Nitmiluk National Park looked like a worthy detour from the unrelenting northern progress and we decided to stay for 2 days. Be nice not drive for a day and leave our camper set up - we are getting the hang of this now.
With a "day off" (I know, its a hard life), I have time to start reading a book bought in Alice and some of the history of the Jawoyn people who own this land on which I am currently camped. And to reflect on our different interpretations of how it feels to be here. Yes, to me it feels like a wilderness, but I am starting to understand, at least a little, that it simply does not feel that way to those who have lived here for so long. Whilst wanting to be careful that I don't stray too far into things I cannot possibly fully understand, being here, and reading more about Aboriginal culture and beliefs, I can at least attempt to understand some of the issues facing modern Australia.
On the one hand there is a modern 21st century Western European based on centuries of industrial and technical development - and on the other, a fundamentally agricultural/hunter/gatherer based style society that has hardly changed in thousands of years. I can see how tensions are created when they come up hard against each other, and some Australian writers such as Mark McKenna are arguing for a new recognition of the past before the country can move on. I read in his essay "Moment of Truth: History and Australia's Future", that it is the only former British colony that was not subject to a treaty with its indigenous population. Uniquely in British colonial history they didn't not even recognise the Aboriginal claim to the land. We've done some pretty bad stuff in the name of Empire, but this is a new one on me.
However, I can also see in a place like Nitmiluk how attempts are made to reconcile the underlying cultural differences and bring greater harmony and co-existence; the land now owned again by the local Jawoyn people, but leased back to the National Parks Authority, is jointly run, to preserve its identity as a spiritual and cultural extension of those who own it, but also a commercial opportunity to secure income from visitors (a very embodiment of a capitalist Western European model). It seems to work, run by a management committee made up of those representing all interests, but with a majority of Jawoyn, it is a brilliant place to hang out, walk in the bush, take a boat along the gorge and at least perhaps get a better feel for how this land was shaped by thousands of years of occupation, long before white settlers arrived. It is so easy to see Australia in terms of white settlement (roadhouses, long roads, isolated hotels etc), but by being in a place like Nitmiluk I hope I have enhanced my understanding at least a little of the country, and perhaps appreciated another perspective.
We spent our two days walking on the trails, hanging out at the pool, reading writing and playing cards (I'm now losing 10-5 at cribbage since you ask). But the highlight was a two hour boat cruise at the end of the afternoon through the eponymous gorge. Nitmiluk literally means Place of the Cicada, named after the sound the insects make, a beautiful and peaceful place in the dry season. But in the wet season, it can funnel massive amounts of water through the gorges raising the river level by as much as 13 metres regularly and as much as 20 on occasions, such as the great flood of 1998, when the town of Katherine, downstream about 30km, but unprotected by high gorge sides was absolutely inundated. As we crossed the bridge over the river out of Katherine it was barely credible that the water we could see 20m below us would at that time have immersed the bridge!
Our other highlight was that a wallaby came to see us in our camp. Not only that but it brought its joey too. My only worry was that it seemed so at ease with human contact that people must have been feeding it - so all those signs are for nothing! We do have pictures but still can't get them to upload.