No fanfare ... Rob Bamkin, elder Harry and the community members.Credit: Craig Tansley
Craig Tansley bypasses tourist traps to rub shoulders with Kimberley locals.
THERE were several twists of fate but, ultimately, this business came down to 13 camels and a brand spanking new flush toilet.
Rob Bamkin was a regular "white fella" from the big smoke of Broome when he stumbled upon the folk who would become his life's passion. Contracted by the Jarlmadangah Aboriginal Community to help with landscaping and irrigation, Bamkin fell for the people of the Jarlmadangah. He saw the camels the young blokes rode like seasoned pros and day after day he used that flush toilet in the middle of the desert.
"I asked Harry (the community's elder) what the camels were for and how the toilet came to be," Bamkin says. "He told me they brought white people on tours out here three times a year. I looked around me, at the beauty of this place in the Kimberley, and I said, 'Harry, how about we do two or three tours a week?"'
That's why I'm sitting in this Mitsubishi 16-seater bumping along a bone-rattling red dirt track, past endless termite mounds and 1500-year-old boab trees with trunks as wide as the bus, while columns of red-rock cliffs surround me as if I'm riding a stagecoach through a spaghetti western.
It's hot out here; bloody hot. The sun scorches the Kimberley from a sky of blue tainted with just a single weary, white cloud that won't last the morning. We're barely two hours from the bright lights of Broome but it's as if we've travelled for days.
This pock-marked road was once the old coach trail to Halls Creek. If you look hard, you'll see the cobblestones laid by hand (by Aboriginies mostly, used as slave labour), which mark its boundary. It's lonely out here; we haven't seen another person since the driver of the road train that nearly blew us off the road more than 40 kilometres back. Outside our windows, Earth starts a spiral; the Grant Ranges jut at right angles, Mount Anderson looms ahead, as red as Mars, and an old Aboriginal man with a ghost-white beard, resplendent in a pair of bright green-blue sunglasses, waits patiently with a caravan of cranky camels.
There's no tourist fanfare when we arrive; there's no dancing, no one spruiks postcards and, thankfully, no one plays a didgeridoo (as in most parts of central Australia, Aboriginies didn't play didgeridoos). Harry comes forward to meet us, pushing his sunglasses forward on his nose. He was born under the tree we're standing beside about 70 years ago but he can't say for sure.
He's never left this place; he's never wanted to. It's his land, although he grew up working for the white owners of Liveringa Station. But when they left, it was his land once again. Harry lives among the remnants of this former sheep station and shearing shed with his grandsons, TJ and Erwin.
They help us on to our camels, their confidence obvious around the notoriously testy animals. "They grew up with them," Bamkin says. "They trust 'em more than humans."
Harry's story begins with his spotting a white man walking a herd of camels through his land. Harry figured he'd be hungry so he took the man a lump of meat. The man was "Cas", the first camel operator on Broome's Cable Beach, who had walked his camels 2500 kilometres from Alice Springs. He left a couple of camels for Harry to learn to ride.
TJ leads us off. It's dry out here; we wind our way past old windmills, which pump from
tired-looking billabongs where kingfishers fly kamikaze missions at our camels. There's no rehearsed commentary - the words must be pried from TJ, teased out like you're fly-fishing for clever trout. He's ridden camels since he was 12, half his life.
Once, he and Harry went to Broome to take some of Cas's Cable Beach camels back to Jarlmadangah. I ask how long it took. "Four days and three nights, riding from 3am until 11 at night," he says. "Oh boy, did my bum hurt."
What did you eat along the way? "We hunted for food," he says. "But those stupid camels, they were Cable Beach tourist camels; they had to stop to watch the sun set every day. And every noise in the bush made them scream like big girls, ay."
We ride like this for an hour, TJ warming to telling his tales. He points at a brown snake slithering away in the undergrowth and shows us dingo tracks. At lunch we eat barbecued chicken sandwiches with Harry and his charges, anxious to hear more stories, but they shut up shop and savour their food.
The Jarlmadangah community is a five-minute drive away; it's a rustic settlement built in the lee of Mount Anderson. Our bus is the only one allowed to visit but our arrival hardly attracts attention, although tiny kids flock like flies. The streets are red dirt; a small school on the edge of town is the biggest building you'll see. We go to a cultural centre for a presentation.
It's usually about this time I start to lose interest but, like most things today, this talk is far from the cliched spiel. TJ takes the floor, then won't take his eyes off it. Bamkin looks on, prompting him; when we laugh at a joke, Bamkin looks the happiest I'll see him all day. He loves these kids and later he shares his concerns. "I want to give them something to stay here for," he says. "If they want to stay with their people it keeps them away from the temptations in Broome."
At the end of the day, Bamkin serves damper and black tea from a billy beside sacred Aboriginal caves, adorned with centuries-old art, while the kids gather around, politely waiting for leftovers.
Bamkin explains this tour is owned by the Jarlmadangah - he works for them. He says they don't have the money for marketing, so other businesses in Broome attract the tourists. Like the kids with the damper, he has to be content with leftovers; visitors who find other tours booked out.
Three hours later, I'm back in the airconditioned comfort of my hotel in Broome. In 12 hours I've bridged two worlds and already I miss Harry's camels and his flush toilet smack-bang in the middle of the desert.
The writer travelled courtesy of Oaks Resorts and Hotels.
Trip notes
Getting there
Qantas flies to Broome direct from Sydney every Saturday from November and four times a week from April. Or fly via Perth. 13 13 13, qantas.com.au.
Staying there
Kimberley Dreamtime Adventure Tours pick you up from The Oaks Resort, close to Broome's world-renowned Town beach. 1300 822 010, oakshotelsresorts.com.au.
Touring there
Kimberley Dreamtime Adventure Tours operates on demand during the wet season from December with a minimum four guests required, and three times a week during the dry season. One-day tours cost $240; two-day tours, camping under the stars cost $440. 0447 214 681, kimberleydreamtimeadventures.com.au.
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