Day 39 - Arnhemland (Guluyambi)

Can you believe that we arrive the day before the Stone Country festival - which is the one day of the year that anyone is allowed into Arnhemland without a permit!!!  So we decide to head across the Cahill Crossing at low tide, no salties to be seen, but we don't dilly dally, as we have seen how big they are on this river.  Arnhemland is just beautiful, very much untouched until we reach the township.  What a mess.  Rubbish and broken down cars everywhere.

The day begins with a footy match and a basketball comp which runs for most of the day.  It is so hot, I don't know how they could play in this heat.  There are a lot of cultural activities going on during the day.  The girls discover the basket weaving and love sitting with the locals under a tree doing their weaving.  The language barrier is not a problem.  Bush tucker is being prepared and we see geese being decapitated and plucked and cat fish being alfoiled for the bush oven.

Shannae discovers spear making and spends a lot of her day working on making a spear in preparation for the spear throwing comp later in the day.  We head to the bumper cars for Cody which is quite a laugh.  The little indigenous children just love these cars and buy a handful of tickets at a time so it is hard to get on. They fit 3 or 4 per car including babies and they pick up and drop off passengers throughout the ride.   So it is a scramble for a car.  Cody and Glen look just hilarious as they are the only whiteys out there.  Next stop is the "$2.50" shop for Cody, he thinks he is at the fair!!!  He purchases a massive lollipop that keeps him entertained all day!!!

So we return to the spear making area ready for the spear throwing comp which is advertised on the sign to be held at 2pm....but hey... ..we are on "Arnhemland time", at about 2:30 we ask one of the locals when the spear throwing comp is going to be held "dis arvtanoon"  ........as we thought.  We are trying to "chill"..."go with the flow!!"  ....By now it is sweltering and we have had enough of the dust and the flies but we have a budding spear thrower who has been looking forward to the comp all arvo so at 2:45 Glen asks one of the whiteys, who are organising the competition, what the go is....."Oh yeah.....  I don't know!!!!"  They have a little "claytons" throw for the kids, which Shannae just loves and then we head for home, all pretty exhausted.

We cool off in the van for a while before we head to the Aboriginal Rock art at about 5pm.  This was really great. All the art has a story to tell.  I am amazed that it is still here after all these years.  I was also surprised to see art that I remember reading legends about when I was a kid.  There is so much history here.  So we think the day is over, when Glen announces on the way home there is one more walk he would like to do, only a short one of 1.5km return, the problem is, these can take from 20 min to 2 hours you never , really know!!!!!  The whole car groans at Dad's suggestion.  It is still really hot and the walk is through "Monsoonal rain forests"  I picture snakes hanging from the tree, so I put my foot down and decide to sit this one out in the air con of the car.  Cody was very loyal to his dad and went with him, the girls however, where with me on this one!!!!  Cody is not disappointed, he returns with stories of the biggest spider he has ever seen and snakes and croc sightings, we are yet to get to the bottom of whether these sighting are myth, legend or just Dad's tall tales!!!!.

What a day!!!!!