Every Secret Thing is one of the best books written about life in the Northern Territory since Xavier Herbert's Capricornia - that's a pretty big call but I reckon this book is just as funny, brave and deadly serious as that grumpy old curmudgeon's masterpiece.
Last Friday Helen and Mark Hughes put their names to an opinion piece in The Australian entitled Authorities must not wag school. In short the arguments that the Hughes’ make are that Federal, State and Territory governments abandon their responsibilities to students – particularly remote Aboriginal students – by the stealthy foreshortening of school terms [...]
The best fun that Miku has with dead things is with the occasional Cane Toad that she finds squished on the road outside her house. If she finds a newly road-killed Toad she will roll in its remains in an outburst of unalloyed joy...
The first five notes of the Pied Butchebird's call reminded me very much of "La Cucaracha"...
This poor thing had been dragged around the countryside for the best part of 30 years until it finally expired on a dusty, corrugated stretch of road in the centre of Arnhem Land earlier this year.
800 kilometres. Or near enough. Enough. Stop. Drink. Shower. Food. Hunter. Sleep. Tomorrow, Tennant Creek - Katherine.
This is a story of the Weebill, the Emu, the Porcupine (Echidna) and some Meat Ants and how the Echidna got it's spines. The story was told by Arthur Dodd, a Yuwaalaraay speaker from the central north-west of New South wales around Walgett.
What Rothwell is of course talking about here is localised Aboriginal self-determination, an aspiration that he has frequently condemned to the dustbin of Australian political history: “For some time it has been clear Aboriginal self-determination has had its day.”
One time I nearly hit a cow, it was like really close!. I think by now I can distinguish dead cow, dead kangaroo, dead bird - by the smell (laughs). It is not very pleasant...sometimes it it get’s stuck in your nose.
After spending a long time in the desert's too-harsh-between-10am-and-3pm light it is a relief on the eyes to get into some comparatively soft northern lights, though of course the heat and humidity of a September build-up does always take some getting used to.
