Lajamanu to Daly Waters
It rained for five days without stopping. Hooker Creek, which I’ve never seen with water in it, filled with Warlpiri kids and kayaks. There are a handful of waterholes around Lajamanu, but they can only be accessed by car — so all the kids embraced this flood water, right on their doorstep. This is Tabra Cook, who I’ve photographed every year of her life since she was born.
What was great for kids, though, was slightly less great for anyone dumb enough to have ridden a motorcycle into the desert.
Day by day, Lajamanu Road, the only way in and out of community, became more and more impassable. The day before my departure, 4x4s struggled to reach Lajamanu. The road became a series of floodways over 150km of thick clay and mud. By the day of my departure, the road was totally underwater and we weren’t sure the bus would make it through.
All the same corrugations, wash outs and pot holes were still there — just underwater and invisible now. And although part of me genuinely wanted to just give it a go, just ride until the bike stopped in the mud… I decided against it for Moon’s sake.
I booked a seat on the ‘bush bus’ and loaded the bike on the supply truck. Moon and I boarded the bus at first light. It’s a 4x4 bus but it still struggled to get across the track. In places the flood water was deeper than its wheels.
Moon hated the bus.
By the time we reached Katherine, I’d received a message saying the truck was still in Lajamanu and it was uncertain whether it could get through the floodwater. Not the news I was hoping for! But the uncertainty didn’t last long. It was still raining, so the truck driver decided to risk the drive rather than being trapped until the track dried out. Moon and I slept in the Ibis motel in Katherine — one of the most dog friendly places we’ve been so far — and collected the bike the next morning.
And what a sad and sorry state it was in! No serious damage, but it had obviously been a rough trip. The bike was covered in mud, the footplate on the side stand had come off, the oil filter plate had slipped and oil leaked everywhere (my fault because I’d snapped one of the bolts changing the filter in Lajamanu). I booked the bike into R&M Motorcycles and collected it later that day with the driving lights reattached, the oil leak fixed and a lovely new rear D606 tyre.
Moon and I headed out to Rocky Ridge nursing home to see my dear friend Henry Jackamarra Cook, the last grey kangaroo dancer of the Tanami, and the last surviving witness to the Coniston massacre.
At well over 100 years old, Henry has swapped his trademark akubra for a plastic party hat… don’t worry, I’m sending him a new akubra as soon as I get home!
He recognised me right away and started singing his kangaroo jukurrpa song. I’d brought a zoom recorder belonging to the National Library so we could record his account of the massacre at Coniston, the last acknowledged massacre of Aboriginal people (but let’s not kid ourselves that it was the last massacre).
As I was about to go he asked me to wait, and getting up from his chair he danced the grey kangaroo for me one last time. I will carry that image of Henry with me to the grave. One moment he was old Jackamarra Cook in a nursing home, and the next he was a grey kangaroo. Those of you who have been blessed enough to witness countrymen dancing will know exactly what I mean…
Moon and I jumped back on the motorcycle and headed south, to Daly Waters pub. The DR650 was driving like a new bike. You’d never guess it had been over the Tanami.
We slept with brumbies eating grass next to our heads… and rain on the tent. Moon is happy to be back on the bike and so am I. It’s wonderful being in community with our Warlpiri friends, but there’s something so free about being on the motorcycle, when it’s just me and him and the road.
Hawks everywhere this morning — circling just over the treetops and sitting beside the highway. We’ll try to reach Karlu Karlu tonight, maybe even Alice. Moon is feeling strong enough now, after the snake ordeal, to bark at strangers and pee on the chairs at the pub. It’s going to be a great day.
