I’ve been up in far north Queensland for the last two weeks, enjoying two completely different adventures. The first adventure was the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival.
I flew in to Cairns, leaving behind an icy cold 7 degrees Canberra winter, stepping off the plane in to 30 degrees of happiness. Bruce and Omar came to pick me up and took me straight to our room at Gilligan’s, a hectic hostel on the main strip. Caught up with the crew, 12 strong, including Dan whom I haven’t seen since October when I visited him in Oxford, which is where he yields his academic light saber these days.
A few beers at the bar, lots of laughs, and damn man it was good to get my relax on, without a worry on my mind. I guess I’ve been working pretty hard on my PhD studies back in C town, and i very rarely get to chill the fuck out 100% for days at a time.
We drove up to Laura, about 7 hours north in Cape York the next day, Bruce and I taking control of the 2 monster 4 wheel drives we hired to transport the 12 of us.
Then for the next 4 days we cooked our meals on the camp fire, slept under the stars on tarps, washed ourselves in the river and were immersed in aboriginal culture. There were some 20 tribes who would share their stories and a window in to their rituals and ways of life, through dances.
Bruce repped his tribe Aurukun hard and I filmed a bit of their dancing. I was so blown away by his dancing man, it was a side of Bruce I’ve rarely seen before. He’s usually the life of the party with his jokes and infectious charisma, and so to see him dead serious and obviously amazingly proud of his home town was mad humbling.
Bruce Martin and fellow dancers from Aurukun at the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival, 2009.
Like any camping trip, it becomes more about the people you are with. It was a fairly tight group, I guess the core group had gone to grammar together and were super close, to the extent that I sometimes felt a little on the outside, but it was always good times with plenty of laughs.
Omar was on fire the whole trip, the dude’s got jokes for days and had the entire camp in stitches with his sometimes exaggerated but always entertaining story telling. I remember one night I’d fallen asleep while Bruce and Omar were telling hilarious stories right through the night, and I kept hearing snippets of dialogue in my dreams and would wake up laughing.
Celia, Bruce’s mate from way back when, deserves a mention for dominating the campfire kitchen, smashing out tastalicious curries, stews and cooked brekkies.
Last Thoughts:
The day after we got back to Cairns, I caught a bus up to Palm Cove for a science conference which is where I’m writing this from now. There are 2 king size beds in my room, we’ve been eating Barramundi, rib eye fillet steaks, and wines to match every night while the resort overlooks golf courses and beaches. The knowledge they’re showering us with here is dope and I feel like I'm attending the Scholastic Jedi Academy, but you know what? I’d trade it all in to be back at the camp fire by the river aye.
