To the ends of the Earth
February 22nd, 2008 Posted in Pets Guide A three-hour road trip to a resort run by local
Aborigines is worth every bone-jarring minute, writes Esther
Beaton.
The silence is tense. The sand has been washed flat by the
receding tide. The last rays of sunset create a vivid, many-hued
backdrop to the scene. We wait. Was that a movement? The bushes
slowly creep towards us. Suddenly they are flung aside to reveal
four men, brown torsos glistening with bright paint and
decorations.
Their feet begin to pound like drums, carrying the rhythm
through the sand. They shake their totem shields and move closer
and closer. Behind me, clapsticks take up the beat and in a nasal
wail an old man sings a story. The audience of 40 visiting American
college students sits enraptured.
The four young men from One Arm Point, a remote community in the
Kimberley, are dancing the stories of their ancestors.
As twilight deepens, little more is visible than the striking
chest markings, aglow with yellow paint and white feathers. Each
man proudly holds aloft his totem shield, originally designed by an
ancestor - each male descendant will contribute a part of the
design before passing it on to his son. One of the totems used
tonight can be tracked back five generations.
To witness this spectacle is easy - that is, once you’ve
survived the ordeal of “the road”.
The road from Broome to Kooljaman Resort at Cape Leveque, which
sits on the northern tip of the Dampier Peninsula, is a
220-kilometre endurance test of potholes and corrugations. Most of
the red dirt track is as straight as a gun barrel and if you’re
lucky enough to pass another car, you can watch it coming toward
you for the better part of half an hour.
In parts, the road is as wide as a four-lane highway, which
gives the car the freedom to pitch from side to side in the ruts
and for me to say my parting prayers.
The bone-jarring, white-knuckle journey ends after three hours
when we arrive at Kooljaman. We are on a sharp peninsula jutting
into the vast Indian Ocean and it feels like the end of the Earth.
If you walk to the furthest tip of the rocks, you can watch sunrise
on your right and sunset on your left.
Everything is saturated with colour: vivid red sandstone rocks
are sharply outlined by clear turquoise waters; intensely blue sky
stretches over miles of soft white sand. Incredibly, the swimming
pool-like water is croc-free.
It doesn’t take long after our arrival to see what makes this
“resort” such a multi-award winner. This is not a Club Med clone.
It has character unmatched anywhere else. There are several grades
of accommodation, from basic to luxury, and each is unique.
The camping area looks pleasant with its vast green lawn and
campground units. It’s April, the beginning of the dry and the
popular winter season, so there are only a couple of tents. I watch
a father cracking open a coconut fallen from a surrounding tree
while three little children sit on a log waiting for the treat.
Tucked between pandanus trees at beach level are open-air cabins
with roofs of palm thatch. Inside, fans whirr over beds with
mosquito netting, refrigerators and basic furniture - even
pictures. The most sophisticated accommodation is in the big green
Ladysmith safari tents from South Africa, positioned high on
stainless steel poles to catch both the view and the tropical
breezes.
Our choice - and the most popular - is the beach hut, a simple
shelter made of a pole framework filled in with palm thatch. I spot
the shower in the corner and immediately see myself as Isak Dinesen
in the movie Out Of Africa with Robert Redford washing my hair.
The freedom is luscious - throwing my head back in my open-air
shower with no need to towel off - the shorts and top I put on are
dry in a few minutes. Perched on the sandstone just above the high
tide mark, these shelters are the resort’s closest accommodation to
the beach, yet still give absolute privacy. We bask in the illusion
of utter abandonment like shipwrecked sailors on a long-forgotten
coastline.
We start the evening sitting in front of the shelter, cooking
over our fire and watching the fiery sun sink into the sea. But
when music wafts towards us on the warm evening air, I must
investigate.
We walk barefoot across the sand and find Dinka’s Restaurant. In
keeping with the relaxed tropical lifestyle, the service is laid
back. We are told to put our BYO wine and beer in the fridge and to
place our order at the till.
We stretch into the chairs on the open-air platform and don’t
miss a moment of the sunset. “Welcome to paradise,” my partner
toasts. “We made it.”
What miracle of organisation is behind this unique mix of
comfort and wilderness - surely some corporate giant housed in a
distant capital city? In fact, it is the exact opposite. The owners
are the local Aboriginal community: every single Bardi between the
two communities of One Arm Point and Djarindjin-Lombadina owns
Kooljaman jointly, from the youngest babe to the eldest elder.
A board of six elected directors reports back to the communities
as a whole, while a white managerial staff answers to the board.
Assistant manager Adrian Hartley says, “We explain what needs
improving and make recommendations. It’s very amicable; we have a
good laugh. I’m impressed [by the] wonderful relationship we
have.”
The resort was set up in 1986 with the assistance of an
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission loan, which has
been completely repaid. In the words of Brian Lee, a long-time
member of the board of directors, the original dream was “to
develop a low-key, low-impact project … that can be controlled by
the local people … where visitors are able to experience the
beauty of the local area and participlate in unique
experiences”.
The ideal is that management eventually will revert to the
Aborigines and there is an active program in place to turn the
management over to the Bardi. Young locals are encouraged to study
- with Dwes Wiggan and Laurette Davey recently becoming the first
Bardi to receive certificates in hospitality and tourism at Broome.
They now work on the staff at Kooljaman.
The success of Kooljaman has encouraged residents on the Dampier
Peninsula to set up independent tourism businesses of their own and
the region now has more indigenous tourism than any other in
Australia.
The resort itself is suffused with Bardi culture - from the
artworks, artefacts and indigenous publications on sale in the gift
shop to the interpretative signs and murals that display
information about Bardi seasons.
The connection with the local Aborigines also means there are
many unique indigenous experiences for tourists. Local guides
provided a range of tours from mudcrabbing and bush tucker, to
storytelling walks and tours of exclusive bays and beaches -
incorporating fishing, swimming and snorkelling.
We take up the invitation to glimpse inside the private world of
the Bardi community at One Arm Point through a special 4WD tour
with Wundargoodie Aboriginal Safaris.
After splashing 17 kilometres through giant potholes left after
the wet, we arrive in a tranquil village of palm-thatched shelters
tucked into an azure cove. Gulls feast in the shallows on the
remains of a dugong that had been hunted and killed in the
traditional way that morning.
We tour the trochus shed, which houses one of the region’s
biggest success stories - it has flourished under the patronship of
Kooljaman. The large conical shells of the Trochus niloticus,
gathered from reefs at the subtidal levels, are brought here to the
shed for polishing.
This highly successful microbusiness is the only one of its kind
in Australia and it supplies about 10 tonnes of shells a year to
Italy’s fashion industry for making buttons. A newly installed
trochus hatchery provides seed to replenish the reef and keeps the
industry sustainable.
It’s apparent that with increasing income, art is also
flourishing in the communities, as young people discover their
talents and start painting their totems and dreamings.
My soul is full. I have had an unforgettable experience of being
let into the heart of a community so different from my own. I have
seen one of the few ventures in Australia where Aboriginal
traditions integrate wholly within a western business
structure.
And the welcome is sincere. The Bardi want us to come, to visit
them and to share their wealth - the wealth of the sea, the land
and especially, the spirit. It is well worth a little bit of rough
road.
Fast facts
Getting there
Qantas, Virgin Blue and Skywest fly to Broome. 4WD road
transfers can be booked at the same time and cost $60-$215 each
way. Air transfers with King Leopold Air are $190 a person each
way. The road is 4WD only and can be negotiated only in the dry
season, between March and November. No caravans. Several companies
in Broome hire 4WDs.
Staying there
Bookings are essential and must be for a minimum of two nights.
No pets. There are off-season specials between November and March.
Kooljaman Cape Leveque, phone (08) 9192 4970 or see http://www.kooljaman.com.au.
Safari tents are $240 a night twin share. Log cabins with
ensuite are $140 a night twin share. Beach shelters (pictured) are
$60 a night twin share. Mini safari tents are $60 a night twin
share. Campground units: $100 a night twin share. Camping is $16 an
adult.
The restaurant is open from mid-April to mid-October. Alcohol is
not available but you are welcome to bring your own. Other services
include Bush Butler meals, general store, community shops and fuel
at nearby One Arm Point and Djarindjin communities.
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Tags: abandonment, absol, amp, ash, bet, feathers, freedom, holes, lear, loc, Pet, pets, signs, tradition, walks
