Monday 21st November, 2005
Up at eight and out of the house at about 25 past, en route around town to the suburb of Evatt to meet up with Darrell Lewis. The navigation went without hitch and I was there within 10 minutes to find Darrell outside watering his garden and generally on the look out for me.
He’s a fascinating guy; started out as a sample collector for a mining company and as such got his first introduction to the Queensland outback by taking on a summer contact to drive out from Brisbane and collect sample in the Victoria River District.
Over the next years he did similar trips, explored the area in detail and got to know some of the aboriginals of the area. He was commissioned to document the aboriginal rock art and returned for a longer period of fieldwork when his wife took on a PhD study of the aboriginal culture of the area.
At some point the notion of gathering a photographic archive of the area, sourced form the private photo albums of the cattle station managers and stockmen came in to being and from that research into the vegetational changes that have happened in the last hundred years.
I was particularly interested in some of the peripheral research which has resulted in documentation of the various graffiti carvings on the isolated Baob trees of the region – many of them going well back to the beginning of white Australian history. Other documentations include the messages and graffiti of passing stockmen exchanged with each other on the sides of the water tanks - apparently they’d just scrape or write messages on the tanks before moving on with their herds – it’s a very course social documentary of the time.
Anyway we had a good couple of hours discussion before I made my way back across town. Anne had been down to the local shops trying to get her hair cut … and she walked down there with Reg, who’s an old guy who lives up the road from Stuart and Di and who was delighted to fill her in on some local detail. Unfortunately for Anne its Monday and lots of places are closed on a Monday including the hair dressers.
We went along to a local café for lunch (iced coffees, ‘wedges’ and a sandwich) which is right next to the secondhand hand bookshop … and yes, it was closed as well. We had a 3 o’clock appointment at the school to collect the boys and after a brief stop off back at the house for juice and a snack we went to Government House with four bikes to cycle round the lake front.
Anne, me and the boys all set off with Duncan directing operations from the front, Stuart set off walking in the opposite direction with a rendezvous set for the Sculpture Park. I guess it took us half an hour or so, we stopped to look at one or two sights including the bell tower (it has a fancy name but can’t remember it) which is an angular structure on a sort of island in the lake, reached across a bridge. It was apparently a gift from the people of Britain … and a whole lot more useful than the very large stone pole with an eagle on top given, by America. Anyway we went round clockwise … and then spent about twenty minutes taking a series of experimental photographs of reflections of ourselves in the shiny public sculpture before returning to the car via the upper patios of the court house. In doing so we passed some interesting talking exhibits of the struggle for aboriginal recognition and parity. It also took us past the aboriginal embassy; a tented settlement from which plumes of blue smoke emanated and piles of logs could be seen stacked across the lawn. This is where the aboriginal representatives live and serves as an uncomfortable statement, which the white representatives have to deal with every time they look out of the window.
Stuart took a quick turn around the lake in the opposite direction and we got back through the traffic at about seven … just very slightly earlier than Di who had been out lecturing after work.
I caught up on a few diaries and generally relaxed for the evening.
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