Macca's Meanderings

Greetings from Minjilang, Croker Island You may have heard of a movie that was recently released called, 'High Ground'. It features some big names like Jack Thompson and Simon Baker. Of greater interest to me though were some of the Indigenous actors who featured. Gutjuk was a young boy when his family were massacred. He is played by a young man related to some of the Garngi rangers. His uncle/father (in traditional kinship systems someone's father's brothers are also called father), Baywarra is played by Sean Mununggurr from Gapuwiyak and Gujtuk's grandfather is played by Witiyana Marika from Yirrkala - we know both these actors especially Sean and his family.  'High Ground' is a confronting account of the often brutal frontier in Australia. Sadly, this story was repeated countless times across Australia.  High Ground was filmed around West Arnhem Land and Kakadu National Park showing some of this area's spectacular scenery.  Below is a link to the trai...

 Hi and greetings from Croker Island, NT. As I write this blog we are passing through a period when the monsoon is a little less active. We are still receiving rain however not as much as a week or so ago. Consequently the roads and tracks have become 'challenging'. The road across the floodplain to the airport became impassable so we had to take a much longer road to the airport however this road too became boggy in places which resulted in this 'unplanned stop'.  During the wet season while we are restricted in our access to many parts of the island, it is a good time to catch up on some maintenance. Here Clayton replaces a CV joint boot on our 4WD Hilux.  A few weeks ago we had some scientists from the NT Government's Fishery Department visit to conduct a survey on oysters, in particular 'Black Lipped Oysters'. This involved taking the scientists to numerous locations around the Croker Island at low tide to collect oysters for DNA and heavy metal tests. B...