A Bit of Culture and a Bit of Wildlife

Aussie term of the day…

“Esky" - means "cooler box." They are called such because that is the company that makes them.  That's another thing I have noticed here, they commonly call things by their brand name or the company that makes them and not by what they actually are.  Let's take orange soda for example.  You could certainly order an orange soda by simply saying "orange soda" but more likely than not you would instead ask for a "Fanta." 

            It was the first “Free lunch Friday” to close off the week and there were a number of demonstrations by Aborigine and Torres Strait peoples to showcase parts of their culture.  There was a group of older women that taught students how to weave using palm branches and then a group of younger men that demonstrated traditional tribal dancing and the playing of the didgeridoo. 

Learning some palm weaving

The finished product!

            One interesting thing that I learned was that the hair skirts that they wear are actually made of real human hair.  Apparently, the tribes’ people commonly grow their hair out in dreadlocks for the sole purpose of making skirts out of them, which I thought was fascinating! Also, a lot of the dancing they do is symbolic of different creatures you would commonly find in Australia, like the kangaroo, the wallaby, the emu… And they each represent different things. 

The dance group "Echoes of the Past." It was an uncle and all his nephews that made up the group.

One of the dances they performed

A video of some of the tribal dancing they did.  So cool!!

            Saturday we made a point of going out and doing something fun! Shane, Michelle, and I started it off with some pancakes for the morning (the first I have had since coming here) and then headed out to a handmade market put on by a local school which the other Julia had told me about. That was really cool to see the things people had set up and the clever products they were selling. Things like origami jewelry, palm leaf weaving's, wood carving with feathers and leaf prints on them, prints of gorgeous photographs, intricately sewn dresses and child clothes...  Apparently it’s something they do every month and they have a bigger one coming up in a couple weeks.  I might just have to go to that one!

            The main thing we did though was take a 30 minute drive down towards Mackay to a beautiful hiking and swimming area called Alligator Creek.

            We didn’t do much with the hiking today, though we do want to come back some time and do that fairly rigorous 10 mile hike up to the falls. We mostly just stuck to the swimming part.  It was way fun getting to swim around, scramble across rocks, and just enjoy the general scenery.  It was beautiful! The water was crystal clear and not too cold, and the hills surrounding were covered with lush greenery.

Getting a face full of water courtesy of Shane. Thanks mate

Beautiful Alligator Creek!

            The one complaint I would have was that there were A LOT of mosquitoes! Oh my lanta were there ever! I would definitely take a load of strong mossie repellent next time.

            One of the highlights I must say was that we got to see the most beautiful blue Kookaburra any of us had ever seen! Not saying much on my part since I have only seen about four thus far, but Michelle and Shane had never seen one quite like it before either.  It was so cool to just watch it hang around our area and swoop down at times to catch a piece of food or a cricket that caught it’s eye.  And when it flew, oh my gosh! I was the prettiest thing!

            And of course we go to see some other pretty common but still super cool wildlife

One of a flock of EXTREMELY friendly bush turkeys.

Two of the umpteen wallabies we saw grazing around the picnic areas