Arnhem Land Trip 2018, Day 11: Last day on the coach, and on to Seven Spirit Bay

This day was to be our last on the coach, the rest of the tour being by boat and plane. The coach has been good to us, and as comfortable as it could be, but 1400 kms or so of dirt, mostly corrugated or heavily rutted, roads, complete with water crossings, does take its toll after a while. Still, if you want to see this part of the country this is what you do! And Driver Ian and Outback Spirit as a whole do take passenger comfort seriously. We wouldn’t have missed it for anything. 

First leg, Black Point

Anyhow, the first part off the trip retraced the drive into Mt Borradaile, complete with a brief stop at that point where our phones came into range. This would be our last opportunity for internet access/mobile contact until Darwin, a bit over two days later.

Driver Ian, as usual, kept us entertained with stories about the areas we were travelling through and/or would be arriving at. Such as:

• some of the history of Cobourg Peninsula, which was named by Philip Parker King whom you’ve heard me mention before. He suggested that an area he named Port Essington would be good for a settlement, but I’ll share more about this in our next post which will cover our little trip into history.
• the Blue Mud Bay land rights case of 2008 in which the High Court ruled “that the water lying over Aboriginal land should not be treated differently from the land itself” (instead of the previous ruling that gave the people rights only to the low-tide level.) Indigenous people proved – through the existence of features like grinding holes and art that the land, now covered by water, was also theirs. This ruling applies, though, only to the Blue Mud Bay area of Arnhem Land I believe.

We drove through/over/past various creeks, which we all loved. They are so pretty, but also potentially croc-infested – although they didn’t make themselves known to us, fortunately. Today’s creeks crossed and sights seen included:

• The almost 2D meridian termite mounds made by Amitermies termites
• Maglary (?) Creek
• Angiulary Creek, where we had morning tea
• Garig Galuk Barlu National Park (Garig [the local lang} Galuk [land] Barlu [sea]), which was originally two parks, Gurig National Park and Cobourg Marine Park. Ian said that Gurig National Park was Australia’s first national park (in that, I think, it was designated a fauna and flora reserve back in 1924), and that the new merged park was Australia’s first jointly managed national park (that is, with traditional owners.)
• Cooper Creek
• Murgenella Swamp, which was visibly full of baby barramundi, and of people fishing!

The memory code

Ian, who clearly keeps up with any print or other media relevant to the history and culture of northern Australia, played us a podcast from Lynne Malcom’s All in the mind program. It contained an interview with academic Lynne Kelly about her book The memory code in which she explores memory and knowledge in pre-literate or oral societies. How, Kelly wanted to know, do such societies manage to maintain such encyclopaedic knowledge? Kelly discovered that indigenous Australians store knowledge in their dreaming, in the songlines. Songs and dances, for example, encode the information needed to survive in a place. These songs and dances, these song cycles, are then repeated to aid memory, and they are passed on in structured ways to ensure they are not polluted or diluted (a la Chinese whispers!) However, they are not static. New information and knowledge is added as relevant. So, for example, the Yolngu added stories about the Macassans.

Kelly was also interested in whether these methods could be applied to post-literate societies and she discovered they could. In fact, it justifies my concern about decluttering, about my fear that if I give away an object, I’ll lose memory of the person or event related to that object. My memory, in other words, is encoded in the object. Oh dear. I’ll never declutter now – I think, though, that a photo of the object will probably do the trick. I loved this podcast! You can listen to it on-line.

Arriving at Black Point

Finally, the end of the road came! We arrived at Black Point. While Ian organised our bags onto the boat, and collected our lunches sent over from Seven Spirit Bay, we checked out the little museum at the Black Point Cultural Centre. Here was confirmed some of the information Ian had shared, such as that indigenous people have been in the area for at least 40,000 years, and that around 5,000 years ago, the seas had risen so much that instead of being 250 kms from the sea as they were 20,000 years ago, they found they were coast-dwellers. This is reflected in their art, in, for example, the disappearance of boomerangs from their paintings!

Many of us also did some jewellery shopping. Local artist Emma sets up her table regularly outside the Museum, offering her wares. She did a decent trade with us! But, I was surprised (shocked?) when her assistant looked at me and said “Who made that necklace for you, Sue?” Hmmm … I told them I’d bought my necklace – yes, the gidgee-gidgee necklace appears again in our blog – at Maningrida. I’ve been told since, I said, that the seeds are poisonous. “That’s why,” piped up Emma, “I don’t use them!” Oh dear, I’ll be investigating this further when I get home.

Then it was time for lunch – and a nice change it was for us gf eaters. We had rice paper rolls instead of wraps, and gf friands. Such a treat. So much nicer than some of the very dry gf bread we’d had, though  mostly I’d been given salads, with the bread on the side (and thus easily ignored.)

And, finally, the pièce de resistance, Seven Spirit Bay

We then walked to the beach to board our boat – and wave to the croc visible in the sea near the jetty (but not, thankfully, near us.) We also waved to our coach, which was waiting there for the relocation driver, and shed some crocodile tears as we did. (Sorry, couldn’t resist that.)

Some time after 3pm, we arrived at Seven Spirit Bay, a place I’ve wanted to visit for over a decade since my aunt Alison went there and raved over its beauty. We were welcomed by lodge manager Nick, and other staff, and given those lovely cold towels, plus a glass of sparkling or beer. After a brief introductory talk, we were set free until 6pm when it would be time for drinks at sunset then dinner.

And so it happened! First, drinks on Seven Spirit Bay’s beautiful patios, with the sun going down over Coral Bay, then inside for dinner comprising Saddle-tailed Snapper with Fennel puree. As my neighbours tucked into their soft, easily flaked fish, I struggled to cut mine with a knife. It was soon whisked away, and not long after, I too had a lovely moist piece of fish that flaked easily. Our end of the table had a huge laugh when at the end of the evening Nick said he hoped we’d enjoyed our meal, and, turning to me, said “Sorry about yours, Sue, hope you liked your Mangrove Jack.” Sitting opposite me was a keen fishermen who had told us only a few days previously that Mangrove Jack was his favourite fish! (I wouldn’t have known my Mangrove Jack from my Saddle-tailed Snapper if you paid me!)

Dessert, for me, was a delicious Native Hibiscus sorbet, served with wattleseed crunch, and strawberries and blueberries. (The non-dietaries had the same, except a passionfruit bavarois instead of the fruit.)

It was a wonderful start to what turned out to be two magical days in a gorgeous place, tended to by wonderful, hardworking people. How lucky we were.

Today’s pics

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Drinks on arrival at Seven Spirit Bay …