So I find myself back in Katherine once again. And the weather is perfect. Warm 30 degree days with a beautiful breeze that means it is not too hot to walk in the sun, and it is cold enough at night these last two nights that you can wear a light jumper, and sleep in a sleeping bag. This is proper dry season weather!
… and Katherine is a busy place in the dry season. The supermarket in town was packed by just after 9 am, every spare parking spot or patch of roadside dirt is occupied by 4WDs, campervans and caravans, and people are backed up onto the road to get fuel at the four servos in town. The local first Australian's (as I believe is the current most politically correct term) are also busy hanging around the streets and parks, and the cops and community patrol (their primary function being to deal with drunks I think, but also to help resolve disputes and advise on available services etc.) are busy too. Diving through the outskirts of town one evening, someone had lit up a patch of bush just next to the main road, and the air was thick with spear grass smoke. A common occurrence no doubt. Sitting in the library yesterday I could hear aboriginals arguing on the street below; the thing that hit me is that up here people still speak their local languages, or at least some of them. My guess is it was probably Jawoyn, the most common group around here, although there are 3 or 4 languages spoken in Katherine I think.
The Australian Defence Force also has a big presence here. Yesterday afternoon I saw two serious tanks roll through town (on the back of trucks), an old school looking bulldozer, and a series of what looked like segments of a bunker on a truck travelling with the tanks. And today I saw a convoy of 8 or 10 smaller wheeled tanks, and scouting, or troop carrier sort of vehicles. There is a RAAF base just out of town, as well as two very large (bigger than most stations) training grounds within a few hundred k's. One, the largest is equal in size to some of the huge aboriginal land grants up here, and has played host to Exercise Talisman Sabre, the name for the joint US-Australian exercises, with the George Washington being offshore. The defence presence is not just current day. You really get a sense of how threatened we felt we were in the second world war up here. Sure there is some legacy in Perth - the guns at Mosman Park, and Rottnest spring to mind - but up here between Katherine and Darwin you come across old airfield after airfield. I think there are 14 between here and Darwin. The station I am staying hosted a large airbase, built by the US, but occupied simultaneously by American and RAAF units. It had it's own abattoir and a large poultry farm. Most of the airfields were built just after the bombing of Darwin, and the southern ones were occupied heavily initially, but it seems they moved forces further north fairly quickly. Many of the fields were being under utilised less than a year after they were built.
… and Katherine is a busy place in the dry season. The supermarket in town was packed by just after 9 am, every spare parking spot or patch of roadside dirt is occupied by 4WDs, campervans and caravans, and people are backed up onto the road to get fuel at the four servos in town. The local first Australian's (as I believe is the current most politically correct term) are also busy hanging around the streets and parks, and the cops and community patrol (their primary function being to deal with drunks I think, but also to help resolve disputes and advise on available services etc.) are busy too. Diving through the outskirts of town one evening, someone had lit up a patch of bush just next to the main road, and the air was thick with spear grass smoke. A common occurrence no doubt. Sitting in the library yesterday I could hear aboriginals arguing on the street below; the thing that hit me is that up here people still speak their local languages, or at least some of them. My guess is it was probably Jawoyn, the most common group around here, although there are 3 or 4 languages spoken in Katherine I think.
The Australian Defence Force also has a big presence here. Yesterday afternoon I saw two serious tanks roll through town (on the back of trucks), an old school looking bulldozer, and a series of what looked like segments of a bunker on a truck travelling with the tanks. And today I saw a convoy of 8 or 10 smaller wheeled tanks, and scouting, or troop carrier sort of vehicles. There is a RAAF base just out of town, as well as two very large (bigger than most stations) training grounds within a few hundred k's. One, the largest is equal in size to some of the huge aboriginal land grants up here, and has played host to Exercise Talisman Sabre, the name for the joint US-Australian exercises, with the George Washington being offshore. The defence presence is not just current day. You really get a sense of how threatened we felt we were in the second world war up here. Sure there is some legacy in Perth - the guns at Mosman Park, and Rottnest spring to mind - but up here between Katherine and Darwin you come across old airfield after airfield. I think there are 14 between here and Darwin. The station I am staying hosted a large airbase, built by the US, but occupied simultaneously by American and RAAF units. It had it's own abattoir and a large poultry farm. Most of the airfields were built just after the bombing of Darwin, and the southern ones were occupied heavily initially, but it seems they moved forces further north fairly quickly. Many of the fields were being under utilised less than a year after they were built.
A wheeled tank heading through Katherine.May the force be with you
No comments:
Post a Comment