Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
Driving up the dusty red highway
I got this freedom flowing wind in my hair
Soaking up the wild desert country
All my worries are gone I don’t care
From “Feel like going back home” by Stephen Pigram
For fourteen months we travelled. We talked. We listened. Walked and swam. Played and ate. Thought and slept. Drove and drove. My husband and our three kids aged 8, 6 and 3 explored pockets of Australia we’d never seen before.
I wanted it to be a time of transformation and packed a whole bunch of books into the boxes including “Journalling for joy” and other guides to life and happiness. But since we were travelling with three kids, I had to ditch them all at the last minute in favour of food, toys and the biggest medicine kit you’ve ever seen.
Over time, I realised I was transforming without any conscious effort on my behalf. The act of travelling, seeing new places, meeting new people, not having timelines or deadlines or schedules, being autonomous and in charge and in control meant that I was a different person. My horizons were broadened, my mind had expanded. (When I take a look at some of our photos and I see the landscapes, I’m not surprised my horizons were broadened).
1 Sunset near Burringurrah (Mt Augustus) in Western Australia
At any given moment during that Big Trip, as it’s become known to our family, if you asked me what I was thinking about it was nothing. Nothing at all. I wasn’t thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or next week. I wasn’t thinking about work, school schedules or appointments. I wasn’t thinking about how I was going to juggle everything I had to do.
Usually at home, in the suburbs, my mind is whirring at a million miles an hour. I’m thinking about what I could do, what I haven’t done, what needs to happen next, what to buy at the shops, when to collect the kids, the upcoming holidays, the washing, what the kids are up to and what they should be doing and what’s going on in the world.
On the road there is sweet nothing going on in my head. We make plans. We have a rough schedule. When we are on the road we just drive. And soak up the scenery. Stop when we want. Talk, say nothing. Listen to the kids telling their stories. I am happy. I have everything I need. The landscape is nourishing my soul, the time with my husband and our kids is good for my heart.
I find freedom in travel.
We explored amazing places. The gorges in Karijini. The fish, turtles and sharks at Ningaloo Reef. I never knew how much I would love the desert, but it turns out I do. The flowers, the sand dunes, the plains of rocks, stunted trees and the amazing landscapes. I think every person should see the sunset over the sandstone escarpment in Finke National Park. And experience for themselves the sacredness of Uluru and Kata Tjuta. But there are dozens of other places that we’ve never heard about, or have the names of, that are equally as enthralling.
We drove across sand dunes at Gunyah Beach at Coffin Bay and in the Simpson Desert. I never knew you could have so much fun just driving. We felt so small as we drove around the little sandy tracks among the giant kauri trees in south western WA around Margaret River. We drove down beach tracks, savannah tracks, black highways, up and over ranges and along plains. We drove and drove. We walked along beaches. We camped under the stars in the middle of nowhere. We camped beside highways with no loos, with a bunch of other fellow travellers. We cooked outside, ate all of our meals outside, and knew the cycle of the moon. We’d watch the sun rise and the sun set and we were in sync with our surroundings. We were a part of the natural rhythm of the landscapes that surrounded us.
Australia is home to the world’s oldest living culture – and yet what we knew about Australian Aboriginals we had to un-learn. The more people we met, stories we heard and history we read, the more we wanted to know. We began to see when the culture and history of the local people was missing and yearned to know the creation stories, whose land we were on. We learned new words, had our first ever smoking ceremony, and we were welcomed to country. For small chunks of time, we were invited into the life of local Aboriginal people and we felt welcomed. We marvelled at the women who could split a pandanus leaf (for weaving) effortlessly while our attempts were so useless, we listened to dreaming stories, explored ancient habitation sites that were up until the last 100 years used continuously, we found rock art, and I cried in some museums and former jails. Seeing the jail at Derby in the Kimberley that was in use until the 1970s was deeply shocking for me. The steel rings that men were chained to were still in the ground. There was only a roof and bars, there were no walls so it was fiery hot in the summer, and freezing cold on winter nights. These horrors are not from times in the distant past, but in my own lifetime. This learning transformed us all.
We met lots of people – some ordinary, some quirky and some we’ll never forget. One of the most surprising things about the travel was that it was so social. It was a great surprise for a naturally talkative family. Going to the toilet became a social event. I might be gone for 30 minutes because I’d get chatting. “Where’d you come from today?”, “Where are you going?”, “What did you see?”. In my normal life, I might not have anything in common with these people but here I am, in a communal laundry talking about my life on the road with kids with a perfect stranger. It turns out she’s the mother of my husband’s former work colleague back in Brisbane! At times we’d bump into people again, at other times we consciously chose to meet up with fellow travellers. We made friends – we’ve been invited to a couple of weddings!
So over time, and without the yoga, the meditations or the journalling, I created a life and a way of living that I loved. I had all I needed in the world and so much more. I was transformed. My relationship with my partner and my kids grew stronger than ever. In delight, I watched the kids develop their sense of humour and saw them thrive in the new environments we threw them in. They grew up and rose to the challenges. We all learned so much about ourselves, each other, and the country we call home. Through travel, I became a better version of myself. Life on the road turned out to be a great life for me.
Injalak Hill in Arnhem land is filled with rock art and stories
We could hear her yelling abuse at someone before we saw her. She came out from the mangroves at the far end of the street. The kids and I were on the verandah just filling in time. She was heading towards us continuing to shout.
I wondered to myself how I was going to handle this situation and keep my kids safe. She appeared drunk and as she got closer I could see she was an old Aboriginal woman with a sock and shoe on one foot but nothing on the other.
The man she was yelling at turned away so it was just this old woman coming down the street. She saw us. She turned towards us and came over for a chat.
I’m not really sure what she said. We must’ve greeted each other. She was quite taken with the kids and my little three year old in particular. I could see that all she wanted was to hug him and hold him. But he didn’t want to be hugged by this stranger.
Her hair hadn’t been brushed. She had teeth missing. Her clothes were dirty, mismatched and ill-fitting.
I learned as she talked that she had children. She had a child around Otto’s age but they had been removed. She was full of love for her children. She was filled with love and warmth and compassion.
We talked a little more, I’m not sure about what. She said goodbye and went on her way.
This conversation is like every conversation, story or experience we shared with every single Aboriginal Australian we met on our trip around Australia. It was always surprising, enlightening (revealing our own prejudices) and always positive. Always, always positive.
We would hear the cautionary tales that you should stop on roads in the outback for an Aboriginal person because they’d just rob you or do something bad. We always asked the person telling us this story if they had experienced it. Never. But we were told this again and again by strangers.
We learned about country, kin, the matriarchal system, the stars and creation stories. We learned Australia has the oldest living culture on earth and yet we don’t know this, acknowledge this or celebrate this.
When we arrived in a new landscape, in another part of our country, we began to see what was missing. Where was the information to let us know who the traditional owners of this country were? What language group did they come from? What are the big creation stories?
The way I viewed landscapes became different. I stood on Injalak Hill and our local guide, Nelson, pointed out every feature of the landscape and for the first time it clicked, everything I could see had a story. Everything. There was a dreaming story for everything. We saw burial places in rocky crevasses. I wondered where the birthing places were. I could see ancient habitation sites that had only recently ceased being used.
The roads we travelled on were ancient footpaths. Ancient footpaths probably with ancient songlines attached to them. But most of us drive down these roads oblivious to the culture, the lore, the people and the land.
The more we travelled, the more these stories didn’t match with what we were seeing, hearing, observing and experiencing. Travel is a great way to be transformed, to learn not from reading or in classrooms, but to learn from observation and experience and from listening to the knowledge of other people.
The more we travelled, the more I connected to the land, my family, my children, my relationships with my own extended family and my relationships with traditional owners. The more we travelled, the more I wanted to know and understand. I know I could live a lifetime and understand such a small amount of the knowledge, wisdom and experience of each of Australia’s Aboriginal nations.