Our journey north began with the deep, thrumming vibration of an engine and the even deeper vibrations of an ancient story. The plane set me down in Cairns – a humid, green place that felt a world away from home. But I wasn’t here for the postcard views. I was here to walk with the Yidinji nation.
An uncle, with a voice like the low rumble of earth moving, became our guide. Over the week, he drove us not to tourist lookouts, but to the old camping sites.
Two hundred odd years had passed since those grounds were last used as they were intended, yet the land remembered. As he spoke, the ghosts of campfires seemed to flicker at the edge of my vision. He told us the true stories of the shields now sleeping behind glass in museums and galleries here in Cairns. He breathed life back into them, telling of the trees they were cut from, the ceremonies they danced in, the men whose arms they protected.
The youth hostel where we were staying was a strange contrast to this profound immersion on Country. A transient place swirling with backpackers, fleeting hellos and shared eating spaces. With ten sleeping in a room, male and female, no one was game to snore or fart.
For us, a couple of ladies walking with ancestors, it was a fascinating experience. We were travellers on a different kind of journey and we couldn’t help ourselves. Over tea in the communal kitchen and sitting in the spa, we’d find ourselves gently educating those who paused to listen. We became accidental ambassadors, planting seeds in the fertile ground of young travellers’ minds.
A group of Canadians heard, for the first time, about the living culture of the continent they were skating across. Having just learned ourselves, the real history behind the “shields on display”, we felt compelled to share it truthfully.
One story told of a young fella made to clean the boots of a so-called nobleman. When he flicked his rag and a speck of mud landed on the man’s nose, the nobleman drew his gun and shot the boy in the head. True story.
As confronting as these accounts were to hear, and to carry, we did not leave diminished, but empowered. For our week in Cairns was over.
We returned home, back into the hard slog. The fight for freedom, for our people and for the rest of the world, does not pause for anyone. The weight of it settled onto my shoulders again, familiar and heavy. Yet something strange and wonderful began to unfold.
Upon our return, our home has become a gathering place. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Visitors have arrived, from across the world, and from other parts of this vast continent.
They come carrying their own stories, their own struggles, their own fires. They come because they’ve heard a whisper on the wind, perhaps from the German backpackers or the Canadian skaters. They come because the work we do, the stories we carry, is a magnet for those also seeking the truth. The slog is hard, but I am no longer just slogging. I am standing firm, planted like an old tree, while a new, wide circle of kin gathers in its shade.
The journey to Cairns is over, but the journey itself has only just begun.
