Missing Warruwi

As I write this, I am sitting in a converted Hi-Ace Toyota camper at the base of the Katherine Gorge. How did I get here from Warruwi, you may ask? The short answer is that Aaron drove me, the long answer is below:


Last Monday was the very harrowing task of the last day working with the students of Munbirri Class Warruwi School. The children and I were honestly really sad to see me go. Community members and assistant teachers asked for my email and phone number and I extended an invitation to basically the whole of Warruwi to visit me. It may seem like a remote possibility, but some students are going to Canberra to play sport, so maybe one day they may play in Sydney and then I can show them around.

I was particularly sad to say goodbye to my star pupil. He has improved so much since I began working with him one on one. He has gone from a level 3 reading recovery to a level 10. I know I've made a huge difference in his life and his interest in school has improved so much. He is always picking up books wanting to read, ever disobeying the teacher on occasion to keep reading! I am very proud of him and reinforced to him that he should be proud of himself. He told me that when he grows up he wants to 'drive planes' (we won't get into the issues with grammar there) but I told him to keep reading and trying hard in school and one day he will get to drive planes. What particularly broke my heart was that he did not have a stable home life. He does not live with his parents but rather lives with a family of the same kin as him. And to add another difficulty, when he came onto the island two years ago, he did not speak either Mawng or English. So basically he's had a bit of an uphill battle with just getting on. For the first time I experienced great maternal instincts and honestly wanted to adopt him to ensure that his life path would become easier. But of course I can't do that, it's wrong on so many levels including culturally, so I am left with the feeling of accomplishment. I know I have significantly contributed to his learning and hopefully his future quality of life. I hope that one day he will become a strong member of the Indigenous and Australian community and drives all the planes he wants. I just hope that he remembers me, because I know I will remember him.

I gave the Munbirris the book Bollygum for there class library. It was a favourite of mine growing up, plus there are some awesome paintings. I also gave the kids, which honestly I think they were more excited about, a huge lollybag each. Aaron brought all these leftover small Darrell Lea easter eggs so we put them into bags, tied them with ribbon and the kids loved them.

On that Monday the school also gave Jen and I a pandanus woven mat each. They were woven over the wet season by the cultural liaison officer to the school. They were beautiful. My teacher also gave me a pair of shell earrings again made on the island.

Tuesday the day of our leaving was one of slow goodbyes. If it were up to me, we would have left straight away in the morning. Unfortunately life doesn't go always as you want. Tuesday was the athletics carnival (hence the official goodbye the day before). So although we couldn't run an activity as we would be leaving halfway through, Jen and I were given cameras and therefore became the paparazzi of the day. The school records most of its activities.

When it was time to go, I went around to all of the teachers and said my goodbyes. There were a few tears and many hugs. I truly felt that I had become close with this community. Two assistant teachers from the Torres Strait were particularly disappointed that they wouldn't have anyone from NSW to bag out when QLD wins the state of origin next week. As we got into the car, Jenny the liaison officer beeped the horn and all the students who were on the oval competing yelled out cheers to say goodbye! It was a truly lovely moment and one that I will remember for the rest of my time.

The rest of Tuesday however wasn't uneventful. Even as we waited at Warruwi International Airport, a baby magpie goose hatched from an egg. A man had brought these eggs over from the mainland to eat, however during the flight two had hatched! When the police were checking the bags a squeaking was heard and out came a magpie goose still half sitting in his shell! Don't worry I have photos to share with everyone at home.

The flight back to Darwin was also disgusting! So so much turbulence! We even landed at the airport strangely with one wheel on the tarmac rather than all three.

I had my first beer at the Tap accompanied by a huge Aussie burger. Aaron and I then went down to the wave pool for the rest of the arvo. Jen unfortunately was caught up with the ash cloud fiasco. She managed to catch her flight to Brisbane, but from what I can understand was forced to wait there until Sydney airport reopened.

On Wednesday Aaron and I did some touring of Darwin. One thing I can recommend, if you ever get the chance to come to Darwin, go to the WW2 oil storage tunnels under the city. It's like a wet, metal maze of tunnels that stored oil for the Australian and American Navies in World War II. Interesting fact that I learnt however about the bombing of Darwin. Did you know that twice as many bombs fell on Darwin than Pearl Harbour? And that more people were killed and more ships sunk? I did not know that, and although not a war history buff, I do enjoy my history so was perfectly astounded that I was ignorant of that little fact.

On Thursday Aaron and I picked up our little converted Hi-Ace and began our adventure through the Top End. Our first stop was the Adelaide River, where we did something that probably my environmental friends can't support but which I will say was amazing and will recommend everyone to come and see. We saw the Adelaide River Jumping Crocodiles! There are three companies that work along the river, however we chose to go with the small company that was further downstream and only had a small boat of 20 people. Other operations had boats of up to 100 people (and they were more expensive!). So we supported the little man, and by gosh we were not disappointed. It is at this point that I have to update Croc Watch. I have now seen so many crocs that I can no longer maintain my scientific doubt and am now assured that crocodiles most definitely inhabit the Top End. Croc Watch sits close to 30. On the cruise, we saw little ones and big ones all which jumped out of the water to show off their jaws and snap a piece of buffalo off a stick. As you can imagine on a small boat you are definitely up close and personal to the crocs, well one particular croc nosed the boat twice exactly where I was sitting. I can tell you now, I have never been so appreciative of thin stainless steel.

That afternoon we drove to Kakadu arriving at a campsite just as night fell.

On Friday, we travelled to the northern part of the park to visit Ubirr. Ubirr is the site of some of the oldest rock art. These date back some 10 000 years. Puts to shame really all the old art we saw in Europe. That was a merely 600 years old. Barramundi and turtle were painted on the walls to record fabulous catches. There was hand prints and of course Dreaming stories that can only be half told to Balanda due to their significance. We stayed at Ubirr to view its famous sunset. Again it did not disappoint, sitting on top of an escarpment with my fabulous boyfriend watching a red, orange and purple sun set over flood plains. It was amazing. Words can not express.

The next day we headed to the middle of the park visiting Nourlangie. Nourlangie is also a rock art site open for tourists. There are some 5000 rock art sites in Kakadu however only 3 are open for tourist viewing. The site in Nourlangie I found particularly hard, as the clan who owned this country have all but vanished so the neighbours now maintain this land. At this site there was also painted images of a gun, meaning that this site was definitely used in the last 140 years. That afternoon we travelled down to the famous Yellow Water Billabong to see the wildlife. We were suckered a little and kind of forced to go on the cruise. There was no alternatives to the expensive cruise (like a bushwalk!) but again we weren't disappointed. We saw huge flocks of birds including Whistling Ducks, Jabirus, Sea Eagles, Magpie Geese, Corellas and not to mention lots of crocodiles! We stayed the night at the Billabong.

Yesterday we headed south, visiting the Bukbukluk lookout before departing Kakadu. We decided to have lunch at Pine Creek. The tourist map said it was a quaint, historic town, so we thought that it would be a nice spot to get some grub after being bush for so long. To put it simply, there ain't that much there. Ignore the tourist map. It's a good town for a 'stop, revive, survive' but don't ever think of it as a tourist destination. We ate lunch at the water gardens (water stores converted to gardens after even the train line decided to avoid the place) and then drove up to the premier tourist destination of the town, the Mine lookout. Well I'll give it that, there sure was a lot of mining going on in the town in the past. The hill is full of old mine shafts, some open, some half collapsed and some secured, all of which I avoided. So while we had to drop off at a place not so appealing, the place we slept at was paradise.

Not usually on the tourist trail, Edith Falls are a spectacular location. When you first arrive you see small falls landing in a pandanus fringed plunge pool. This is even open to swimming! Just avoid the freshwater crocs at night. But what is more beautiful is the 2 km walk up the escarpment to the upper pools. The upper pools are to the topmost part of the falls, most of the falls not being viewable from the bottom. These first falls have carved out a series of small pools out of the rock. These again are panadus fringed and there is even a sandy beach! Needless to say we loved the place. It is part of Nitmuluk National Park.

Today we headed further south into the town of Katherine. Katherine is just a town like any other, there's a woolworths, a toyworld and even a subway and Maccas. So after picking up supplies we headed straight out of there and further south again to Cutta Cutta Caves. These limestone caves formed millions of years ago, are home to bats, snakes, rock wallabies (we saw all three) and these strange blind shrimp. There are only two places you can find blind 4mm shrimp; in the back pool of Cutta Cutta Caves and in Madagascar. I'm thinking there must be a pipeline direct from the caves to Madagascar. The caves weren't even found until the early 1990s when a stockman named Smith, lost a heap of cattle when droving. Turns out they had fallen down the cave! In the afternoon we headed back to Katherine to enjoy the hot springs, flowing from a natural spring into the Katherine River. We are now staying again at the Nitmuluk National Park at the base of the Katherine Gorge.

I know we are going on a cruise tomorrow up the gorge (again there is no way to experience the gorge without the cruise!) but who knows where we will end up tomorrow night. Loving this freedom!

Until next week!

xx