fixed by what they were doing. Our friend motioned for
us to take a closer look, by now we’d been joined by a
group from some sort of tourist bus. With cameras drawn
they immediately began pushing their way to the front,
all eager to capture an image of the ‘natives’ working on
something traditional. The mood changed almost imme-
diately.
Megan and I stood back and watched the scene play
out. I was saddened that the tourists weren’t actually lis-
tening, it seemed to be something they could tick off and
say they’d done.
Our friend seemed to sense something was wrong and
approached us, his smile was genuine yet something was
now missing.
“Where you from?”, our friend asked.
“Melbourne,” we both confirmed.
“We’re from Sydney, flew into Darwin yesterday.” One
of the tourists interrupted. Our friend nodded.
“How’d you get here?”, he motioned to us.
“Motorbikes,” I replied.
“We rode straight up the middle as quick as we could,”
Megan added. “To get to this paradise.”
The three of us nodded, by now a number of the tour-
ists were listening in. A few muted comments were made
about motorcycle travellers.
The tourists soon left and again we were absorbed in
the local story. We, and all of the men laughed as we told
stories of travel and adventure. Our friend, although a
Tiwi Islander, was fathered by a man from Tennant Creek
on the mainland, Northern Territory. Over a thousand
kilometres away, it wasn’t uncommon for him to walk
(hitch hike) the distance to see his father. We enthused
TRAVERSE 45