Lloyd Blog

In 1972 my father was posted to Papunya, an aboriginal community 240kms west of Alice Springs. This community was established by the government of the time to house the increasing number of displaced peoples who were no longer able to live their nomadic life of hunting and gathering due to the increasing push of cattlemen into their traditional lands. When our little family arrived there were over 1000 aboriginal people living in Papunya.  Dad and another police officer, Kennedy, were the only officers in an area that went as west as Kintore and East past Derwent station.

Being only 5 at the time of our arrival in Papunya my memories are little more than glimpses of events than full-blown recollections. Visiting Papunya for me was about pushing open those windows to see if I could remember things more clearly and I thought that just being there, standing on the red dirt would somehow tap into my hippocampus and let things out.

You can’t just go and visit Papunya as it is a restricted community so that was our first challenge – how could we get permission to go out and take a look? I emailed the principal of the Papunya school, Theo, and told him a little of our story and our reason for coming out to visit and if there would be a way he could assist us to achieve this goal. I still have never met Theo but within five minutes of me sending the email I received a phone call from Beth Turner who graciously invited us to stay with her family and offered to be our tour guide.

Driving out past the ever changing colours of the West Mc Donnell Ranges is something we recommend. We left Red behind as the road out is mainly dirt and hired a ubiquitous white Toyota Prada. Arriving just after lunch we realised that we didn’t know where Brian and Beth, our hosts for the week-end, lived!!! We headed to the centre of the community and the petrol station – got out of our car and asked the gentlemen serving at the bowser if he knew Brian Turner and he replied he did as that was him.

So began a blessed week-end of making connections with people from the present and past.

Coincidently, when we arrived many others were arriving from all over the area as the different aboriginal groups were coming together for a massive AFL tournament – which would last for nearly a week. The field was dirt and the markings on the field were made with lime. We took the opportunity to watch a number of games  –  the play was fast and frenetic.  We had been warned that play may turn nasty and that fights were likely to break out between teams and spectators – these concerns were backed by the number of police officers we saw in attendance. Normally in Papunya have three serving officers but today there were at least 10 on site.  But while we were there all remained calm. The game was interesting we – the off loads between players were so fast we didn’t see one player being tackled as you would normally in an AFL game.

We were given the opportunity to meet Sergeant Dan, the police officer in charge, and he gave us a tour of the police station. The house that we lived in is still there and one of the constables now calls the house home. We only got a brief glimpse of the house through a chain link fence as the police homes are now encased in 6ft fences. When we lived in Papunya we had no fences and if there were any problems in the camp people would come and knock on our front door looking for the on-duty police officer.

On Saturday night we were invited to a Christian sing-along – even though we were tired we decided to go along and listen to the singing. I am so glad we decided to go as we met Linda and Amos Anderson there who, once we got chatting, it was revealed that we would have been classmates at the school. The doors in my mind sprang open and memories came bouncing back. Together we reminisced about our school teacher Audrey Attwood and her pure white thongs that she miraculously kept clean in the red dirt, the floods and how food was dropped out of planes onto the oval, sitting on the verandah writing our letters on slate and swimming in the local dam.

The next morning I rose early to catch the sunrise and was not disappointed –

hues of purple and pink light up the West McDonnell Ranges. Later we said good-bye to our hosts and family.  It was a journey well off the beaten track but one we are glad we took.

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Rolling into Alice Springs after driving the only unlimited speed road section in Australia we were desperate for a good cup of coffee. Alice Springs is a lovely bustling outback town with interesting things to see and a good launch point for many of the sights in this area of NT.

We visited the School of the Air – as Donna had gone to that school for a few years as a child when she lived in Papunya and Anthony Lagoon. We found this awesome cafe and had a very late breakfast (noon) of eggs Benedict and the coffee was great! The cafe was called Page 27 and we highly recommend it if you are in The Alice.

Eggs Benny

We stayed in the awesome Desert Palms Resort. They were so good – they allowed us to park our car there for four days as we hired a 4WD to go out to Papunya and Kings Canyon.

School of the air radios

School of the air stuff

What a delight to come over the rise to see these golden globes of granite.

The stones are all circular in shape and can be large or small. Many of them sit precariously on top of each other.  The european term for these giants is Devil’s Marbles – and they are strewn across the ground as if mum has called in all the giant children for dinner and the kids have left the game as if to return once they have gobbled up their supper.

Mike and I wandered about the hectares of rocks. It was a lovely way to begin our day.

Looks like Mike is trying to push it over.

So far this trip we have driven about 4000 km but todays drive of 152km from Cape Crawford and Anthony Lagoon was amazing.

In two hours we drove through vastly different geography and flora. When we left Cape Crawford we drove through hill country with red sandstone rock formations erupting out of the escarpments, to roads lined with yellow flowering trees whose trunks were blackened by what we thought was a recent fire. Within a what seemed like no time at all our yellow flowers were replaced by tall eucalyptus trees lining river beds – a lush and tropical environment.

We left this tropical environment to travel through a forest of tall straight ghost gums grounded in red earth, the contrast of the colours was beautiful and impressive. These majestic white towers made way to scrub and silver leafed trees and red anthills.

When we began our journey on this morning I was expecting a flat prairie like landscape as this was what I could remember of my time living one the tablelands. I was beginning to question my memories as we had not yet seen anything that would resemble anything like this – until we came over a rise and there it was golden flat fields a far as the eye could see. 152kms and so many different landscapes in  just over one and half hours.

I have no idea what  my mother with three little children under 8 thought when my dad was posted to Anthony Lagoon a one man police station smack bang in the middle of the Barklay Tablelands. But into the outback, unknown isolation we went in 1974 to 1975. My memories of this place are rich and vivid – through childish eyes this was a wondrous place where so many amazing things happened – dealing with snakes at midnight, defending against a plague of rats, rowing through flood waters, being rained on by fish, travelling 100km to go to the movies, doing my schooling by radio, flying the flying doctor’s plane when I was being evaced to Alice Springs (was I really unwell? the passengers were after I finished flying), walking what I thought was miles to see my friend Frank the cook at the station (1km – in reality), hanging out with Daisy and the other kids at the trackers house all of this and more. So to return 41 years later was truly a moving moment in our journey. I had been warned by my father and Alan Hogan the police officer who took over after us that the place was now a ruin as the police station was closed in 1979 38 years ago. All that is left standing are a few remnants of what was the police precint – the gaol, trackers quarters, windmill, chicken pen and goat pen. Standing there where once stood a house and police station is now only spinefex, bushes – there is very little evidence  buidlings once inhabitied this place – but for coloured concrete, broken glass and what appears to be fragmented linoleum. Even so just being there brought back recollections – of a time that will never be seen or expereinced in our now modern, technical world. A world where the little things mattered – getting a letter from your school teacher, eating hot Anzac Cookies with your brest freind Frank the cook, singing siblantly around the campfire with ringers, going on adventures with your siblings where you roamed the empty  countryside barefoot and free.
To be able to visit again was magic – so even though our pictures are of delapadated buildings and nothingness – I hope you get a little sense of what life was like.

Getting to Anthony Lagoon – was an adventure in itself – we knew the property was only able to be accessed by a dirt road and it had been raining!! So with in trepidation we took Red out onto the dirt. All went well and even though red got a little!! muddy she is okay.
We wouldn’t have been able to visit without the hospitality of Cassie and Anthony Cox, Managers of the Anthony Lagoon – thanks for letting us come out and wander about.

Heartbreak Hotel, dedicated to Elvis, is located at the crossroads of the Tableland Highway and Carpentaria Highway. We stopped here for the night after leaving Darwin (867km). This was our most budget accomodation so far – we stayed in the what can best be described as a tin shed – with two beds. We shared the bathroom with the other residents who were also staying in similar accomodation to us. Of course I didn’t take the time to read the signs on the bathroom doors and walked into the men’s bathroom by mistake – thankfully the guy in the bathroom was dressed!!

Like Daly Waters Historic Pub and The Barkly Homestead, Heartbreak Hotel is a little oasis in the middle of nowhere. As usual the food was great and the serves were huge – we ordered Barra and Chips. Our plates came out with two good sized pieces of barra with salad and veggies and chips.
Once dinner was over we sat with a number of others in the dining area to cheer on our state. We sat next to a couple from NSW – who when the score was 6-4 in NSW favour left as they just knew that QLD was going to win. They were replaced by another family supporting NSW – who also left when the score was 12 – 4 in NSW favour. The only people who were left at the end of the game were QLDers!!. Yes I know we lost but what is it about the NSW supporters and not being able to stay for the whole game? I’m not going to say anything about the refs on the night, or that the penalties were 12 – 2 in NSW favour or that for some reason in this game the rule that you must be behind the kicker was relaxed but for some reason not everyone was aware that this rule was to be relaxed. But next week when the Broncos or the Cowboys play a club game …. will it still be relaxed….

Heartbreak Hotel

Our Quarters

The road out of Cape Crawford

Yes I know for those of you who know us – this is unbelievable. This is not a sexist thing – its just that Mike loves to drive – it is one of his most favourite things to do. Hence we are on a driving holiday! He would love to be a rally or racing car driver. So the fact that I got to be in the driver’s seat on this journey is a big thing.

I was the first to drive on the Tableland Highway from Daly Waters toward Cape Crawford – a one lane highway. (blue line on the map). And when we say one we mean one lane – when a car comes in the other direction – you move off the road so that you both share half the road. When a roadtrain comes you get right off the road, stop and allow the road train to pass so that they can stay on the road.

After staying a night at Cape Crawford (no where near the sea) we travelled south to Anthony Lagoon where I used to live when I was eight or nine. My dad was a police officer and we lived there for a year or so.