Maningrida Pics

The Beach at Maningrida - the beach just on the left hand side is where I saw a crocodile the other weekend.

Aboriginal Rock art in Arnhem Land. You can see a turtle and a goanna. This painting could be up to 10,000 years old.

The Dreaming Lady. This is the waterhole where women go for sacred fertility reasons.

A car in the Police Compound with "Grog Runner" painted on it's windscreen - busted trying to smuggle alcohol into a dry community.

The Airport. What you see is what you get.



 Aerial shot of the community. And yes this is the whole community. An estimation of 3500 people live here. I like this picture because you really can see how its just total bush surrounding us.

Welcome to Western Arnhem Land. It is mostly rock as you can see.

This is one of the roads through the community. Probably one of the better ones. And probaby one of the cleaner ones. This photo was taken in the wet season, as you can see its really green. Currently this grass is dead and brown.

 To the Ballanda locals, this place is known as Perfume Point, basically because it is situated next to the sewerage ponds. All of this rubbish here has been dumped by Aboriginal locals. It is stuff that is dumped here, has belonged to someone who has died. They believe they cant keep things from people who have died - funnily enough it doesnt carry onto cars.

The worst part about all this, is that it is on a really nice beach, and all of this crap gets taken out into the ocean and down stream into the rivers etc. Its not something that I agree with, and I dont think that they have as much respect for the land as they used to.



This isnt a very good picture but it is the best I could capture without being noticed. I didnt want to be caught taking it. It is a grave in someone's front yard. The body under this tarp is not in a coffin. It will remain here for an uncertain amount of time, it could be 2 weeks, it could be 6.

My first Maningrida fight. Its a pretty common occurance, I just dont get the opportunity to see it very often. This one happened out the back of my work. The car on the left hand side of the pic is an Ambulance. Lol it was just sitting there waiting for it all to finish. Pretty funny I thought. But the fight was over Ganga (Marijuana) between adolescent boys.  It was quite a frightening experience. But pretty crazy at the same time. The amount of peope that find out about it in a heartbeat is insane. And EVERYONE goes to watch, especially the elders.





I call this place the "Cas" as in the Casino. You can see there is one group of people in a cirlce here playing card games. This will generally carry on into the night, with spotlights and fires and even people selling smokes.

This is out the front of my shop. It is an Asian guy playing the Didge and a French guy playing the Flute. One of the most random things I have ever seen.

These are the White Cockatoo Dancers. They are dancing to celebrate the opening of the new subdivision. Apparently they are quite famous around the world and on You Tube etc.

This is one of my favourite pictures, this is the beach behind the "Cas".

Another favourite pic, Its the sunset while we were coming back from fishing. I remember being so scared heading out because the swell was huge and our boat was tiny, I literally thought I was going to die. I remember thinking "if we go down right now, I wonder if i can make to that bit of land without being eaten". But when we came back (which in when I took this pic) I was so relaxed, sunburnt and drunk that I was totally at peace on the way home. And I think this picture really captures that.

While we were out fishing this is the little fellow that was following us for a bit. By little I mean about 2metres. And he came as close as about 10metres from the boat.

This photo and the next are Rocky Point. Its west of here and its one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Water was so clear and amazing. I just wanted to jump in. Theres a house out here on the beach where the land owners live. Lucky fellas I think.

My First Maningrida storm. Didnt turn out to be very exciting.

This was what I thought was the start of the wet - along with the rest of the community. But it seems to have disappeared at this stage.

I took this photo on the road between Maningrida and Jabiru. This is what the scenery looks like most of the way (about 200kms) and heaps of rock feature in between. The rock on the right, has some ancient rock art on it.

Heading towards Jabiru.

This is Bottom Camp. Its probably the most ghetto part of town - to the point where I havent been down there yet. As you can see the houses are on the shoreline, awesome views as you can see. Some parts of this area are sacred and white people cant go. Including the road down to bottom camp, which is often blocked off for ceremony. Everytime I have tried to check it out, the road has been closed.

This is Old Man Rock. I did know the traditional name but I cant remember anymore. When you get closer, you can see on side is the face of an old man, the other is the face of a young boy (or a monkey, depending on who you talk to)