Saturday began my slurry of tours. Kimberley Wild Expeditions picked me up from the hostel at 7am for a 3-day excursion to Cape Leveque on the northwest peninsula of Australia.
We stopped for morning tea at Beagle Bay Church to see the glimmering pearl shell alter in this aboriginal community.
Beagle Bay Church.
Debbie and Steve own Kelk Creek Bush Retreat and gave us a terrifically interesting tour of their property with lots of insights into Aboriginal culture. Here's a snipet of some of the more interesting things I learned.
- To this day, "law men" take a 2 week walk-about in the bush doing secret man stuff. The mother must give permission, then the boy can be taken from anywhere (generally at age 14). The boy is also promised a wife at this time.
- Mother-in-laws and son-in-laws don't look at each other and cannot be in the same room, or must be back-to-back.
- Aboriginals have a very extended family as your mom's sisters are all your moms, your cousins are all your sisters and brothers, etc. If one person in the family moves, they all move.
- Aboriginals are in a tricky position as they try to preserve their own traditions while operating within modern Australian law.
Steve taught us to swat the dense, persistant, and untolerable flies with these special leaves.
We saw lots of burned land on our saltwater country leisurely bush walk. It is Aboriginal tradition to burn land every 3 years. At Kelk Creek, they used a controlled cool burn which is stopped with the morning dew.
This was some kind of special bird but I can't remember what kind.
This dry area floods twice a year with seasonal tides.
Steve prepared damper and billy tea for us while we were on our bush walk. Damper is bread baked in a cast iron pot over a fire, while billy tea was made of bush tea leaves.
I especially love the red dirt in the outback. All the roads looked like this.
We stayed at Kooljaman Resort at Cape Leveque. We set up camp right away upon arrival. Yes, that's right, I am camping. Only done it once before in my life (Jill Seed!), and now I signed up for nearly 3 weeks of camping. Am I crazy???
We took note of the Crocodile Warning sign as we made our way down to the easter beach for a swim.
Eastern beach at Cape Leveque.
We saw the beach at low tide which revealed quite a rock mine field to navigate to get into the water.
We watched the sun set over the western beach from our campsite.
Everyone on the trip had varying levels of experiencing the outback. Ursula and Gary opted for the deluxe safari tent and were gracious enough to invite us all to their place for dinner. Ursula was quite the diva with this roller in her hair which did not go unnoticed.
We had quite the traveling veterans with us on the trip with Richard (76!) and Judy on the left and Ursula's husband Gary on the right. This older crew was fit and energetic with vitality flowing through every ounce of them. Their stories of the things they'd seen and places they'd been were so inspiring. I hope I'm like them at that age.
Our guide Gary whipped up a feast for our Kimberley BBQ under the stars. Gary and Ursula came prepared with cartons of wine to go around.
Then began what I endearingly recall as the "toughen up girls" night-time adventure. Karin (23-year old Swedish girl) and I opted for the "true" outback camping experience, also the economical one. We were camping in swags inside tents along with our guide Gary with superior ventilation when a light shower began, stopped, followed by another shower, then a heavy downpour. Karin asked me "are you getting wet?"
I squirmed in my tent, propping my legs up out of the puddle that began near my feet and eventuated up my back until I was fully soaked. As soon as the rain let up, I unzipped my tent, grabbed my things, and dashed to the bus. Karin followed. Gary shouted out "toughen up girls!" What? I thought I was being tough. I was camping. All I could think was I am not appreciating this experience, and I have how many more nights of this? Of course as soon as we were on the bus and changed into dry clothes, the rain stopped.
It was here my swag education began. Swags are supposedly waterproof IF you zip them up and stay inside them. They are sponges if exposed to rain (I learned). Gary lured Karin and me off the bus around 3:30am with a cuppa (cup of tea or coffee), told us stories of his crocodile feeding days, then convinced us to set up two new tents with two new swags as the rain had passed. Oh we were so brave.
Here I am in my new dry swag and tent.
Swags are like canvas sleeping bags that are meant to function as a one person tent. You can spike them up in the middle by swinging your arm up like a sword - the material is rather stiff and formable. They also have a flap that comes up over your head and tucks into the zipped portion.
One last shot of me peeking out of my swag.
