I’m an armchair traveller. I once did a great deal of travelling on my own, but found that without the company of another, some pleasures were denied. I’m also not good on water, I get seasick. I suffer with vertigo and tinnitus and a moving ship that rolls from side to side or up and down sets me off. While I appreciate the medication, it’s the rampant imagination that bothers me, that primes my stomach to churn even before the ticket is bought. While short plane flights are manageable with a book, the long distance haul proves a problem. Hips, shoulders and neck begin to ache and without the ability to sleep through each leg of the journey, even with the help of a sleeping pill, the resulting disaster is a fog that clouds the mind for days, sometimes weeks after landing.
But, I’ve found the solution: the TV. My new hunting ground is SBS and their series Bamay, the word from the Bunjalung language meaning land. It’s an exploration of Aboriginal Country from a drone. Each program exposes another part of Australia that I may never see and it has opened my heart to Australia’s beauty.
The drone flying over rock formations shows the land’s eruptions and the wear of time. The McDonnell Ranges in Arrente Country, and the Tanami Desert in Walpiri Country expose the various ochres that shine in different lights while noting the quality of the soil and availability of water. How would I see this diversity other than through this technology?
A panorama shows small creeks braiding into larger streams that create a river; the fractals coloured brown and green, nature’s repetition.
The pictures of the verdant edging of mangroves, so often seen as worthless by the colonial mind, remind one of the aquatic nurseries contained around their roots that sustain fish, crabs and prawns.
Different coastlines expose the rough and smooth. Beautiful white sands with the gentle break of lapping waves speak of promotional material for tourists, with each coastline, a different wave set the signature. The giant churn and smash as foam and water pounds cliffs reminds me that nothing lasts forever, no matter how much one decries Global Warming the climate is changing.
I have a greater respect for the Aboriginal artist that paints Country, speaks the nuances of the land, paints the colour of the soil, the wind’s movement through grasses and measures the change of seasons. That once missed in the past by my untrained eye now draws my appreciation.
Through watching the program I recognise the arrogance that had no understanding of the diversity within the flora of Australia and how Country determines culture through plants and other foods. How sensitive and precious the land and how Indigenous knowledge of place has been disregarded. How different Aboriginal groups were disrespected and placed under one cultural umbrella. How much was lost.
I realise how my arrogance judged the land as the series opened my eyes and feed my sense of awe.
Burnside Writers Group 