Got supplies at Broome. Off we go to the Dampier Peninsular. This place is heaven. The road up there has recently been asphalted so hurry up and go before everyone else finds out about it. I rang Gambana wilderness retreat which is a aboriginal community that allows you to camp on their land. The lady who runs the camp name was Shazz and she is very welcoming. The procedure is just roll up, set up, and meet me at the food van at 5pm to pay. There are toilets and showers and the food van operates from 7 to 9am for breaky and 5 to 7pm for burgers, perfect. This place is on the beach you can swim but there had been a Croc sighting so we only had a quick splash. The tidal movements are huge up there so your view was changing all the time. Sometimes there would be deep water on the shore and other times you could could see for miles across the rock pools and sand bars. The first night the sunset was incredible and you could hardly tell the sky from the ocean. I have never seen anything like it before
Where does the sky end??
Shazz on the mower which is the mode of transport
Beach hut for breaky and dinner or just a nice spot in the shade
Sunrise at Gumbana
The kids found a baby bird ( a Yellow tinted honey eater ) that had fallen out of the nest. He was unable to fly however his mum kept coming to feed him on the ground so the kids took it upon themselves to keep guard. I am happy to say that they were successful and by the time we left the bird (who was named Mango Jack) was starting to fly. The kids had some help with their wildlife caring from one of the local girls called Ruth and she was passionate about animals and told the kids all sorts of info about how they live and hunt up there.
We visited the Cygnet bay pearl farm a couple of times which was located just a few kms down the road. We did a tour of the farm and saw how they harvested a pearl
We also did a tour with Terry Hunter a (Bardi man) Terry was great and took us up to the point and shared with us some of his peoples culture and history Terry really focused in on Nash as alot of his traditional knowledge was men's business. He told us that the Bardi people do not do rock art, they do not play didge, and they do not have returning boomerangs, and they are the only aboriginal people that follow the fathers line all other aboriginal people follow the the Mothers line.
The Bardi people do do art however it is etched into oyster shells and worn on the body and it is strictly for men only, so when the pearling industry came along the Bardi were surprised to see that the shell was discarded and pearl inside (that was considered rubbish to them ) was then worn by women!
Terry also shared that his grandfather would sit on the point and start to sing songs that were ancient songs that told of the landscape and all the islands and tides. When his grandfather would sing Terry would ask "where are you now grandfather" and he would say I am on that island over there. He told us that his Ganfather could sing his way through the whole archipelago and most of the country.
The pearl farm also had a great pool that was free to use even if you weren't staying there so we had a few dips in there.
Feature creature
Mango Jack
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