AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2011 - 87

TLY RELATED TO LIVING ABORIGINAL CULTURE.

Ancient rocks measure their age in billions of years (left); vast wetlands are the home of teeming wildlife and ancient peoples (second from left); the spectacular Osmond Ranges (above); the Bungle Bungle (above right).

sible to compare the Bungle Bungle to any other landscape you may have seen—anywhere. We fly north now and skirt the shores of Lake Argyle, an impressive, manmade reservoir. Fed by the Ord River, it traps the deluge of “the wet” and controls the flow to rich farmland below the dam. Crocodile hunting was suspended here in 1971, and the estimated croc population of 35,000 in this lake alone is testament to the success of a sustained program to rehabilitate the species. We fly farther west in search of the wonders of The Kimberley. White, predominately British explorers came to this region in the 1800s. But the Aboriginal people had survived the harsh climatic conditions as nomads for millennia. They are the world’s oldest living human society; they recorded their history in song and their culture in rock art. One of the many reasons to come to this inaccessible part of the world is to explore the mystery of two distinct forms of Aboriginal rock painting. The less-esoteric Wandjina rock art, painted in the past 3,500 years, is directly related to living Aboriginal culture. The mysterious Bradshaw or Gwion-Gwion paintings are thought to be at least 17,000 years old, perhaps more than 25,000 years old. (Better-known Egyptian hieroglyphs are a mere 5,000 years old.) No one knows who painted these hauntingly beautiful, figurative images on vertical rock faces. Slim, elegant people are finely portrayed in deep red
The author’s trek began at Jabiru, Northern Territory, in the top end of Western Australia and traversed southwest to The Kimberley, a remote and rugged frontier with few signs of human development except an occasional road.

pigment, elaborately adorned with ceremonial headdress, armlets, and sashes in a trance-like dance. Gwion artists left their paintings in deliberately hidden rock shelters with barely a trace of their existence. Archaeologists speculate that these paintings could hold a vital clue to humanity’s distant past. The revered nineteenth-century Australian bush poet A.B. “Banjo” Paterson wrote of his love of country and the beauty of the land: “Where the air so dry and so clear and bright Refracts the sun with a wondrous light, And out in the horizon makes The deep blue gleam of the phantom lakes.” How more profound would have been Paterson’s prose if he’d seen it from above? Patrick J. Mathews, AOPA 1134012, of Indian Wells, California, is a 1,750-hour, instrument-rated private pilot. He is a freelance writer who owns a 1993 F33A Beechcraft Bonanza.

Circumnavigate Australia
Air Safari International, a small-group flying tour service, will host a circumnavigation tour of Australia in 2012. The first leg starts in Brisbane in late March. It tracks south along the coast for 3,300 nm arriving in Perth. The second leg continues a clockwise track for 4,200 nm and returns to Brisbane in early May. The trip is designed for pilots and non-pilots. Spots are currently available on both legs. For more information, visit the website (www. airsafarisint.com).

Darwin

Mount Borradaile airstrip Arnhem Land

The Kimberley

Osmond Range Bungle Bungle Range

AOPA PILOT • 87 • NOVEMBER 2011

http://www.airsafarisint.com http://www.airsafarisint.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2011

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