After another slow start to the day we decided to walk to the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre, an easy 1km walk. Our Lonely Planet Guide to Australia gave us this description:
“The centre depicts Creation stories and has an excellent permanent exhibition that includes clap sticks, sugar-bag holders and rock-art samples. You’ll be introduced to the moiety system (the law of interpersonal relationships), languages and skin names, as well as the six seasons of Kakadu. A mesmeric soundtrack of chants and didgeridoos plays in the background”.
It got me at the didgeridoos as I am very drawn to this beautiful sound.
The Cultural Centre is a really well thought out exhibition and as you wander through the exhibitions you get a great understanding of aboriginal life. Our tour guide yesterday talked briefly about the aborigines of the Kakadu/Arnhem land and the affinity they have with the land. There is certainly truth in this because if they didn’t understand the land and seasons, they would not have survived. I read today that crocodile eggs were a treat to eat for the aboriginals, and they knew that when a certain plant flowered, that was when the female layed her eggs. When the plant stopped flowering there would be no more eggs.
Although there is a fair amount of reading, it was interesting reading and I found the section on the moiety system of relationships thought provoking and clever because without this system the aboriginals could not have existed for as long as they have. In-breeding would have eventually been their demise.
We meandered through the various displays all with detailed descriptions. The display touched briefly on the stolen generation and there were two elders who told their stories. One (female) was taken to a boarding school and she said the nuns were very kind and she loved it. The other (male) was taken to another school where he said he was treated very badly by the priests.
After we had absorbed as much information as we could, we wandered into the gift shop where I purchased a scented candle for our toilet. I won’t actually light the candle because when you take the lid off the tin, the smell of the candle is divine without being lit. Anyone who has lived in a caravan long enough will know how much you need this
We found a bush path back to Cooinda Lodge and we still don’t know how we missed it on the way over. We headed straight to the pool for a swim as it was quite warm, however the pool water was freezing! My friend Kate would have loved it as it was about ten degrees cooler than Adels Grove! We lay in the warm sun to dry off and read our books, and at midday we made our way to the adjacent pool bar and restaurant where we ordered pizzas.
I ordered the Meat Lovers with spiced buffalo, lemon myrtle marinated crocodile, kangaroo sausage and Jalapeno (delicious) and Philip ordered the Twin Falls Godfather with pepperoni, chilli, olives, anchovies, labna and a rocket salad. We washed them down with beers and ginger beer.
We had a little nanny nap after lunch and this afternoon we mapped out our plan for tomorrow. Lots of driving involved tomorrow so we will take a cut lunch with us. We are heading west from Cooinda where there are a few good walks.
No comments:
Post a Comment