Manyallaluk ( then to Katherine)

We woke after a good night sleep, most probably because it was so quiet and prepared for the day ahead. We were to get to an aboriginal cultural experience ad were looking forward to it.

Slowly all of the Guides appeared from the local village and set up for the days activities and Josh headed off to have a talk with them while we packed the van ready to leave at the end of the day for Katherine.

We waited for a coach load of Americans to arrive, a group of students on a cultural experience before commencing and started a little late but still happy.

We started with a walk through the bush with our Guide, John, who certainly had a good knowledge of what was around and had grown up in this area with his parents. He spoke of the many plants and animals of this area and explained their purpose to the Aboriginal people. At one stage he dug, in what appeared to be a pile of dirt and produced two plant roots that were bright red and were used for dying clothes or plant fibres used for the basket making.

He surprised us all by grabbing a leaf off a tree that was full of ants and held it to show us what it was. The problem was that the ants were stinging him and running all over him but he wanted to show and tell us what they were used for. You could eat them, he did, but they were quite bitter, and you could also use them as a cold and flu medicine. This would be in a similar way to current Vics that you rub on you chest, by squashing the ants and then rubbing the juices on your chest.

There were plenty of other examples of food and medicine that he showed us along the way.

We then got to do Josh’s favourite, didgeridoo playing. John was very good at it, the rest of us well let’s just say that we are not going to make a career out of it with some very strange noises made. Josh produced the best sound, although he did not quite get the hang of the circular breathing, neither did I.





Lunch was a BBQ which included sausages, steak and kangaroo tail, yes that is right! We started the other activities. By the way we did all try the kangaroo tail except for Josh and while not the most exciting meat, was not bad either.

While waiting for lunch to be finished, josh went for a walk and spotted 'Big Red' an old horse that had stayed in the area after the farming had stopped. The horse was free to come and go as he pleased but got a treat today as he was fed a few lettuce by Josh & Chels.

We then did some spear throwing, visited the gallery of art, did some basket weaving, painting(we have the proof of this!) and fire starting using sticks. All very interesting and made it for a great interactive day. We were very lucky to be given the paintings that were drawn by the guides, of course ours, especially mine was better!





It was then a case of doing the last minute packing, saying good-bye and then on to Katherine. It was back along the dirt road and then on to Katherine for a couple of days to explore the Katherine region.