Thread: URGENT. Get PAID to drive a 4x4 across the Tanami

Originally Posted by mrapocalypse

and driving the camera guys (Me) up ahead to get shots of the truck passing by and getting bogged.

Cheers

Ian.

So your using Toyotas, as Landies don't get bogged

Originally Posted by Eevo

i went past Papunya a week ago.


not somewhere i want to be alone at night

My old man went to Papunya for three nights a few weeks ago, I wasn't jealous. I have been all over that part of Australia back when I was driving tow trucks.

Sounds like a lot of fun (the driving job ... I've already been to Papunya a few times!)

Not that I'm doubting anyone, but I've heard people say similar things about this town. I was in Yuendumu several years ago during the day and it was dead quiet, somebody was very helpful in pointing out where the phonebox was, and on the way out I couldn't help but notice someone in their front yard playing country music on their electric guitar very loudly, which was quite amusing.

And I noticed Rabbit Flat looked like a sort of bunker with barbed wire up trees and all sorts of things . . . I spent the night on the side of the track.

Originally Posted by Davo

Not that I'm doubting anyone, but I've heard people say similar things about this town. I was in Yuendumu several years ago during the day and it was dead quiet, somebody was very helpful in pointing out where the phonebox was, and on the way out I couldn't help but notice someone in their front yard playing country music on their electric guitar very loudly, which was quite amusing.

And I noticed Rabbit Flat looked like a sort of bunker with barbed wire up trees and all sorts of things . . . I spent the night on the side of the track.

must have been pension day..... Bob [ Rabbit Flat roadhouse was closed indefinitely in 2010. The locals were playing a bit rough, they tell me]

Originally Posted by POD

Yuendumu is the largest and most troubled aboriginal community in the Territory, a fuel stop there is still quite an eye-opener. I believe it was closed to outsiders for a while recently due to endemic violence, with an ongoing payback feud between two family groups. The sights on the Tanami Track (Road) are not much to put on paper, but it's one of those trips that you have to do.

Until about a year ago, a friend of mine was the ' manager',[ I think that was his title]of Docker River settlement. He was responsible for all assets & local people to the W.A. border, down to the S.A. border, East to Alice, & North to about Kings Canyon. Approximately. He said the biggest problem he found was when the authorities , in the past, placed local people of different tribal groups in the same settlement. It created tensions, especially when young men of one group fancied women of another. While he was there , there was a ritual spearing in the leg of a young buck who broke the rules. This was about two years ago, from memory. Docker River was a dry settlement, and mostly peaceful, according to my friend. Bob

Yes, that's the same thing here where a whole pile of language groups were dumped in town in the 70s and the subsequent mess is still going on. The best thing to happen here was when everyone slowly got back to country and established their own communities.

Originally Posted by Davo

Yes, that's the same thing here where a whole pile of language groups were dumped in town in the 70s and the subsequent mess is still going on. The best thing to happen here was when everyone slowly got back to country and established their own communities.

I'm really interested to know what the term 'skin group' means . I have heard it discussed by aboriginal people in Darwin, years ago. My take on it was a sub group within a tribal group, for which' intermarriage', for want of a better word, was restricted. If so, this in itself suggests a sophistication not normally accepted by early Europeans, for indigenous Australians. Bob