You're the Voice (Monkey Mia - Denham to Carnarvon, WA)

Welcome back dear reader. Here is the promised cultural experience. Sorry, there are no specifically related pictures.

Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Adventure

We were keen to join the Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Adventure indigenous experience, Didgeridoo Dreaming, partly because it had been highly recommended to us by Hayley, my massage therapist at the Redfern Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine, who has previously been a WA tour guide and provided several useful tips for travelling North. We were also looking forward to the night to hear custodians of the Nanda country share their story.

We were supposed to meet at reception at 7pm for a 2 hour experience but a last minute email pushed the start time back to 7:30pm at which time, we gathered with about 20 other people, including a group of Brits on a guided tour and a French Boy accompanying his great aunt, plus other Sydneysiders and some Melburnians.

My favourite Monkey Mia friend, a Spiny-cheeked honeyeater.

Our leader was Capes, a Nanda man who is allowed to conduct these experiences because he is initiated into Nanda law and custom. His depth of knowledge was clearly evident as he wove a bi-lingual story of country, practices, kin, flora and fauna into our journey. 

Everyone in the group was given a local name which Capes used frequently throughout the night – our names were bestowed almost immediately after we said we were bringing greetings from Hayley. We were given the local tribe names of Nanda and Malgana. 

We were taken on a short walk away from the well-lit resort to view the night skies and specifically, to identify the Southern Cross, along with its pointers and the voids in the Milky way that together make the dark emu, central to spirituality of the Nanda people. Then we were led to a campfire area where a fire, built out of acacia, kept us warm and prepared a bed of coals to cook mullet for us to eat while we yarned and learnt to play the didgeridoo accompanied by clapping sticks. 

Not such a dark emu.

Some mastered the musical challenge better than others but the process provided a platform on which to reveal the foundational importance of song and ceremony to First Nations people passing their laws, stories and knowledge across generations for millennia. Although I'm sure the spirit ancestors cringed every time I raised the didg to my lips.

A map of country was drawn in the sand as the mullet cooked and Capes used his own family experiences to engage us in truth telling of how their culture was in danger of being lost but in fact only went to sleep for a time.  His work now invites us to be part of the re-awakening of the complex richness of the connections that are the core of First Nations people. Vote yes to the Voice people. Which obviously brings us to today's title, all the way from 1986, John Farnham, You're the Voice. Think about it. You know it makes sense.

The mullet sat on the coals and was turned once. They were whole fish, unscaled and not gutted. Once ready to eat, the scales and skin peeled back to reveal perfectly cooked flesh. It was delicious and juicy. I would never have thought to cook fish like this. Major rethink.

By the time the fire, the stories, the songs and the food had been shared, 3 hours had passed and we made our way back to the lights of the resort. Once more in our apartment, we went out to the balcony to shake the sand out of our shoes. On the grass below us, was a grey cat stealthily prowling the resort precinct – admittedly the first cat we have seen but clearly there is still a bit of work to do in eliminating the predators of the native fauna, despite the peninsula fence. 

Abalone shells on the beach.

The next morning, we checked out of Monkey Mia to head onto Exmouth via Carnarvon but first, the usual breakfast pie at Denham before leaving the peninsula. The pie was highly rated. The pastry wasn't up to Kalbarri standards, but the filling was excellent. We set off, backtracking the way we had come, to re-join the North West Coastal Highway.

The journey North was fairly uneventful except to note the massive number of goats (actual wild creatures, not idiot drivers) that were herding on either side the road. They are obviously in plague proportions but can survive in this pretty harsh terrain by grazing on everything including whatever low foliage they can reach, by standing on their hind legs. We expected to see more of them featuring in the roadkill but sadly, dead endemic wallabies, the bigurda, far outnumbered the goats.

The view to François Peron National Park

Carnarvon

Our brunch stop, at Carnarvon was a welcome opportunity to stretch our legs and wander up the main street, once again in search of a toastie and a coffee. We stopped at the Café Fascine, named after the construction method they have used to shore up the banks of the mighty Gascoyne River as it enters the ocean here.

The fairly pedestrian toasties and coffee (in actual crockery cups) were partially compensated for by the entertainment, provided by a family, walking down the street: parents and 2 older siblings trying to deal with a pretty impressive tantrum from the youngest child. Breaking away from the family, she ran ahead, screaming and crying and threw herself down next to a sculpture outside the town civic centre. The rest of the family tried to walk on nonchalantly, occasionally looking back to see if she would follow. Who would blink first – Dad or daughter? Sadly it was Dad, who called the still huddled child and then, after being ignored, stomped back to grip her arm and resolutely march her along to catch up to the others. I know it's wrong, but a well placed slap ... Ah, school holidays ...

We glimpsed the same happy family, sulkily seated at another café, as we walked down to the end of the main street to look at the Gascoyne. In the riverside park, there is a monument to the HMAS Sydney II, which in 1941, was torpedoed and sank off the coast of Carnarvon, with all crew lost. There is wall in the park which houses 648 plaques, naming each sailor who died.

Back in the car, it was time to head to Exmouth which will be our base for the next 3 days.

Until then.