Trying our hand at ochre painting

Yesterday I set up a table outside under a tree so we could have morning tea there and do art (without making my classroom/living room look like a bomb hit it). It is Reconciliation Week so we made our own pigments out of ochre rock. It made some amazing colors. We mixed the rock dust with white paint and water and it actually stuck to the paper quite nicely. Traditionally the rock painters use kangaroo fat and blood, but I wasn't going to go that far for a school project. We traced around our hands to replicate the traditional cave art and painted them using our own pigments. Angelina put nail polish on hers. I’m not sure that’s very traditional.

Visitors from the APY Lands

We have some central aborigines from the APY Lands visiting today.  They have a huge native title area that straddles the border between Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia.  They want to set up a similar aboriginal wilderness camp on their lands two hours drive from Ayres Rock.  They have come to see how it's set up here to get some ideas.  I was quizzing them by the fire last night about their communities and their artists.  Nice folks.  They have to buck the expectations of their culture in order to get ahead.  In the aboriginal culture, what's yours also belongs to anyone else in the community who wants it and asks for it.  Everything is shared.  So there isn't much incentive to get ahead.

Dingos and bush tucker

In the last week we've had a pack of wild dingos in heat around the house. They howl for hours at night. You also hear the occasional bark, which means there are domestic dogs amongst them. Dingos can't bark. I woke up to them howling this morning. They seemed very close - I would say within 200 yards of the house, but these things can be deceptive. It's very atmospheric. I saw some dingo/mastiff crossed dogs at the aboriginal camp down the river. Mean looking things. Who would want to breed extra wild and uncontrollable traits into a mastiff?

When the dingos are around, we let Ida Dog sleep inside. She is still so tiny. The family had a dog a couple of years ago . . . . a fluffy little poodle thing . . . . that ran off with the dingo pack. They think she would be the alfa female by now, but I think they just said that so the kids wouldn't know she had been horribly torn apart by a pack of wild dogs.

I also collected my first harvest of bush tucker. Behind my kitchen window is a patch of rosella shrubs. It's like wild hibiscus. You take off the petals and dry them and make them into tea. I've got my drying near the window. If it works, I still have a huge harvest. I've tried some that the family made last year. It is very yummy.

The shark incident

The folks around here had always told me there were bull sharks in the river. I guess I wanted to go for a swim, so I chose to believe they were pulling my leg.


We went fishing on the river yesterday and Angelina (who is five years old) caught a shark!! It was as big as her. She was very proud. The family isn’t allowed to eat shark because it is a family totem (and it gives them gas, which they pragmatically take as a sign that they spiritually shouldn’t be eating it). Maybe I should adopt cabbage as my family totem.

Meeting the legends

We got a lift back from the school camp with some aboriginal tour operators who were coming to the camp for a meeting. All the aboriginal tour operators from along the river had teamed up to create an association to promote the area and cooperate with marketing.

Around the table were some of the area’s local legends. One was considered “the father of Kimberley tourism”. He was one of the “stolen generation” and was taken from his aboriginal family when he was three years old. He spent his youth working as a cowboy on one of the large cattle stations before starting a tour business that took people into the remote areas on the Kimberley long before there was anything but a few dirt tracks.

Around the table he told tales of taking one of the aboriginal elders back into his childhood homeland. The indigenous people stopped living their traditional lifestyle many years ago, but this fellow was old enough to remember his youth living the traditional hunting and gathering life. He was able to explain the mysterious squares made out of stones that were presumed to be fireplaces, but were actually the foundations for the traditional bark huts. He had also shown them gallery after enormous gallery of untouched rock paintings. Huge areas where everywhere you turned was a rock painting. Areas that are so remote and untouched now, that they are rarely (if ever) seen.

It was really an honor to sit at the table and listen to his tales of the Kimberely.  He now has an OBE.  I found that out when I googled him after he left.   Such a sweet guy and happy to talk to a lilly-white new-comer like me and answer all my odd questions.

School camp

Once a term the School of the Air has a camp where all the students come in from the distant stations to socialize and the parent and teachers get to meet, do professional development and team building.


This term the camp was in Broome at Cable Beach. A wealthy benefactor had donated the land for the camp before the real estate became so valuable. It’s right on the beach and right next to the poshest resort in Broome.

Bush kids tend to be sweet, unaffected and self reliant. They really are a lovely bunch of kids. They are also super excited to have so many people to play with, so the atmosphere is very jolly. This camp included a visit to the Crocodile Park, a visit from an Astrologer to look at the night sky and the passage of Venus and an early morning camel ride down the beach. The parents and home tutors also enjoy the company and share endless cups of tea, teaching tips and gossip.

I finally got to meet the other home tutors (or governesses which is old fashioned term that is mostly used around here). They seemed to fall into two categories. The very young girl from the city who was on an adventure into the wilds of the Outback. Or the local girls who were barely out of school and were teaching younger siblings or a family friend.

A group of seven of us governesses went out for a drink at the posh resort next door. Half of us decided that two cocktails were enough and headed home. The others went on a spree and ended up getting thrown out of a nightclub in town at 1am. I have to ask myself, what does a person have to do to get thrown out of a nightclub in a mining town?

The bull incident (aka "I decided it was mud")

We got back to the camp on Tuesday but the generator was officially buggered. Without electricity we really can’t stay out here, so after only 24 hours, we decided to drive back to Broome. It took the whole day to pack up and get back on the road, so it was nearly 8pm before we left camp.


About 120kms outside of Broome we hit a bull. There are cattle all along the road and you see road kill all over the place. It’s dangerous during the day, but even worse at night. The bull paused at the side of the road, looked like it was going to run away, then at the last minute turned and ran right across our path. We hit it pretty hard, but we swerved enough for it to take a glancing blow down the drivers side of the car. If it had been two steps forward and we had hit it head on, it would have been a lot worse.

We pulled over to the side of the road to inspect the damage and the husband (who was following behind in another vehicle) stopped to help. The vehicle was still running, but there was a lot of damage to the front and the headlights were scattered all along the road. The bull had landed in the middle of the road and was literally laying across the dividing line. There was quite a bit of traffic on this remote road (maybe one car every five minutes) and it is mustering season, so huge road trains barrel along it at all hours of the day and night. We couldn’t just leave the bull as a hazard, so we turned around to tow it off to the side of the road.

It was scary enough being on a remote stretch of red outback road with the huge expanse of starry sky dwarfing the surrounding bush. It was very dark and we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes. We had to stop in the middle of the road to tether the bull to the tow bar and flash our lights wildly at the oncoming traffic hoping that they would see us and stop and not slam straight into us in the dark.

We were about 5 meters from the bull shining our headlights to on the animal and flashing wildly at an oncoming car. The bull started moving. It wasn’t dead after all. It was lifting its head and making slow efforts to get to its feet, blood dripping from its nose and mouth.

The oncoming car didn’t slow down at all. Just as the bull lifted its head, the car struck it with a sickening thud, right in front of us. The car didn’t slow down, didn’t stop, didn’t want to find out if we were okay. It just continued on its way.

We have been considering what sort of idiot (or bastard) wouldn’t stop if they saw an accident on a remote, isolated road in the middle of the night. We decided they must have seen the movie “Wolf Creek” (a horror movie filmed in the area about a psycho who kills people who are broken down by the side of the road - based on a true story).

Anyway, we hitched the (now dead) bull to the back of the car and pulled it to the side of the road. A tour bus stopped to help. The car was a rental that was on loan while the family car was in for repairs. We decided to pick up the headlights from the side of the road. It was dark. I picked up the shattered headlights and they were damp. I spent the next two hours driving into town wondering if it was mud or cow’s brains on my hands.

ICPA at Expo

The mother is the chairperson for the local ICPA (Isolated Children Parents Association). They had a booth at North West Expo so the whole family went to man the booth and potter around the expo.

Of course, I just went for the freebies. Woodside Mining had such lovely hats they were giving away. I decided it was best to avoid getting ostracized for appearing to take the wrong side of the development/conservation debate.

Poor, lonely bustard

We were driving along the dirt road on our way to Broome when the father spotted a poor, lonely bustard near the road and decided to put him out of his misery.

Bustards (also known as bush turkey) are huge birds that mate for life. If you spot one without a partner, you know they are going to live a pretty sad life. And they look very plump and juicy. One bullet dispatched the bachelor and we swung the bird into a tree and plucked it by the side of the road.


Ida Dog (the family’s new puppy) wanted to get into the act and was spattered with blood. Pictures of Ida covered in blood from her “first kill” are below. She’s turning into a savage!

Reclusive Neighbours

I heard today that we have some reclusive neighbours.  They live just beyond a grove of trees near the house.  Considering how remote we are, it’s strange that we have nothing to do with these Belgian recluses.  Their 27 acres of property is completely surrounded by our 3,000 acres.

Ten years ago this property was bought by the government and handed back to native people of the area.  The family I’m living with are the custodians of the land and the father is a prominent member of the local indigenous group.  When the family first came to live here ten years ago, the Belgians came to the door and in an angry confrontation said “You remember, we were here first.”

The family thinks that was hilarious.  But obviously, they aren’t planning on asking them over for a cup of tea.

Bellowing Cattle and Ceremonial Paint

Something strange was going on with the cattle last night.  When cattle are left to run wild, they retain their natural instincts.  Not like those placid domesticated cattle.  These beasts are wild animals that are herded up only once a year to be sent to market.

They started bellowing around sundown.  Their calls were frantic, sustained and incredibly loud.  It went on for hours into the night.  Was a dingo stalking their calves?  Was it some mating ritual amongst the males?  I guess we’ll never know.

Simon (my seven year old student) came to my house in the afternoon to give me a bug.  His entire body was painted with a white, powdery substance.  I had to ask.  Was it some aboriginal ritual that was taking place, but because it was “men’s business”, I hadn’t been invited?  Was it an “end of wet season” ceremony?  Was it a spirit dance to chase away the same dingo that had been chasing the cattle?

Nope.  He had been bitten by an itchy grub which had made him break out in a rash.  His Mum had covered him in calamine lotion.

Maybe there is a simple explanation for the cattle bellowing all night as well.

Hunting, Gathering and Air conditioning

There have been some issues with the power generator and my little house gets like an oven when the sun hit’s the glass doors.  I have air conditioning in every room, so usually this isn’t a problem, but without power it was going to get pretty warm inside.

The father decided to take the family (along with me and two French woofers) fishing for fresh water prawns at a nearby lake.  The area is still part of a working cattle station, so there are cows everywhere, but the little lakes are covered in water lilies and surrounded by old gnarled gum trees. 

It seems throwing a weighted fishing net is quite a skill.  I almost got the hang of it and did manage to catch a couple of the enormous fresh water prawns that fill the lake.  We came back with a whole bucket full.

On the drive back to the house, the father stopped at a tree to show us the medicinal qualities of the bark.  When he got near the trunk, he realized that the tree was buzzing with the hive of the local, stingless honey bee.  We must have spent the best part of an hour attacking the tree, prodding our poking sticks into the hive and devouring the delicious honey and royal jelly.  We broke off a branch full of honey comb to bring home.

In the afternoon we waded back across the Fitzroy River and built a campfire on the bank.  We roasted our prawns on the fire and then buried some wild ducks in the hot sand with the coals and sat by the river waiting for them to cook.  The meat was delicious, very dark and not fatty (although it was a little sandy).

I think I could get used to this hunting and gathering lifestyle (especially when there is also air conditioning).

First day of school

The first day of school.  The kids had been busting to come back to school and very excited to have a new teacher.  For days they had been coming into my little house and rummaging through the school set work for the next week.

The School of the Air have a “Morning Muster” where all the students in the school log into an air lesson and say hello.  Because yesterday was ANZAC day, they did the traditional sounding of the Last Post and a minutes silence.

The set work theme for the next two weeks is “Bugs and Creepy Crawlies” (my favorite).  So we went out on a bug hunt with our little specimen jars and chased down insects around the homestead.

If the sharks don't get you, the crocs will

Wading across the swiftly running Fitzroy River full of crocodiles and bull sharks seemed to be a good way to spend the afternoon.  Everyone else was doing it!!  The water was moving pretty fast, but even at the deepest part, the water was only chest high.  The water is falling about 7cm a day now that the rains have stopped.  Within a couple of weeks it will be barely a stream.  At the moment the river is still 100 meters wide and beautifully warm and clear.

In Case of Emergency

The Royal Flying Doctor Service came by today.  While the property doesn’t have an airstrip for the Flying Doctors’ plane to land, it is close enough to Broome that it is within helicopter range.  They provide each station with a huge medical chest full of everything that could possibly be needed in a medical emergency - prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs, injection equipment, bandages, etc etc.  Once a year the Flying Doctors make a home visit where they go through the box, give the people at the station training on how to use it, and check for expired medications (and make sure the morphine hasn’t mysteriously gone missing).

The Flying Doctors trainers came in the form of a retired nurse and her husband who travel around the Kimberley and do the rounds of the remote stations.  They are often on the road for ten days at a time and camping by the side of the road.

Since I am now officially the back-up if anything goes wrong, I got to sit in on the training.  Around the “out-door kitchen table” we methodically went through the whole medical chest, the procedures for getting over-the-phone prescriptions for the medications, how to give injections, how the treat a snake bit, how to give CPR.  In the end I got a lovely certificate AND a free mini first aide kit.  Oh, and I know what to do in an emergency, but the free mini first aide kit was the best bit.

Meeting the Teachers

The family drove back to the camp on Sunday.  It takes about 2 hours from Broome, half on sealed roads, half on red dirt track.  We arrived at the camp just as the sun was going down and I was shown my new home.  A fully equipped one bedroom donga (trailer) with the living room used as the classroom.  It’s nice to have my own little place again.  I rapidly went about making myself at home and rearranging everything.

I had pictured the camp being right on the river.  In a way it is.  In flood the water can come right up to the camp.  However in dry season the river is about one kilometer from the house.  The wet season has just come to and end and the river is quickly receding.  The mosquitoes are out in force.  At the moment I look a bit like the mosquitoes have been using me as a pin cushion.  We saw the first dragonflies today.  They eat all the mosquito larva and it is the signal for the beginning of the dry.

There is also a plague of green tree frogs.  It’s important to check the loo before sitting.  There are usually two or three hiding in the bowl and it seems cruel to do your business on their heads.  Besides, they could jump on your bum when you least expect it.  That could create a very bad scene.

On Monday morning I first saw the camp in daylight.  It was also the morning that all the teachers from the School of the Air were arriving for a “Cultural Awareness Seminar” that is being run by the father and mother.  The father is half local aborigine and half Timorese.  The mother is Maltese from Melbourne.  They have literally written the book on cultural reconciliation and responsible development (just about to be published).

The teachers were very young and enthusiastic.  There were a couple of old-timers who have been at the school since the beginning of time, but most of them were completely new to this part of the country and School of the Air. The Principal is 25 years old.  Fifty percent of the students are aboriginal.

We all piled in the bus and went to the traditional meeting place in the bush near the springs.  It’s where the different aboriginal groups have met for hundreds of years to discuss problems and conduct trade.  Under a big tree we set up plastic chairs and had a chat about the issues the teachers were having with getting the aboriginal students and their families to participate in school and school activities.  We were all getting eaten by mosquitoes and sand flies, so we adjourned to the brand new, air conditioned conference center near the house where tea and coffee (and comfy chairs) were readily available.

I have come to this part of the country knowing very little about indigenous affairs and how the aboriginal community really lives in the modern world.  I’ve learned a lot already.

Meeting the family

I arrived in Broome a couple of days ago.   This trip has been a long time in the planning (and de-planning and re-planning).  It took about six months from the time I was first offered the job until I actually got here.  The family was waiting for me at Broome airport and the kids gave me a big hug and asked me what they should call me.

There was a family wedding on the beach in Broome the night I got there.  It was a very small event and I’m sure some of the family thought I was some nosy tourist taking photos.  They were very nice about it and very friendly.  They all wanted to give me a rundown on who was who, which was very complicated because they use the aboriginal relationship naming system.   I was trying to work out how a five year old could be someone’s mother.  For women, your sisters’ children become your children and they call you mother.  For men, it’s your brothers’ children who call you father.  Therefore some (but not all) of your cousins become your brother or sister.  If you have much older siblings, you can actually be born a mother.

The reception was at the Broome Fishing Club and since the groom was Indian, there was a huge spread of  Indian food provided by the groom’s mother.  Dessert was pavlova and trifle and chocolate cake.  It was very low key affair, but had all the traditional wedding touches like the throwing of the bouquet, the cutting of the cake and the first dance.

There is a huge extended family, but there is a rift between one side of the family that is pro-development and the other side which is pro-conservation.  So a lot of the family didn’t turn up in protest (they must be the protesting side of the family).

The family is full of crazy characters and prominent aboriginal activists.  I was told the story of a relative who won the Order of Australia and promptly dropped dead from cancer a year later.  She had never heard of the Order of Australia and didn’t know what the big whoop was.  Others are on the boards of various aboriginal councils.

Everyone at the reception was dripping in the most exquisite pearls.   Most of the male members of the family had worked in the pearling industry and one of the daughters runs a big pearl shops in town.

New assignment

After nearly 5 months in civilization (mainly New York City), I'm finally heading back to the bush.  My plan for 2012 has changed so many times I can't keep track, but finally I have a destination.

Within a couple of weeks I will be heading to the Kimberley region of Western Australia to work at an aboriginal wilderness camp.  I will be living with the native custodian at the family's camp on the Fitzroy River and teaching their two children through the School of the Air.

I think hunting and gathering might be an interesting "alternative lifestyle".  As long as I have regular access to a shop to resupply my chocolate addiction, I should be just fine.

Re-joining the World

Population:  approx 22 million

There are good and bad aspects to living on an isolated desert island.  In the end, being away from the people who really care for you is the thing that becomes most intolerable.  The snakes and sharks and fierce sunshine . . . . I could deal with all of that.  The endless conversations about fishing . . . . . okay, now I’m know a bull chin groper from a red snapper . . . you never know when that information will come in handy.   Having no access to anything . . . . you do eventually get used to that and simply stop wanting things you can’t have.

I left the island at the end of Term 3 to give me more time to be with the people who really matter before I head off on the next chapter.

Stay tuned . . . . . January 2012 . . . . . “How to Raise a Village”. 
I have a year-long contract to set up a computer classroom at a village high school in Ghana (West Africa).

Up the creek without a paddle (aka living on an island with no boat)

Population 3

The supply boat has been barely kept afloat all year.  One of the staff used to have to swim out to it every four hours to pump out the water that was leaking into its hull.  The engine wasn’t great either.  Anyway, it finally gave up the ghost and is probably not repairable.  It’s strange to live on an island without a boat. 

So for the last two months I haven’t left the island.  All guests and supplies have been flown in using charter flights.  Spring has sprung and with all the rain this year, the island is a blanket of wildflowers.  Life just seems to flow by.  You give up wanting things you simply can’t have and enjoy what’s here.

I had given up on the idea of replenishing my chocolate and wine supplies until I head off the island for the school holidays in a couple of weeks.  Suddenly, yesterday, at the last minute I was asked if I wanted to go on the fuel run into town.  I had ten minutes to decide and get ready.  I guess I didn’t have time to think it through.

Now that we have no working boat, we use the car transport barge on occasion to get supplies.  It is a rather rickety, flat bedded barge that will hold two vehicles.  It’s like a small, floating platform with a couple of motors attached and a small sunshade over the wheel.  It’s moored at the south end of the island where there is only a narrow stretch of water to the mainland.  Four wheel drives have to brave 200kms on corrugated sand tracks to get to the barge pick-up point.  To transport your car costs $1,200, not negotiable because we are the only barge allowed to ply it’s trade to the island.  It takes a very hardy camper to get here, but once you arrive, you have the whole island to yourself (except for us at the homestead and we have hot showers . . . . . and gourmet food . . . . . and we won’t let you past the gate unless we know you or you have a limb hanging on by a thread ).

Yesterday the seas were rough, the wind had picked up, the barge trip into town took three hours, all the time being buffeted by high seas and covered in sea spray.  By the time we got to town I was literally encrusted in salt.  I had half an hour to run to the shop while they loaded supplies.

Then the three hour trip back.  The “captain” was exhausted, gave me the wheel and pointed me towards a sand hill on the horizon.  We had left the run a little late and by the time we were getting towards the island, night had already fallen and we were navigating by the light of the moon.  Jumping into shark infested waters in the dark, we waded ashore.

Tired, covered in salt, wet up to the knees, we were finally on the track back to the house.  The “roads” on the island wouldn’t look out of place at the Dakar Rally.  The driver had a beer in one hand and was texting his wife with the other to let her know we had arrived safely.  I was leaning over clutching the steering wheel with one hand and my precious chocolate purchases with the other as we hurtled along the dark sand track back to the homestead.

Oh the lengths I have to go to in order to get chocolate.

But that’s not the end of it.  It seems that getting off the island is going to get even more difficult.  We use a charter plane company to take guests and supplies on and off the island.  Sometimes there are three or four flights a day and if the plane is going back empty, I can jump on it for free.  The Fisheries Department have a rule that all fish fillets have to be flown off the island (not taken off by boat) so that they can check you didn’t exceed your quota in the Marine Park.  It has always struck me as funny when flying in a tiny plane full of fish fillets, what fabulous shark bait you would be if you crashed into the water.  I mentioned this, in jest, to the pilot last time I flew with the fish fillets.  He assured me the sharks would be the least of our troubles.  Getting out of the plane without drowning would be the real problem.  He had seen the statistics.

Last week a guest was being flown off the island when there was a “mid air incident”.  The door flew open in mid flight.  The charter plane always reminds me of a 1980s model station wagon that has been sitting in the Australian sun.  It feels like the rust is the only thing holding it together. The guest was not impressed and immediately reported it to the Civil Aviation Authority.  If the charter flight company gets put out of business, they are the only option within 500 miles.  The barge might soon be the only way off the island.