Ubirr

But, now you know this story,
and you'll be coming to earth.
You'll be part of earth when you die.
You responsible now.
You got to go with us.
To earth.
Might be you can hang on.
Hang onto this story.
To this earth.
Bill Neidjie, Gagudju Man (Aborigine caretaker of Kakadu)









Breathtaking views of Kakadu from atop the rock.



Rock art found at Ubirr: a scene depiciting a fight between two groups, superimposed by a fishing trap.









Look up, way up, on the ceiling of this rock overhang, to see the cute little Mimi spirit. As it was generally accepted that no human hands could reach over and below the overhang from the clifftop, nor could they reach that high from the ground to paint this little critter, it is said to be the work of the Mimi spirits--a little "hello there!" to the the humans.

rock art

Day Four of our camping tour: After an early morning primer at the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre on the cultures of the different groups who lived (and still live) in the Kakadu area, we hiked out to Nourlangie Rock to see the rock art, such as Ms. Nipply pictured here (a bad spirit).


This overhanging rock was used as a shelter during the Wet and has layers and layers of paintings--some possibly as old as 65 000 years. There are many many more rock art sites all around Kakadu and across Australia, some possibly 65 000 years old. Down south where we live, the recent bush fires in the Grampians National Park uncovered sites that no one knew about. There are also other sites that have restricted access due to the sacredness of the teachings and images.

At this site, there was a diversity of age and style in the paintings. Some were really old and more simplistic, such as these handprints. Others might be just a recent 200 years old--this ship records contact with the Europeans and, in other spots, lace gloves (like those worned by European women) and men with guns are painted on the rock walls.

It was amazing to see these messages from the past, the record of lives lived. Some of the stories and meaning behind the paintings have been lost when the different cultural groups have died out or been assimilated (forcibly and not). Other stories were not to be told outside a culture or gender group but there's been a recent push to break away from that tradition in order to preserve what knowledge still remains.

Here is the X-ray style of art--thought to teach the kids what fish or other animals were good to eat and which parts to cut and use. Also probably a bit of magic involved in these paintings--good luck for hunting or reverence for the creature who provides subsistence. Look closely behind the fish to see the kangaroo, an older style painting over which the XRay fish and turtle were painted.


They estimate the date of the paintings using various techiniques - some scientific - and some less so. For example, the subject of the paintings can be used to date the image - paintings of megafauna that have been extinct for 20,000 years must be at least 20,000 years old. Those showing a boomerang used in hunting would coincide with the time that the area was open dry plains instead of heavily forrested (try using a boomerang in a heavily forrested area - it doesn't work.) Those of boats, called 'Contact Art', less than 300 years old.

The paintings also have three distinct styles. The earliest form (like the handprints) are simply impressions and date back to possibly 60,000 years ago. These images were made by holding an object against the rock, filling the mouth with ochre paint and spraying it onto the rock wall. The next phase were stylistic images - like a solid kangaroo, other animals, or a series of images that tell a story. The final and most recent style is XRay art which is at most 2000 years old.

Bong Hit or...

Question for the masses: is this a photo of Damo taking a massive bong hit or Damo learning how to play the didjeridu?

Answer: I'll leave it up to the viewer to interpret the photo. The next photo will help you in the process, or it might make you think that Nico and I stumbled upon an outdoor opium den in Northern Australia.

This was day one of our 5 day Top End 4WD guided exploration. Our guide took us to an Aboriginal protected beach. You can see one of the aboriginals in the background. Yes, he is asian looking, but we learned that the tribes from the very top end are of asian decent and look very different from the tribes in other areas. Strange eh?

After learning how to play the yadaki (one of many aboriginal names for the instrument) we moved on to spear throwing. Out of our group of nine I was the only one to hit the kangaroo which meant that I was allowed to select the prime cuts of meat at the evening's BBQ. After this trip I reckon I could kick ass on survivor.

Nico, well, she did ok despite the painful girly girl throw and would likely survive the first few votes but definitely wouldn't make it to the final eight.

After throwing spears we moved on to making aboriginal jewellry out of bark and shells. All in all it was a really cool way to start our tour as it got the group of nine strangers chatting and more relaxed.

Mungo National Park

On the map, the lakes of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area show up as big blue expanses, a deception. In reality, they are dry, salty, scrubby plains and have been thus for most of the past 10 000 years. So we didn't come here for the swimming, but instead, the Wall of China, a 33 km long white sand dune. It was very beautiful and, of course, we visited it at sunset to capture the colours.





But the thing about this outback park is not so much what you see now but the stories in it. 40 000 years ago, these were permanent lakes with huge wombat creatures, 3 metre tall kangaroos, giant Tasmanian tigers, and the ancestors of the local Aborigine groups all living here. As the winds have sifted through the sands of the dune, bones of these extinct animals, the people and their artifacts have been uncovered. Two most famous discoveries are of Mungo Women (1969) and Mungo Man (1974), two people that were buried here around 40 000 years ago in a ritualized manner. They are, as the archaeologist who found them, Jim Bowler, says, 'the earliest evidence on earth of cultural sophistication.' It just make you ponder our human history--the immensity of time we're dealing with and how very little we really know of our collective past.