back to arnhem land

there is australia, there is the northern territory and then there is arnhem land. right in the north-east of the northern territory. aboriginal owned land, some laws are different up there and you are only allowed to go there with a special permission. I just like the name of it – arnhem land. the highway going through arnhem land is the arnhem land highway. after you turn off at katherine, you drive another 30 ks on a sealed road. after that, there is just a dirt road all the way up to nhulunbuy.

and we were on the road again, going all the 1000 ks up to garma. we left on a sunday morning, seven o’clock at dinah beach. there were 10 of us, driving up there in two troop carriers and two utes. it would be a relaxed drive, two days time to get there, camping over night out bush. short stop 150 ks later in adelaide river for a quick coffee and to meet and greet the rest of the crew.

there was chris, our boss with his wife nathalie. then there were our friend cookie and loss from last year. new in the crew this year were gaya, a friend of loss, luke, our spring chicken, 19 years old at the beginning of the trip and 20, after the job was finished and aaron.

the drive up to nhulunbuy is awesome, it’s all the way nature and bush, quite a few river crossings and only a couple of communities on the way. I was in the car with cookie, matt and the two airconditioners and made myself comfy with spreading out the swags and the sleepingbag on top off our luggage and went back to sleep for the first couple of hours.

next stop was in katherine to do the shopping for the trip up.we were waiting ages for chris, when he arrived, he told us the reason for taking so long – the first flat tire and no suitable jack for the car. but finally he made it. chris is always issued with a fare bit of float, so we went into the supermarket, loaded two shopping trollies, went for breakfast in the park and left katherine at midday, driving till after dark and then looking for a spot to camp along the road. we found a clearing in the bush, parked the cars in there, lit a fire and crawled into the swags after very short time. above us only the clear sky and heaps of stars….

the next morning we got up and hit the road straight away. breakfast was two hours later at the big goyder river, the deepest river crossing, we had to manage, and a very nice spot for a swim if there are no crocs around. so we had some breaky there, had the billy boiling in the fire and were lucky to get it boiling before that huge truck crossed the river, water got flooded everywhere and distinguished the fire. from goyder river we had only 400 ks to drive. 6 hours later cookie, matt and me arrived at the festival site. took another hour till everybody else arrived. first we went looking for a nice campspot. we didn’t wanted to camp in the same spot like last year, cause as soon as the festival started, a bunch of smartass-students (no offence against students, but these group was neither nice nor clever, took exactly 2 days till they had a bushfire started, that almost burnt our camp down…) decided to camp right next to us. instead we found a nice spot half a kilometer away, just out of the festivalarea, far enough away from everybody else, quite and peaceful, but close enough to listen to the musik at the evenings of the festival. we put our tents up and spent the rest of the day with settling in, collecting firewood and meet and greet the rest of the crew, whom where already up here. and pete, the cook. grumpy old bugger, how we noticed already the first evening with missing cooking abilities…

an evening around the campfire, like every single following evening up there and the next day we opened up our 3 big containers and got it started. tents, tents, tents, everyday from now on. lots of small two-men-tents, old ones, brandnew ones and really shitty ones, just good enough for the rubbish tip, where they ended up straight away. big five-men-tents, someos, jindabynes 6g, jindabynes 6e, golbournes where there names. the camp for the VIP-guests, the general camping, tents for the management and office staff, the media team, different aboriginal mobs, the northern land council and the cultural tourism programm.

the mornings started relaxed. there was no certain time to start work. last year, when I asked him, what time we start in the morning chris’ answer was “when you are ready” - ??? – what means, enough time to get awake in the morning, sit at the campfire waiting for the billy to boil, having coffee and after that chris would drive to the kitchen whoever wanted to go for breakfast. the kitchen is just at the escarpment, the view is fantastic, a steep cliff and then just bush everywhere. and far away there is the blue water of the ocean to see.

I love driving in a ute, standing on the back reminds me so much on the time working at the cattle station and the long drives all over the places there. there was a second breakfast, cooked breakfast around 10 am. smoko at 12 and lunch around 2pm. usually a long lunchbreak, time to eat, time to do lundry and time to shower. I can’t see any point in showering and then going back to work, but some people preferred to do it in the afternoon. the showers were very basic, basic means here cold and in the afternoon the water got slightly heated up by the sun. loz found snakes under the shower buildings and around our camps, we saw dingos every now and then. I could hear something walking around our tent at night, but as soon I got out of the tent, there was nothing to see anymore. we were going towards fullmoon and the nights got brighter and brighter, the sky full of stars.

the closer it comes to the festival the more people rock up. first all the other staff, office staff and the management. the last evening before the festival started, pete was swearing like hell, cause instead for only 20 people he had to cook for another 15. but he was smiling, cause it was the last evening before sodexo, a catering company for remote sites, moved in.

the visitors started coming in on thursday and friday, usually in the evening after dark. our job was it at this days to take people to their tents. quite funny, walking around with a torch in between a few hundred tents trying to find one that’s not already occupied. after that, we had some quiet days. all tents were done, just a few odd jobs every day, but enough time, to watch the festival. in the late afternoon, the bungul (dances) started. that was happening at the bungul ground, a big round sandy place surrounded by several shelters out of wooden powls, covered with fresh cut sapplings. the audience is sitting all around the bungul ground, on the ground or some bring chairs. the bungul is kind of a competition between the different black fellow mobs. they are warming up the first day, it starts slow and gets better every day. they come onto the bungul ground from one end towards the other side, the dancers, male and female of all ages, sometimes kids just about 4 years old with them, the men playing the didgeridoo and the singers. the women wear colourful shirts and long skirts, the men have traditionelly just shorts on, sometimes long rags wrapped around their hips, the rest of their body covered in white patchy paint. the red flags and the blue flags mob take it the most serious. they come all in they same coloured shorts and rags, have all the same coloured long bands, which they swing around while dancing and finally they show the most exciting dances. they started to involve white fellows in the dances. whoever wants to participate in the dances is usually welcome. the last day during the dances the commentator tried to encourage the audience just to join in. a few people did, but you can imagine, there were not many of them. it’s awesome to watch.

bungul finished around dinner time, sometimes after dinner was already going for half an hour. and then the whole crowd came to the kitchen like flies to shit. not that sodexo was cooking any good food, it’s just crap what they serve. their food has no taste at all, there were only two things they managed not to fuck up – the bread rolls and the cake for dessert. but, there was nothing else. the queu was more than hundret meters long. didn’t bother us, cause of us being crew we were allowed to jump the queu and grap dinner straight away without any waiting. and we grapped lots of cake. the second day we started to go to the backdoor of the kitchen and ask for some cake to take back to the crew container and they gave us a whole tray. we made chris and his sweet tooth very happy bringing that back.

life music was starting soon, every evening till late a few bands where playing. aboriginal bands and the youth group from the music programm. sometimes we went to watch it, some days we were happy just to sit around our campfire, still able to hear the music, and relax. somebody would bring the billy on and make up tea, cowboy coffee or milo.

there were quite a few popular people as visitors at the festival. jack thompson for example. not that I knew, who he was. I remembered the name from last year, because he’s producing his own “smokey barbecue sauce”. doesn’t taste any good. so when matt said, “look, over there, jack thompson” I thought about it and asked him, if he is famous for anything else than only his shitty barbecue sauces. matt laughed and told me, he’s a very famous australian actor and has been seen in many movies, when he was younger. in “the man from snowy river” for example.

then there was john butler with his to bandmates and together they are the john butler trio and make really nice music. he was mainly at the festival to do some songwriting with the kids in the youth forum, but at sunday night he hopped on the stage and played a few songs. and we had the federal minister from the northern territory there, also the whole northern land council. the festival is not only a fun festival, it has also it’s political side. every day there are discussions in the keyforums. there were a few main subjects this year, one was for example “indigenious creative industries”. everyday people , who are involved in this subject in any - from artists over politics to professors - way hold speeches and brought up different point of views of it.

the festival is a festival about aboriginal culture and knowledge. it’s kind of the yearly show event of the youthu yindi foundation, that’s there for improving living and health conditions of aboriginal people as well as preserve existing culture and knowledge. so on one side, people can just come and visit it as a tourist to get involved in the aboriginal culture, learn about it. have fun, watch the bungul, listen to music, visit the art gallery. that’s what the cultural tourism programm is for. but there are also lots of politics going on. that’s happening in the daily key forums.

so, all together, there is lot of good shit happening, it's a great job and i would do it again and again, if possible in the next years. had a great time and now we are off to the fishing boats for another 4 weeks.