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Category: Travel and Places
My big holiday: Melbourne/Alice Springs/Darwin/Kakadu/Katherine Gorge/Mataranka + more!: Friday 18 Sep - Sun 11 Oct 09
Part 4: Darwin, Katherine gorge, Mataranka and Tiwi Islands: Monday 5 Oct 09 - Sunday 11 Oct 09
Day 22: Friday 9 Oct 09
This is probably my last post as I have really done everything now. I may have another post full of the little things that happen tonight, tomorrow while waiting for the plane and then on Sunday through my 3 flights and maybe even a summary of sorts (analysing hotel rooms, places to visit, tours etc) but this is just about it.
Today I went to the Tiwi Islands, which are made up of the larger Melville Island, which has 2 towns each of about 1,000 people, and Bathurst Island, which is a lot smaller, but has the capital city (of sorts), with about 1,500 people. We only went to Bathurst Island actually, which was a little disappointing to me, as I wanted to see both. It was quite expensive, costing $229 for the return flights (about the same amount as going from Burnie to Melbourne return) and then an extra $220 for the trip itself - paying for the tour guides, the bus, $20 entry fee and I guess both lunch and morning tea. It was a bit on the expensive side, $449 for 8 hours worth, but the alternative, to get the boat for effectively $319 for 2 hours worth did not seem to be a reasonable alternative. Had I not done this, I would have just had a nothing day. Going to what sounded like a genuine indigenous community, plus one that is probably very different to the others sounded very interesting.
The plane was absolutely tiny, a 6 seater, including the pilot, all of us entering through the pilot's door. We had to sit according to weight, and lucky me he decided that I weighed more than anyone else. There were 2 of us tied, but I have a lot less fat and more muscle than he did but I got to sit in the front. It was a little on the humiliating side but hey. If flying normally isn't scary enough, flying like that sure is. I just had to think of other things.
Luckily, it only took about 20 minutes or so and we were at Bathurst Island. We barely had enough time to elevate to a cruising height when we were in the descent. Sitting up that close, I actually tried to figure out how to fly the plane and for most things I think I had worked it out by the end. Just the same, I was happy for the pilot to do it on the way back.
Getting in, we had the warmest greeting you could imagine. Okay, no, we weren't given flowered wreaths like they apparently do in Hawaii and on some islands, but people were just very cheerful and friendly. We had a native Tiwi Islander guide (they don't like to be referred to as aboriginals, as they consider themselves to be a different race, as I had suspected, although the Australian government considers them the same), and a bus driver who was white. After a short bus trip, where many things were explained to us, we had, incredibly, 4 male tiwi islanders who were cooking and 5 female tiwi islanders who showed us baskets. They all talked to us a lot. Most of them spoke perfect English but also spoke their native language. Incredibly, one of the tiwi islanders was a relative of a famous tiwi islander football player, Maurice Rioli, and also hence he is a relative of Hawthorn's latest star player Cyril Rioli. They were all very friendly.
Then, after they prepared a damper for us (a kind of bush breakfast, which is traditional Australian but not traditional aboriginal), they put on their full face paints and did a dance for us. Actually, they did several dances. They had explained to us how each of them was given a different animal totem, like the native Americans (and also like island nations in several other countries near to Australia). Whilst the mainland aborigines do get a totem animal, it seemed to be different. Or perhaps it is just that they weren't as welcoming in telling tourists on the mainland. It was quite a sight, with some dressed as sharks and doing shark dances, others as crocodiles, others as pigs and our main guide's totem was the battleship. He explained that even though the battleship is not native (nor is the sailing boat, the pig, or the buffalo), they adopted it as a totem into their culture, because they respected those things out of white culture. This, of course, was quite interesting.
I foolishly explained that I had come to the Tiwi Islands because I had heard about it from my dad when he worked there many years ago for a short period of time. All of a sudden, they all claimed to know him very well. I eventually showed them a photo of him, expecting them to change their mind, but they insisted that they knew me, and then tried to make me a part of their family! After a single morning! The man who was a relation of Maurice Rioli started acting like my brother, although he did not say that. They also pretend adopted one other person in our tour group, as our main guide said that he would call him his brother too. This, of course, is how foreigners end up with skin names. Getting a skin name is no big deal. You get it as soon as possible, provided that they know that you are staying. Seeing ceremony and being invited to participate are much more important. Just the same, I wasn't expecting them to give me one after a single day, indeed after just an hour or so. It was a bit embarassing as I am sure that it was a misunderstanding and that they had never met my father.
So for the rest of they day they were asking me to move there and live with them. Even a couple of the white people were. The Rioli guide, who was only meant to help with the cooking, offered to come with us, and then he acted as my own personal guide some of the time, just taking me by myself to show me things, which was very nice. He did generally help out too. I was very embarassed, but in a nice way.
I ended up buying a little head totem, which was a kind of mimic of the totems that they put up on graves when someone dies. Apparently they put up several of them for a single person, but they have also added in the Christian (Catholic) beliefs into theirs. They are, like many aborigines, kind of a combo religion. They consider themselves very much to be christian (Catholic in this case) but to be Tiwi-Catholic, which is a little different. They still keep all of their traditional beliefs, but just substitute the name of Jesus Christ for whoever was their good spirit in their traditional beliefs, and add in prayers. Some people find this amusing, but it is practised with traditional aboriginals throughout Australia.
The art work was very different to the mainland, both the top end and the central ones (stripes or x-ray types for top end and dots or aerial view for central) as these didn't seem to follow any particular pattern. They explained that they were merely reflections of their dances and it is the dance which is important to them. Thus I thought that a carving was more appropriate and have taken home a carving of a head, which they said to put by my bed while I sleep. It sounded good. For $35, I considered that to be extremely cheap.
We left far too early, and disappointingly I didn't have a swim or get a post card. I also wish that they had taken us to Melville Island too. They did invite us all back of course, but that isn't in my immediate plans.
That is it for my holidays I think. I may be broke for some time to come after that. While I may go on some other holidays in the future, going to Ayer's Rock in Easter next year for 3 days, maybe going to a rock concert for a weekend and going to Queensland (Great Barrier Reef, Whitsunday Islands and Gold Coast), that will only be for a week and there are no other big trips. Hopefully I will get to go overseas to see Angel as my next holiday after that, but I don't expect to do a big trip like this one for some time to come.
I will be putting photos up sometime next week on my Facebook account. I will put a link to them from MySpace too, but don't see the point in doubling up. I have about 350 photos from the trip. I may take some out if they are really bad, but most of them will go up.
8:09 AM
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