Life goes on in Lajamanu

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all keeping well and sane during this bizarre time. This is my third letter to you from the outback.

At this time of borders being closed and travel restrictions, the best place to be is locked inside a national park. Lucky me. For the past few weeks everyone in Lajamanu has been restricted in terms of travelling. School children from boarding schools outside of Lajamanu were flown in and residents of Lajamanu who were living in other communities were transported back to Lajamanu and vice versa. Considering the arson attack on the hospital and the break-ins that occurred before the travel restrictions were brought in, all the adults in Lajamanu were worried that the crime rate would go up with so many kids now being present with no school to keep them occupied. Miraculously we have not had a single incident here and everyone is on their best behaviour and adhering to the travel restrictions by staying put in Lajamanu. Schools are back in session in the Northern Territory which is a big relief for the parents. The nightly arguments and fights between different Warlpiri families have now been replaced by beautiful music and singing.

Due to COVID-19 health protocols the ranger programme across the Central Land Council was indefinitely suspended a few weeks ago (with pay of course). This was to ensure we adhered to social distancing measures, reducing risk of transmission and to ensure the rangers spent time with their families at this difficult time. Whilst my ranger team do reach out and say that they are bored, they are making use of this time to pass on cultural knowledge to their kids. Many families seem to be spending their time going camping inside the park and there is a strong sense of stability that has been brought to Lajamanu. My senior ranger, Dione Kelly (my nephew in the Warlpiri social structure as his mother is my sister despite me being 15 years his junior) has been fishing and taking his family camping to places he hasn’t visited in a while every weekend. As you can imagine with the absence of rangers most of my field work has been thrown out the door. Only my ranger coordinator, Craig Reid and I come into the office. It feels very empty not having the rangers around, but Craig and I find ways to get out of the office, even if it involves just a leisurely drive around the town so that we don’t go insane.

We were able to go on three field trips, but the last two with a very limited work force. My first day trip with the full ranger team was to a place called Kamira. This place is very unique in the park as it is the only known place where a spring entrance occurs. The purpose of this trip was to show me around the park and also to check how this spring entry point could be fenced to prevent invasive herbivores from polluting the creek it replenished. The drive was 3 hours and the main road had been severely damaged by the recent flooding from the cyclone that went through the park two weeks before I left Alice Springs. The downside of the outback is the number of flies which swarm you. You need to wear a fly net to protect yourself. I have yet to get used to these pesky insects, but I’ve noticed they vanish once the sun goes down. I was very lucky to see my first wild dingo and an even rarer treat was that it had a black fur coat (a rare genetic variation resulting in a black coat like that of the Black Panther). The rangers very eagerly showed me different water bodies, caves, plants and even taught me how to make a fire which created smoke to disperse the flies. We checked out the spring entrance and then had hot dogs for lunch, cooked over an open wood fire. I was taking photos of all the fun things we were doing and the rangers enthusiastically posed for me and wanted me to take their photos so that I could send it to my family and friends to show that I was being well taken care of. On the return trip I was treated to another sighting of a dingo, this one with the traditional brown fur coat.

Our second trip was an overnight one to a wetland called Mirirrinyungu (Duck Ponds in English) which is 110km east off Lajamanu. The purpose of the trip was to check if there were cane toads present, if the water body was in good condition and also to report on the track condition so that it could be graded. We were allowed to take one ranger with us, Silas James, who has been very eager to take me out there. Silas brought his 17-year-old son with him and his 3 dogs. The drive was lovely, but the track was in terrible condition in many places. It took us almost 3 hours to drive out there. The vegetation had encroached onto the track to such an extent that unless you knew where you were going one would never know where the road was in some places. This track is scheduled to be graded in the next few weeks which will make the drive shorter and more enjoyable next time.

Silas and his son had caught a goanna (land monitor) and a bush turkey (Australian Bustard), but decided to take them back home instead of cooking them outdoors. Craig and I were not very happy that they didn’t share their bounty with us considering they skinned the goanna in front of us. Craig prepared a gourmet dinner of steak, salad and sausages for dinner over an open fire. After dinner we monitored the wetland for Cane Toads which were absent thankfully. We rolled out our swags for the night and the three dogs decided to take a swag each for themselves. We reached a compromise with the dogs where I was the lucky one who spent the whole night having the swag to himself, whilst the other three had to share their swags with a dog (the dogs made the decision). Silas very graciously offered to keep a look out for snakes that night, but yours truly was the one who ultimately was the lookout for everyone as the other three didn’t stir for anything till the morning. During the night one of the three dog’s started barking and ran after an animal who was barking at it from the other side of jeep. Naturally I thought it was a dingo and got up to have a look, but had a good laugh when I realised that both dogs had mistaken the other for a dingo and were growling and barking at each other till the third dog came running up wagging its tail as if to ask his friends what all the fuss was about. Of course at 5am in the morning a dingo did come within 10 feet of where we were camping only to get the fright of its life when our three dogs chased it away.

The third trip involved Craig and myself checking the cattle fence of our rather difficult cattle station neighbour, Suplejack Cattle Station, who happily allow cattle to roam into the national park. The cattle were destroying habitats and polluting water ways. We went in two vehicles so that in case one broke down or got stuck we could head back home in the other. The fence put up to prevent cattle entering the park had not been maintained in several places and cattle were indeed present inside the park. Craig’s vehicle had two flat tyres on that trip (each vehicle has two spares). We could afford two more flats, but after that we would be in trouble. Luckily that was the end of the tyre drama, but with no track as such most of our journey involved bush bashing by jeep and navigating back to the fence line when we lost it. I got a lot of practice driving on 4WD gears while we drove through loose sand, hard rock and dry creeks. We only finished our fence inspection at 4:15pm and had to race back to Lajamanu before the sun set at 6:30pm. We got into Lajamanu at 6:25pm with just enough time to drop off our gear at the office and get home before dark.

I’ve started a choir/music group in Lajamanu that meets weekly. It comprises of a few nurses and teachers and we sing both secular and spiritual music. It is very informal and lots of fun and it keeps us all sane and occupied since we can’t leave Lajamanu. We also occasionally meet up to watch a movie together at someone’s house or meet up for a chat after church. My brother ordered a keyboard for me and my house is now filled with music each evening as I tickle the keys and it further enriches the choir experience.

Despite everything that is going on in the rest of Australia and the world, life in Lajamanu carries on as usual including services being held every Sunday. I am slowly learning a few of the Warlpiri hymns. On Good Friday and Easter we had a huge turn-out at church. The Warlpiri start greeting each other ‘’Happy Easter’’ on Good Friday itself which I found funny. One of the men was dressed up as Jesus and was made to carry a cross from church to an outdoor area called ‘’Holy Ground’’ at the end of the town where the Warlpiri community meets very regularly to conduct bible studies and sing Warlpiri music. It was hilarious as it took three people to get him dressed in his robe which should have been a simple process, whilst everyone else had him surrounded and were laughing and taking photos of the costume struggle that unfolded in front of us.

On Easter about 20 people were baptised in the creek. The water levels had run so low I was amused as to how they were going to submerge people. Also the creek had stopped running and the patches where water was deep enough to submerge people was stagnant. I was glad I was not getting baptised as the water looked awful, but luckily no one fell ill. The number attending church has gone up significantly since Good Friday and the church keyboard makes a regular appearance at church, played by their keyboardist. Unfortunately for me with the church numbers going up, combined with COVID-19 worries has resulted in a sermon being preached every week by either Jerry Jangala Patrick or Lynette Napangardi Tasman (my grandfather and sister respectively in the Warlpiri culture) as everyone wants to hear assurances from the bible that we’ll be safe. As good as this may be, I have to endure listening to sermons again. My no sermon Sundays are no more or at least for the near future that is. Maybe once this virus ends the service will return to its simple no sermon format (fingers crossed).

The school teachers invited me on a day trip on Anzac day to Sambo Lake which is 80km north of Lajamanu. We had a lovely time swimming in the lake whilst a few teachers tried fishing, but didn’t catch anything. There were fresh water crocodiles upstream, but we were safe in our swimming spot. My senior ranger had left his canoe by the lake so we used it to move around the lake. We had a few close calls where we almost fell in, but it was loads of fun.

I recently went and had a chat with Jerry Jangala (leader of the Warlpiri in Lajamanu) and his son Stephen (former lecturer of Aboriginal Studies at Australia National University) about the national park and Warlpiri cultural matters. The conversation was delightful and the two of them were very open in their imparting of knowledge and answering all my questions. Jerry has a special high elevation folding chair reserved for him in our ranger shed which I took along with me when I went to see him. He was very happy when I took it out of the jeep and he felt important sitting on his special chair. I will be meeting both Jerry and Stephen more often to learn about their song lines and dreaming stories.

The locals now refer to me by my skin name, ‘’Japangardi’’. It’s a good sign that indicates that I have been accepted into the tribe. The Warlpiri people wave and say hello whenever they see me and do indeed listen to me when I speak to them (not that I order them around or tell them what to do) or advise them of progress with regards to conservation or COVID-19 matters.

Last week we had to go retrieve a scooter which had been dumped in the creek by a few kids. The things you find in the unlikeliest of places. We had to tow the scooter out of the creek, but then had an issue where the steering mechanism had to be operated manually for it to work. So I had to get on the scooter and steer it while, Craig drove the jeep towing it. I must have looked such a stupid sight, thankfully no one was around to take a picture. Our intention was to take it all the way to the owner’s house, but the back wheels got jammed due to it being in water for so long. We missed a glorious opportunity of giving the town a good laugh where they would have seen their head of the national park riding a broken down scooter being towed by a jeep through the town. I suppose this is what happens when two conservationists are stuck in the office for too long and need to find ways to have fun.

My two furry friends, Indi and Lottie, continue to grace me with their presence every day. Lottie is like a wound up toy who runs around the place when she gets too excited while both Indi and I look at her with the same resigned expression our faces. Lottie follows me around everywhere I go and very slyly even tries to climb onto the sofa with me while I read. She loves jumping on me, but there are times she has caught me off guard when she runs towards me and leaps. She ran out the gate one evening when I got back after work and came running to the jeep. So I put her in the jeep and drove her back home as she happily sat in the passenger seat for that 10 second drive.

Indi on the other hand is her same old graceful self who absolutely loves to be cuddled and petted. She is a saint when it comes to Lottie as she is very tolerant and patient of her hyperactive sister, but she does have a mischievous streak too. The two of them have a game where they know very well that they shouldn’t go out of the gate while I am moving my vehicle out, but will go out and try and get me to run around the area to catch them and bring them back home.