Wadeye - another trip to the middle of nowhere

Hi Pa,

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been running around so busily that there's been to time for posting on blogs. Now I'm having a quiet weekend and have found some time up my sleeve. I thought I'd tell you about another trip I did a while ago out to a place called Wadeye, or Port Keats. Most communities up here seem to have at least two names - the Aboriginal name, and the European name.

Wadeye is about an hour's flight (I flew in) or a 6hr drive from Darwin (I drove out). It's a large community of about 2000 people. The main street kind of runs along a ridge and the families living on one side of the ridge are the salt water people, while the families on the other are fresh water people. So there are different clans of people all living in the one community. Although there are many different language groups, the lingua franca of the Wadeye is a language called Murrinh-patha.

Here is another map:

View Larger Map

Although it is not part of the Katherine Region, you can see that it is just about equidistant from Katherine and Darwin.

We drove out to the beach (about 5km) and watched the sun set.

Mambaya!

(Murrinh-patha: good bye)