Day 2 ... through Flinders Ranges to Iga Warta

I started the morning with more determination and a better idea for pacing myself. Jarrod had already chatted with me about the climbing challenges ahead and I thought I could do Wilpena Pound but pretty much knew that the Kings Canyon Rim Walk was beyond me.

Breakfast and breaking camp was pretty much a schemozzle - not working as a team yet. My back and each hip ached. I had to find a solution to being strangled by the sleeping bag each time I rolled to ease the aches. The morning walk seemed to sooth the old body.

Wilpena Pound and the story of the early settlers was sobering. There were many times during this entire trip where we came across abandoned settlements - and I imagined the shattered lives that this implied. Even to the extent of pathetic graveyards. Only in the last 50 years has white man learned to live in tune with nature instead of trying to mould it.

Having a number of "geologists" in our midst, Brachina Gorge was always going to be a ball. The Brachina Gorge Geological Tour is a 20 kilometre self-guided trail that passes through 130 million years of earth history, giving an insight into past climates, the formation of the ranges and the evolution of early life forms.The information panels at the start of the gorge were really useful (as were many of this sort of bushipaedia). Kerstin chose for us to stop at Site 1 (Trezona Formation - 630 million years old) and Site 9 (Rawnsley Quartzite - 550 million year old). Jarrod was always interested in the Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby.This species, which is listed as vulnerable, inhabits rocky outcrops in semi-arid country, ranging from sandstones, limestones and conglomerates in the Flinders Ranges to granites in the Gawler Ranges and Olary Hills.

Our camp for the evening was at the Aboriginal community of Iga Warta. I discussed this community with Jarrod later. It really did not showcase Aboriginal culture in a way that was uplifting. They only have a 32 year lease on their landholding which indicates that maybe the government is giving them a chance but without much confidence that they will succeed. The songs and dances that we participated in around the campfire that evening as Terry Coulthard strummed his guitar became the running joke for the rest of the tour - an empty stomach forever indicated with "Oh, my walla". Not good.

Terry claimed that his Adnyamathanha mob did not have the didgeridoo as part of their tradition but from what I have read since, it was endemic in that part of central Australia. I know we have to be culturally sensitive - but there was nothing but a strumming guitar and stories that would not have passed muster for "Play School". To say the least - I was embarrassed.   

Comments

[Julie]

I understand what you are sayiing - just like Kentucky Fried Chicken debases all foods. But wouldn't you think that marketing would make them see the way to spin their community. My daughter calls it the "pride of the dark ages" - she reckons I want to keep them ancient and cute and not see them debased by the dregs of western civilisation. But that is only condemning them to a past that they have outgrown and which serves them ill in today's society.

[Claudia]

Is there really a pure aboriginal culture? My experience of working, as a nurse, with the Indians-Crees, and the Eskimos-Inuits, (that we must now name "Autochtones" for political correctness), showed me that their so-called native culture and religion was a mixture of long-ago-vodoo and western christianity. Contacts with missionaries and white developers had strongly stamped out the original essence of their "traditions".