Friday, 18 May 2012

Day 413: Willie Gordon's Guurrbi Tours


The reason I drove all the way up to Cooktown was to go on Willie Gordon's Guurrbi Tour to look at Rock Art in his area.  His tours are very highly rated and this is because he has definitely got the gift of the gab.  It's quite amazing how he can talk, seemingly informally about art, the stories that go with it, family life, politics, history, land rights, personal anecdotes, flora and fauna of the bush, ... and then, the next day, he does it again, I guess. It is personalised: Willie was great with the three kids who were on our tour. He'd visited Britain so it was really interesting to hear what he had to say about us as well. He seemed particularly interested, though not impressed, by Richard Dawkins, but he also had things to say about several Australian personalities I never heard of. I managed to cause trouble by not caring where I had been born, being hazy about my national identity, and eating half the witchetty grub he had intended for himself!  I had a great time though. There's actually so much content there that it's hard to summarise, so if you get the chance to go on this tour yourself, do it. There's a lot of Aboriginal cultural experience tours in Australia, but Willie isn't easily replaceable, I imagine.

PS: I forgot to mention that the art was interesting, the witchetty grubs were tasty and the bit of bush we visited was beautiful even in the rain.

Rock art
Mid-morning snack

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