years 1942 and 43 it suffered numerous air raids. It is interesting to realise that a week after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, Japanese aircraft from this same attack group struck Darwin - The first against Darwin itself and the naval base on the 19th February 1942 was the most damaging, killing 240 people including many civilians. We found a memorial to the Darwin Post Office staff, all killed in this bombing raid in the cemetery. For many people the war history of Darwin only became a meaningful factor in their lives on seeing the film ‘AUSTRALIA’ with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman.
The War Cemetery at Adelaide River was created for the burial of those servicemen who died in the Darwin area and other military installations in the Northern Territory. The unsettled lowing of Brahmin close by disrupted the peaceful atmosphere.Everyone is talking about the unseasonably hot weather being experienced in the Top End of the Territory. By the time we arrived at the Daly River crossing to Port Keats and began looking for Mt Nancar – the mere sight of the Daly River Inn and caravan Park dust bowl, with caravans huddled around the few big shady trees had Lea feeling twitchy. With police help we were pointed in the right direction. As the road rapidly deteriorated, George decided the safest option was to unhitch and check out the lie of the land. Just as well, as many washaways and a locked gate was all he found. By the time we ascertained what other camping areas were in the vicinity of the Daly River crossing – we were bathed in perspiration and wondering what to expect from any place around here. Mango Farm and Perrys on the Daly were on the other side of the river and we decided to take the dirt road out that way and give each place a go, spending our first night at the furthest place, Perry’s.
Leaving the gravel Port Keats road we soon found ourselves on a circuitous road system that rapidly became a narrow farm track, nothing as bumpy as the one we’d taken to Lorella Springs though. The closer we came to our destination the more positive we became and the sign ‘Give Way to Wallabies’ served to boost that. We soon had more than an inkling we had reached a good place with the unexpected sight of a rustic ‘golf course’ adjoining the palm lined avenue leading to a homestead concealed within a mass of palms and mango trees, under which scores of wallabies stared with interest from their shady repose. The owners were away and Fred, a Melbourne man who spends six months of his year here, showed us the camp sites.
Location, location, location! It’s these unexpected positions that make our nomadic lifestyle beyond compare.The Daly River is the Territory’s largest and the precipitous banks are testimony to the height of its peak flows. A very popular river to fish and ‘Perry’s – catch the experience’ logo – re-ignited an interest in George. Despite giving his wife a fishing rod saying we’d catch dinner together when we began this way of life- we soon gave up in disgust. Without a boat we did nothing more than lose expensive tackle on snags and feed fish! George eagerly unpacked his father-in-law’s historic split cane fishing rod – custom made in 1936. Heath Robinson style he attached a reel and prepared the rod with a nut to serve as a sinker. After carefully taking apart his only hook – a speciality triple at that, he required bait! Small, left-over stir-fry chicken & beef strips had to do. Taking 2 beef 1 chicken; his nervous wife’s words “she’d pay heavily for his carelessness in a spot like this” ringing in his ears; George set off for the ramp Fred had mentioned being a fine spot for fishing. It had been Fred’s warnings to stay well away from the water as three estuarine crocodiles were resident in this stretch of river that had given Lea the creeps!
Lea read her book under a fan, with frequent checks on George through binoculars while he sweated it out fishing – He lost two bits of bait and returned empty handed, very hot and bothered. After swilling down glasses of cold water this ‘fisherman’ decided to cast his remaining steak bait into the river far below, tuck the rod safely into his chair and commence reading in the comfort of home. Time passed – all of a sudden Lea heard the chair crash without warning, peeped out the door to find George on the edge of the bank with rod in hand, frantically reeling in. He tells her he heard the ratchet go off and thinks he has something on his line. Sure enough she spots a fish in the middle of the river being hauled in. Such excitement – but how in the world to land a fish from that height with an ancient rod threatening to break with the strain! George threw the rod into Lea’s safekeeping and dashed around trying to find a way down towards the water, yelling “Is it still there”. Without distance glasses he wasn’t at all sure what was happening. The baked hard clay terracing to some parts of the bank looked accessible only to prove very slippery that the horror of an unstoppable slide into the river loomed large. George finally managed to climb down a gully and make his way to the 2 metre sheer drop, closer to the water where he continued reeling in a sooty grunter. Lea meanwhile, running up and down the high bank in order to keep a line of sight on the fish and ‘catch the experience’ on camera!
Wild exhilaration and carryings on as a 30cm bream was safely landed without mishap, under trying circumstances. A whistling kite arrived in the tree above us hoping for a snack, it’s piercing shrilled call so heart grippingly evocative of the Territory as an African fish eagle is to Africa, added occasion!
Unfortunately this was the kiss of death not freedom!
A photo insisted upon for his grandchildren.
Bird life brought us much pleasure particularly as the soft evening light fell upon the river to the calls of coucals in the riverine thickets. A large freshwater crocodile regularly took to sunning on a small, narrow sandbank opposite which was also well used by a large flock of mudlarks. Although we kept eyes peeled for the tell-tale wake of ‘salties’ cruising the river, only George was to see one from the ramp, heading upstream. This place was virtually our kingdom until the weekend when the Daly River played host to a few tinnies with fisher-folk out and about their fishing activities – giving us a wave as they passed by. Within Perry’s, we were barely aware of new inmates.
By four o’clock a daily dip in the surprisingly chilly swimming pool became essential. On the Saturday, we got talking to two sisters and their husbands from Ballarat, Victoria. Both couples had bought Supreme ‘Territory’ caravans for holidays and were fed up with the problems they had encountered particularly with failed battery chargers despite their care. The men were keen to inspect our Supreme ‘Getaway’ and see the type of battery charger fitted to ours – after no problems in 5 years of use. It proved to be the same brand. It was pleasing to see how impressed they were with the sturdiness of our sub-frame; the life we’d received from the first set of tyres; and where our travels had taken us. We gained from their perusal...as their eyes alighted on the angle of our caravan due to the low elevation of our hitch and promptly suggested a simple method of altering the height. They willing helped George achieve this, there and then. Three special nights were all we could fit in at Perry’s as some weeks back we had taken the first available booking for a caravan park closer to Darwin and we didn’t dare lose that. Reluctantly leaving this bush haven, ‘our’ whistling kite, blue winged kookaburra and the pair of Jabiru storks that had given us so much joy gave us a farewell fly over as we departed down the main track.
The irritation of a noisy car and its hoon driver on the road alongside our new site contrasted badly with Perry’s but we learned to limit all noise with the air-conditioner and to keep thermostat disturbance to a minimum we only had to leave the security screen door in place. Following the Federal elections we felt a surprising inner anxiety as we listened to incoming results... We almost regret retaliating for the ousting of a Prime Minister elected by the people, by going Green thinking we’d be taking advantage of a two party preferred between Labour and Greens. The Australian voting system is very tricky to understand! A hung parliament awaiting the final count to the very wire – added to our discomfort especially as ‘success’ could fall either way in an electorate that is obviously very disgruntled. The fact that one seat can swing Tony Abbot into power appals us – anyone that was one of John Howard’s henchmen in a Government that had us become totally discontented by its supercilious in-humanity, scares us. As time passed, the ‘intrigue of strategies’ and opinion led us to believe most hopefully, that a CHANGE for the BETTER could be a major winner through a handful of Independents and the Greens. Que Sera-sera!
By chance our eyes happened on a discarded Darwin Festival program 12- 29 August and as we idly paged through, discovered David Helfgott was playing a one off concert, in the Darwin Entertainment Centre within a couple of hours. Not only had we both read a wonderful book on his life, David was the inspiration behind the Academy Award winning film “Shine”. The chance to experience this living legend in concert became too much for us. We gobbled our dinner as we dug under the bed for something suitable to wear to The Playhouse and tore off into the city some 25 kilometres away hoping against hope that we’d manage a seat. With twenty minutes to spare we had two tickets (the last seats together, at that) within the dizzy heights of the upper circle. We were thrilled to bits.... and the magic began as soon as this enthusiastic man ran onto the stage, bobbing and jumping around excitedly, giving the thumbs up signs, to all applause – What a charismatic performance. His underlying, almost mindless humming and tiny vocal noises interspersed with little head and body shakes becoming more apparent as the evening wore on. In the interval, George mentioned the high notes on the grand piano being flat – Lea barely able to warrant George’s ears picking that up let alone a grand piano having no pre-concert check? When, on to the stage walked the piano tuner with his tools of trade. That made a difference and he retired to a gentle applause from the few stayers... From our position in the auditorium we couldn’t see David’s hands expressively twinkle across the keys bringing Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov to life but we had a good view of this endearing, gnome-like man’s face and, along with his interpretation of the music, was more than enough.
ABC’s Stateline had previewed a retrospective showing of Therese Ritchie and Chips Mackinolty works at the Charles Darwin University Art Gallery entitled “Not Dead Yet” which we had found intriguing enough to wish to see on reaching Darwin. We arranged to meet Jo Vandermark at the venue and concerned about finding the place, we arrived early. Lost our bearings and came across “Northern Editions” a printmaking studio and gallery where, with time on our hands, a delightful young woman enlightened us on the background history to the works on show before pointing us in the right direction to meet Jo.
NOT DEAD YET –as the title suggests, provided a most thought provoking array of mixed medium put together with a variety of techniques to create powerful images produced by two collaborative artists, rapidly absorbed the three of us. Within the hour, and quite separately, we found ourselves overhearing snippets of a lecture being given to students that simply drew us like a magnet towards the lecturer, with her insider’s knowledge and irreverent comments. We brazenly joined the group...
Then it dawned - we had hit JACKPOT... THIS was Therese Ritchie herself. She most obligingly allowed us to take a photo.A scintillating speaker whose tales of how she and Chips had developed a time consuming craft, they had been reluctant to give up when a digital world came about to eventually surrendering to the technology. Photographic documentation had created connections with people and changed her forever; traced lives, landscapes and political or cultural events provided confronting images as did the chasms that exist or arise from cultural differences. All brought forth stories from the impact of one or another whether emotive, good or bad. Added inspiration gathered from historic accounts, haunting images within old books all readily grasped and transformed into a graphic form of commentating that captured an eccentric sense of humour that ranged from tickling ones fancy, cleverly giving food for thought and perhaps causing minor uproars with fine perception. Resounding particularly loudly, in view of Tony’s party seeming ever more likely to govern was Therese Ritchie’s poignantly simple ‘Children Overboard’ scripted with:
“Jesus, Mary & Joseph (the patron saints of Refugees)
Wish every Australian a safe and joyous Christmas”.
Our stimulating couple of hours left us weak at the knees. The three of us grabbed a bite to eat in the Uni canteen and delighted at the good fortune that had befallen us.
Have we been suffering the “build up” instead of pleasant winter Dry? Heavy rain fell leaving us feeling pretty bemused that the Wet had left late and now it appeared to be returning early. The following day the NT News headlined with BYE-BYE DRY................. (Forgotten the rest!) Folk up here, feel hard done by! Perhaps those migratory Imperial Pigeons, from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, we spotted at Perry’s instinctively knew the WET was on the way?
With the Darwin Festival booklet having fallen into our hands late, we found ourselves keen to take advantage of events in the closing days. “Shrine” a photographic installation within the Supreme Court Building interested us and we decided to combine a visit to that with a walking tour of the new waterfront development, open day at Government House ending at Festival Park to watch a free show ‘dancing in the sand’ before attending a folk singer show at a new venue there - The Lighthouse. Parking outside the new Conference Centre we walked along to a skywalk that joins the whaahoo waterfront development with the city.
It was from the top of the skywalk that we took our first full view over Darwin’s new waterfront. A REMARKABLE transformation! We found ourselves recalling the many fish and chip meals bought from an old railway carriage while slapping away sandflies on the very site the Conference Centre now sits... This waterfront footbridge links the CBD to the Wharf beautifully – defeating the oft debilitating humid heat and overcoming the difference in elevation. We made good use of it throughout our visit.
Although we had visited Government House, official residence of the Administrator of the Northern Territory back in 2002 with our elderly parents Roger and Stella, we couldn’t resist another whip through this most elegant house perched on a promontory overlooking the harbour. With this magnificent position comes its history of being in the forefront of cyclones (1897, 1937 and 1974) and of course, it sustained a direct hit during the Bombing of Darwin when all but one piece of furniture within the house disappeared. Built to maximise life in the tropics and superb views are the verandahs and The Terrace – we hoped to gain a ‘shot’ of the new waterfront from this unusual vantage point only to find the gardens maintained the privacy of The House.
Supreme Court across the road was a first visit for George and given his ‘true crime’ books he was quickly occupied by thoughts of walking in footsteps of the Falconio case, never-the-less we had come to see Shrine. Not certain what was involved in this display other than a photo-journalist had “encapsulated the memories of lives lost, families torn apart and communities left to mourn”. We were soon engaged... Living on the road – as it were, we are very familiar with the crosses and memorials that bare silent testimony to lives lost through vehicle accidents. We first saw the simple poignant white crosses in America in 1988. This Christian symbol appears to have spread the world over with a wider meaning denoting a loss of life on the road. A controversy arose in Australia, a few years back, over the number and variety of roadside memorials proving a distraction to road safety. Emotional pleas heeded, a respectful cognizance seems to have fallen into place. More relevantly, ‘Time heals’ these initial outpourings of pain and most memorials gently fade away under natural weathering processes.
Strolling on to Festival Park we awaited ‘dancing in the sand’ – advertised to be a public dance phenomenon on a dance floor of sand that allowed those with two left feet to do no harm! A team of redshirted seniors and a young, black MC half their size but fortunately dressed all in white, sounding like a kinsman from Zimbabwe, led the proceedings. His enthusiasm, their ability along with good music and crowd participation was infectious. We admit to a good giggle at the beginning as it so reminded us of a stop-over, we took at the Lebish home, to find Roger leading the Beit Bridge ladies Keep-fit session.
Many children found it difficult to believe their sandpit was supposed to be a dance floor!
As for the iconic Lighthouse, it came into being last year and actually has nothing to do with lighthouses per se, simply a place designed for dry season entertainment, using recycled corrugated iron to enclose a public space. It’s the upward rows of coloured lights that give rise to its name The Lighthouse or tagged just as appropriately as a ‘virtual top-tent’. Performing was Jess Ribeiro - backed by a multi instrumentalist Rob Law, singing her ballad compositions based on her upbringing in a NSW truck yard. We found the hour very reminiscent of a sixties folk session within a most fitting Darwin venue. Surrounding food stalls didn’t appeal and we returned to Stokes Wharf to enjoy barra & chips white we overlooked frenzied batfish polishing off the scraps being thrown down into the water below. The waterfront development behind the wharf lives up to its whaahoo! Water fun without fear of sharks, box jelly fish, stingers and crocs has changed the face of Darwin – we’d love to give the Wave pool a go next time we’re in town. All in all, a wonderful, all encompassing addition to Darwin!
Next day we spent a pleasant afternoon session in the Palmerston Library watching “Talking Memories”. The personal accounts and the background history along with archival photos, provided us with a remarkable insight into the life of children, belonging to the ‘Stolen Generation’ looked after by the State around Bagot Road in those years between 1910 and 1980. Particularly, their evacuation from Darwin, scattering them all over the country, in the lead up to the 500 kilometre stretch of Stuart Highway (from Darwin to Mataranka) becoming an actual military zone in 1940. We had to be pushed out when the doors closed and we continued on to Mindil Beach’s Sunday Market, where we retired to the shade to ‘people watch’ until the Darwin Festival’s Closing Event - An Aboriginal dance work entitled Wanga Mirak: Bodymarks –Took place on the beach in the light of the setting sun to add that extra ambiance.
We enjoyed the song and dance story of connections and relationships across five generations of the Dhalinybuy clan.
We certainly have felt pretty light headed and youthful with all this unexpected gadding thanks to the Festival!
