Wendy's adventures

KALACC festival

After work we drove 95km out of town to Ngumpan Community for the Ngumpan Festival – celebrating 40 years of KALACC (Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre) and the Kimberley Language group. It was a week long event with people camping out and important discussions taking place. We went out twice as we got lost the first time and ended up travelling an extra 40km in the dark to the Wangkatjungka community. (We really shouldn’t have been there without permission). Natalia did a great job driving missing animals on the road and keeping calm. I think I’m glad I don’t have a nudge bar so couldn’t drive at night. We only got to see one dance on the first night which was the beautiful Samoan group performing to show their respect to the local Aboriginal people, acknowledging the many shared challenges they have had to maintain their strong culture. The second night we saw beautiful Arnhem land dances perform.

Mud crab racing in Derby

Our next cultural event was of a very different kind. We headed to Derby for the last Mary Creek Fishing club fund-raising race for the season. You donate $10 to name a crab. Mine was cakes. If your crab wins it goes in to the final. The loosers we ate at a buffet style dinner. The fishing club collected all of the crabs in the days proceedings the event. I can’t believe they do crabbing or fishing in Derby, there are salt water crocodiles and sharks!!!

Getting bogged …

We nearly spent the night out at the Derby effluent processing plant and wetlands as we got stuck in the sand. Lucky Michele packed the mud tracks…and was a skilled driver.

Joonjoo botanical trail

The botanical trail was really good, it had so much information along the way about the way in which local Aboriginal people use the botanicals for medicinal purposes, spears, poison, shelter, food, coolumun and many other purposes. Each bit of the tree and plant is used in a sustainable manner.

A sad history

If you can read the photo I recommend reading the history of the boab prison tree and old jail. The old jail was only decommissioned in my life time and has a very sad history for Aboriginal people. The prison boab tree has spiritual meaning for Aboriginal people.

A couple of pictures of sunrise Derby style