Week 17 the heart of the Kimberley

I’m pleased I read Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance here in the Kimberley. It has brought the history of the place alive, giving context to my musings on the absences in the landscapes. My view of place is changing and growing.

I have noticed that in Western Australia DBCA and NPWS often use First Nations place names on signs. There are often two or three Indigenous words for animals, plants and place, words appropriate to the tribes and groups that belong to the country. Do we do this in the east? Until now, I haven’t given it much thought. 

With all the rain that held us up and kept us out of Bandilgnan and Baraa, the gorges we can visit have a spectacular amount of water flowing for this stage in the season. And there is a long list of gorges: Bell, Adcock, Galvin’s and Manning, then the gorges of Mount Elizabeth and El Questro Stations. In between swimming the beautiful croc-free fresh water swim holes, we also have some time booked into the Mornington Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) where there are more gorges. 

First stop after Lennard River is the cascading waterfall at Dalmanyi (Bell Gorge). There is ample opportunity to swim in shallower pools above and the green cool deep pools below. Swimming right under the thundering falls is exhilarating and we sit on a shelf below the cliff face to the side of the falls, enjoying the energy pumping in the white water. 

The sandstone cliffs themselves appear to be broken columns, blocks unevenly stacked on top of different sized blocks. The colour is a gentle peach colour, the same colour as my feet. In the Wunaamin Miliwundi Range we see wattles, white and river red gums, the bright yellow Kimberley kapok and boabs of all shapes and sizes. 

We camp at Dulundi (Silent Grove), with a huge rocky monolith behind us. We see the first cane toads of the trip here and we “take care” of a handful of them. It’s a tragedy that they’re here. We almost walk on top of an olive python looking for a feed in the night time. Out of the corner of my eye, in Jeremy’s torchlight, I saw a stick, smooth, with a neatly tapered end. “Look Jeremy, that looks like a snake… Oh! It is a snake!” It’s easily two metres long and not at all bothered by us walking alongside.  

This week we head deeper into the Gibb, to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy via the neat and tidy Imintji, a one night visit below the Wunaamin Miliwundi Range. We camp on the green plain that sits below the jump-ups, tall and proud, green tendrils of ridgeline reaching to the expansive valley floor. The spinifex grasses look soft and gentle from a distance but be warned: up close they are treacherous!

We’re putting a story together about the work of AWC, whose team consists of experts: scientists, ecologists, orthnithologists and naturalists, people with gentle souls who care for the environment. They recognise the battle with feral animals, climate change, habitat destruction and the pastoral history which changed the landscape. There are other feet on the ground, too, people who train specifically to work in the heart of the Kimberley. Part of the care economy. 

Wouldn’t it be great if care wasn’t part of the economy.

AWC spans a whopping 580,774 hectares (almost 6000 square kilometres) of Kimberley country. The sanctuary is on Bunuba and Kija country and the organisation works closely with the first nations people. We met the Bunubu and Kija blokes who are integral to the team, with their deep and detailed knowledge of country.

AWC works to protect and conserve existing habitats of vulnerable species in the region. The purple crowned fairy wren is threatened but has a very healthy population here at AWC. The Monash University partners have been studying these critters for more than 20 years and this place provides critical habitiat for them.

For example, if fire wipes out fairy wren or finch habitat here, it could spell doom for these and other creatures like them. Their fire management processes are aligned with traditional burning practices to break up the fuel load reducing the risk of more intense fires late in the dry.

We see this fire management in action in a controlled burn around the airstrip. Up close, the fire crackles and crunches through the brush on the ground. A silly thing to say, but it is searing heat when you are beside the fire. Its terrifying power is all too real. 

Another important work they do is feral animal control. During our visit the helicopter heads out with pilot Richie and ecologist Braydon who spend their time reducing the numbers of goats, cows, pigs and donkeys. The impact of feral animals is huge and AWC works to minimise these.

Our first gorge visit is Sir John Gorge: no one could actually tell me who Sir John is. At the gorge, Jeremy finds rock art underneath a high rock ledge which the staff didn’t even know about. Then to Cedjeput Gorge where we meet some teachers doing a reccie for a Perth girls’ school, spending time with a Traditional Owner. We drive for another couple of hours along rocky, sandy narrow tracks to Dimond gorge and enjoy a paddle on the Fitzroy River. Stunning cliff faces, still water, vast remoteness and solitude, and the Kimberley rose high on the escarpment.

Beautiful people in a beautiful place. Gentle hearts working for the greater good.

Two of the workers will stay on the property through the wet at the end of year. They will probably be flooded in with groceries dropped off by plane.  It is admirable work they all do. And necessary.

In my twenties I travelled to Europe twice for several months at a time and when I returned home I felt unutterably changed. Having seen European history, culture and languages up close, my view of the world and my place in it altered. Travel affords us opportunities for deep reflection, time to separate from routines and voices. Time to see the world from different places, in different physical and emotional spaces. 

This trip is giving me time for deep reflection and I am seeing my country in new ways. 

And it seems I’m not the only one rethinking their relationship with this great land and our history. I've just finished reading Kate Grenville’s Unsettled which asks the central question, What do we do now that we know? She looks at her family heritage, her forebear Solomon Wiseman of Wiseman’s Ferry, tracing his offspring’s steps, ending up in the small northern NSW town of Guyra on the New England Tablelands.

I listen as we drive and sometimes as we hike. Grenville mirrors my thinking about time and place, including how I fit in with a newfound perspective.