18 March 2013 - Big4 Katherine Holiday Park, Katherine, Northern Territory

By the time I had hung a load of washing, called into the camp reception to extend our stay another day, spent twenty minutes or so chatting with Ann at the desk and made lunch, it was after 10 am, and so it was a late start to the day all round.

Our plan was to visit Bamylli, an aboriginal settlement eighty five kilometres or so south of Katherine where Chris had spent about three months back in 1972. Then he had been part of a team of tradesmen of varying nationalities who were employed by Aboriginal Affairs to supervise the erection of new residences in these remote settlements. The reality was that these tradesmen ended up doing all the work while the locals who were supposed to be learning new skills went off doing anything but useful practical work training. 

Chris was keen to see the house he and the other guys had lived in during the project and of course, see the houses they had built. And also see how the life in this place he has spoken fondly of over the years, had progressed.

Back in 1972, the Stuart Highway had been a one lane sealed road and the thirty seven kilometres road into Bamylli just dirt. Today the Stuart Highway is an excellent sealed two lane job and the secondary road now sealed although still single lane. There are signs everywhere, signifying the road, the river we crossed (the Roper Creek), the alcohol restrictions, the need to have permits to enter certain areas, the penalties for not having the required permits and so on.

The first few kilometres off the Stuart Highway were littered with bottles and cans, discarded and broken, having contained the forbidden alcohol, thus hastily drunk before entering The Zone. However the entrance to the settlement was immaculate, sports parks galore and green grass all about. Most of the residences were of block or brick and the unkempt grounds were neatly fenced within each persons own property. We called into the store, the only place we saw people in a public place and bought two iceblocks just for the sake of buying something there. At $11.60, it was a reasonable price to open conversation and start asking questions, but a terrible one if an ice snack was the only aim. No wonder we don’t buy icecreams in this country, aside from our 30 cent MacDonald snowfreezes.

The girl at the counter called an aged black man over and explained that “This old man had been here forty years ago and wanted to know …..” (Chris was not too thrilled with the Old Man moniker.) Soon a very pleasant middle aged woman took us in hand and explained as much as she could, which was actually not much at all. In 1972, she had been just five years old, but did remember the water tank Chris spoke of which had been demolished and was pleased to hear her Burunga recalled as Bamylli.  The house, the store and the six houses Chris and his mates had built were all gone. The garage was now a government machine shop but not much of the settlement as it was then, remained. She spoke well and said her family were all there in the settlement, some up at the cemetery  We did not quiz her on what they all did for occupation; the answer may have been all too depressing. She asked where we were headed next and Chris gave her a run down of our destinations over the next few weeks. Given that she had no idea we were itinerants, this was probably just too confusing, however we all wished each other well and left.

I felt sorry for Chris because he had been looking forward to his return to Bamylli and it didn’t really prove anything at all however he did say that the people there seemed to be better off than when he was there. The fact that this woman was fluent in English, confidant and that most of the people were housed rather than living in tin shacks was some progress, even if it had taken forty years to get there. We hoped the little smiling tot who greeted us outside the shop would do a whole lot better with her life. Something needs to change with these people for sure.

And so we returned to Katherine, found a place in a shady park under a flowering frangipani tree, surrounded by the weekend’s illicit public drinking refuse and near an aboriginal man asleep under another tree and ate our sandwiches and drank cold water out of the thermos. The day was another stinker, hot and sticky.

The skies have been busy with jet fighters today; obviously there are air exercises out of Katherine’s RAAF Base Tindal today.

After lunch we drove to the Civic Centre which we had understood to house the public art gallery. Not so; we were redirected to the Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts & Cultural Centre at the south end of town. This we found to be closed on Mondays.

We shopped for fresh produce and meat at the Woolworths supermarket and topped up with diesel before heading back to camp to enjoy our last afternoon at this lovely caravan park. As I write this, the airconditioner is blasting away and we are cocooned in a chilly 24 degrees, somewhat cooler than outside if and when we venture out for a swim. The park is filling with other travellers; we have neighbours on the two  sites next to us. Must be time to move on.