Wave Hill, Kalkaringi and Victoria River Downs

In May I went out into the Victoria River District for the first time. I had wanted to go for ages, but I went out this time because a bunch of old school drovers were riding from Camooweal to Kununurra down the old stock routes. You can hear the stories I did here.

VRD is about 400 kilometres from Katherine, the last hundred or so are on a very rocky gravel road. Now, I've never blown a tire, and I didn't really know what it felt like until I was on this road. It took me a while to realise what had happened, to the tire's detriment.

Through good luck, I've never had to change a tire. I've always known how, Dad made sure he taught me when I was learning to drive, and I also had to do it as part of the 4WD course when I started at the ABC. So I jacked the car up, took the nuts off, and tried to pull the tire off. It wouldn't budge. I kept trying and trying, and I could feel the car wobbling on the jack I was pulling so hard. I tried lifting it up a bit, but nothing.

I thought maybe there was some other trick, because it's a pretty new and flashy car. But the manual didn't say anything. I was about 40 kilometres from anywhere, and hadn't passed a car for quite a while. But eventually a road train came along and stopped. The driver got out and I explained my problem to him. He walked over to the car, kicked the tire, and it loosened off and was easy to pull off. He left me with this sage advice: "Nine out of 10 of 'em need a good kick".

VRD is one of the oldest stations in the world, and the homestead is about 100 years old. Back in its heyday they had over 100 employees, not including the aboriginal workers, who they didn't think to count. It had an Australian Inland Mission hospital set up by John Flynn, its own post office, a school, butchers, blacksmiths and at one stage had it's own postcode. It's an amazing old station. Nowadays the stock camp has about eight people in it. There's also a helimustering company based there, but I think all up there are only 45 people there now.

After leaving VRD and having morning tea with the old drovers 10 kilometres down the stock route, I headed to Wave Hill Station. Wave Hill is famous because this is where Vincent Lingiari walked off in 1966 and started a national push for land rights. The homestead isn't the original homestead, it had to move in the 70s because they ran out of water. Of course Vesteys don't own it anymore, and the managers there are great people, and have really funny kids!

I did this great story about two of their girls fattening up pigs to eat for Christmas. They were very funny!

The next day I went to the old homestead site, which is where the walk off happened. There's not much there, just a few old buildings and foundations. This was pretty much one of the only structures left. Now I have no idea what this building was, but it looks like it might have been a living area given the table and chairs outside. You could bet the bank that it wouldn't have been a white fella living area if it was.

From I've read the living conditions that Gurindji people were terrible, rough shacks with dirt floors. This building would certainly seem to fit that description, and the louvred windows make me think it's a living area, not a shed of some sort. So I can't definitely say that this is where the Gurindji people were living, but it's the only building left, so maybe there's a reason?
I then headed into Kalkaringi, which is the aboriginal community that was set up when Lingiari walked off. Well, I think he went to where Kalkaringi is now, and then to Daguragu, which is about 8 kilometres away. They're both communities now. There's a memorial at Daguragu which is where Gough Whitlam poured earth to Lingiari's hands, and handed him deeds to his land.

Behind the monument is an example of the humpies that the Gurindji lived in for eight years. I don't know if this is actually one of them or whether it's a recreation, but it's pretty rough living either way.

I'm really enjoying getting out to some of these areas, and this trip was really great. Some of the old cattle stations are amazing and have such rich histories. And I like that I get paid to get out and about and visit these places!

Darwin trip

I've been up to Darwin a few times now, and it's a really cool little city.

I had a mate, Limmy, who was doing a four-month stint up here as a physio. To farewell him we had a bit of a lads weekend in Darwin.

We drove up on Friday after work, but there will be no photos of our activities here. Needless to say it was a good night.

It was, however, very difficult to get up in time to make the 7am fishing charter we had booked. The only saving grace was that we knew they were going to have bacon and egg rolls for us on arrival... gold. It was a half day trip, just around Darwin harbour.

It was a slow start, and the other fellas were pulling them up in dribs and drabs while I looked on forlornly. But soon, it was on.

Now much to Limmy's disgust, I caught the biggest fish of the day. It was a beautiful snapper. But Limmy, being a little bit petty, decided to crop the photo. Okay, so it's not a monster or anything, but catching anything is fun.

I caught five I think in all, and the other fellas caught a fair few too. We were staying at a backpackers right in town which had a barbecue, and decided to cook up the fillets for tea. So while all the other backpackers were eating tinned soup and sausages, we cooked up fresh fish marinated in chilli and garlic, asian greens stir fried on the barbecue, which actually worked really well, and chips.

It was awesome.

One the way back we decided to go via Litchfield National Park, which is maybe 80 kilometres off the highway back to Katherine.

We went to Florence Falls, which is the closest attraction. You have to walk down a heap of steps to get there, but this is the view from the lookout at the top.

It was a beautiful spot to swim, and we managed to climb up under the waterfall. There was also a great ledge to jump off into the pool. Apparently that's a bit of a boy thing to do, but it's always so much fun!

We stopped quickly at the magnetic termite mounds on the way out. This photo doesn't show it too clearly, but they're only perhaps 10 or 20 centimetres thick, and they all line up almost exactly north to south. If you think about it, it's pretty freaky that termites know how to do that. But apparently it's about the direction of the wind in the valley that the termites live in, and this is the most aerodynamic way to build them. Pretty clever.
So all in all, a pretty darn good weekend.

Daly Waters

As I mentioned, I've been trying to do a few more trips lately.

One I did on ANZAC Day was down to a little town called Daly Waters, population eight.

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The historic pub was holding a B&S, and being a rural reporter, it was important for me to cover this. Plus, I figure if I have to work on a public holiday I may as well have a bit of fun!

But Daly Waters is also home to one of Australia's biggest World War II airfields, which was also Australia's first international airport! There are heaps and heaps of WWII airfields around Katherine, I think the strategy was that if one was bombed or taken, there were others to fill the gaps. But Daly Waters was a big one.

I did a story on a whole heaps of old beer bottles that are near the base. Our old diggers didn't mind a drink, as it turns out.

The runway is a bit run down now, as you can see. I'm sure you can imagine that I drove responsibly and hesitantly drove the car down there.

Amazingly the runway is still in use with light aircraft, but I suppose you could land a Cessna is a lot of interesting places.

Daly Waters became the first international airport in Australia because Qantas used it as a refuelling stop on its route to Singapore, and it was also used in a big air race from London to Sydney in 1926. This is the original Qantas hangar, it now has a bit of a museum inside which is pretty interesting, if a little information dense.

Apparently the wife of the publican would come down with tea for the passengers, as they had to stop for about half an hour. The creek is between the pub and the airport though, so she used to have to take a high rope kind of thing to get across!

Assorted waterholes

Okay, I'm a bad blogger. It's been a long, long time since I've posted anything.

But a lot has been going on in that time. I'm trying to make the most of the dry season both for work and play. The wet officially begins in November, but could be earlier, and once that happens I won't be able to get to a lot of places. So I'm trying to do a lot of trips for work and a bit of hiking and camping. More on that in later posts... and there will be later posts!

For now, here are a few photos I took way back at Easter. This is Edith Falls, which is about 40 kilometres north of Katherine. I had a really great picnic here, and it's a great spot to swim. Although the local Jaowyn people won't swim here, as they believe it's the resting place of a creation creature.

Apparently if pregnant women swim here they have babies that have problems with their breathing and bones. I have it on good authority that one baby that was conceived in this pool (let's not think about that) was born with cystic fibrosis... which affects lungs and bones.

This photo is Southern Rockhole, near the Gorge. It is magic. It's about a four kilometre walk to get there, but so, so worth it. You can swim in this pool, or up above. There's a pretty standard warning that while rangers do a pretty thorough check for salt water crocs and have really good procedures in place, they can't guarantee that they're in certain places.

This is one of those places. But they'd have to get over a hell of a lot of rocks which they don't like to do, and no one has ever had any trouble.

Plus it's a really great place to swim.
The dry season is progressing, and Southern Rockhole has now stopped flowing. Edith Falls is still going though, so still some great places to swim.

I'm constantly amazed at how beautiful the swimming spots are up here.

More soon, I promise.