Tuesday, 6 July 2021
Wait. What’s that? Johan! He’s twenty paces ahead of me on the Jenemoom Walk. No response. Johan!! It sometimes takes an extra effort to get him to hear me. He turns around and I motion for him to come back. I hand him the binoculars. Tell me that’s not a crocodile, I say, pointing to a stippled grey-brown log in the pond. What stopped me was the two bulbous round eyes sticking up out of it.
Nah, he murmurs, doubtful. Adjusts the focus. Whoa. Yes! It is! You found one!
Hard to imagine how a creature can stay so perfectly still. Even the water around him his placid. But slowly in the time we watch him, his body rises ever so slightly from the depths of the murky brown water and we can see its scales, black and green and definitely reptilian. Its mouth extends like a thin trumpet across the water line from his glaring eyes. The telephoto on the camera reveals pointed white teeth circling the outside of a globular mouth. Just over a metre long maybe, so not a saltwater croc (which can be up to four metres). Still, you wouldn’t want to go swimming with a creature like that in the pool. Prehistoric and dangerous.
The trail winds through a canyon, rock ledges slanting into a dry creek. At the end is an impressive overhang with an interpretive sign explaining this was a shelter and meeting place, a kitchen of sorts, for Aboriginal woman who caught mussels and crabs and crayfish in the creek when it was running. How they managed without getting their fingers snipped by the croc is anyone’s guess. But the remains of their culinary activity endure beneath our feet, a metre of detritus from a thousand years of shellfish gathering, the sign says. Indeed, pick up a handful of sand and see the tiny shards of shiny shell fragments scattered about. The women's kin, perhaps their artistic sons, created a number of art pieces in the rocks hanging over their heads.
Rock art of an emu.
Our appreciation of the Aboriginal imprint on the land was enhanced this morning when we went to the ranger talk back at camp. He was a curious and entertaining mix of swash-buckling outback Aussie and wisdom elder. In his mid-years he spoke four native languages with authentic diction. He could have had some indigenous blood in him the way he talked about his mum and aunties. But his appearance suggested Irish stock, a ruddy face, small nose, and silky red beard, long enough to curl up at the end. His ears each had a Nordic talisman punched through the lobes, like bone trophies of some creature he’d hunted. He could talk a mile, splintered with self-effacing humour while also conveying encyclopaedic knowledge of the terrain, “his park” he often called it. He knew the Latin, Aboriginal and English names for most of the fauna and though his specialty was “cultural knowledge”, he knew a fair bit about many of the other “ologies” what covered the natural sciences. His pale skinned, round-faced son was with him – “my Aryan love child” he called him – wearing a black t-shirt stating, “Give me just one more game” and sporting an impressive metre long blond braid down his back. He looked to be around 12 years old, quietly confident and proud to be the ranger’s son.
Midday we drive down the dusty road to fill our containers from the single bore water tap in the park – best tasting water we’ve found on the trip thus far, plus an opportunity to wash my sticky hair. Further down the road we hope to find internet connection on our phones. It doesn’t appear until we reach the highway, so we drive the extra few kilometres and pull into the carpark at the border to check emails and the news. A dozen caravans and 4WDs are still camped here, suggesting nothing much has changed with the border closure.
On his way back from the toilet, Johan strikes up a conversation with an older couple seated stiffly in their camp chairs next to their caravan. The man is angry as hell about the situation and spews a litany of complaints about the government, their unjust and inept handling of things, and his own misfortunes in not being able move from this spot – apparently he doesn’t have enough fuel to get back to Timber Creek and doesn’t want to risk using up the fuel he has by driving up into the Keep River National Park, where, Johan suggests, he and his wife may find it more pleasant to wait out the closure. He doesn’t seem interested in making their life more comfortable. As long as he’s camped in the carpark, he can retain his watch over the border house, ensure they’re protest stance remains visible to the border authorities, and hopefully find enough like minds to vent his frustrations upon each day while they wait.
I understand the man’s unhappiness. I too feel the constriction upon our personal freedom, the impediment that prevents our compulsive forward-moving flow in life. Like so many in this season of COVID, we’re forced to stop and stay put and just be with what is – a novelty in the modern world. “The border closure by the Republic of Western Australia”— a small dig at what some see as the dictator governing the western state —“was the best thing to happen to you lot,” the ruddy ranger told us this morning. “Now you’re forced to stay put and enjoy my park, rather than using it for an overnight stop as most do.”
He’s right of course. For those who want to, the opportunity to “learn the land” – its anomalous bird choirs, shifting lightscapes, painted forest of fruited and flowering plant life – is a gift rather than a sentence. We just need to learn to let the stream of habitual craving subside. Let go and let be.
Another thoughtful account, especially the vivid description of the park ranger and the musings at the end.
ReplyDeleteThe grinding rock reminds me of the ones in the Sierra foothills, former home of the Miwuk Indians, who ground acorns into flour. I wonder how many Indigenous groups worldwide took advantage of this kind of 'technology'.