DARWIN, Northern Territory
JOURNAL NOTES
Many things can inspire a major undertaking… to leave behind metropolitan life and check out life beyond Hornsby…
Roy Rogers, a TV series ‘Bonanza’ (today it’s ‘Yellowstone’),
A 1960’s horseback ride across Migella Creek floodplains from Mudginberri Station to Oenpelli Crossing, hunting Nganabbarru, the swamp buffalo of the Top End and seeing open-air rock art galleries of western Arnhem Land’s Mirarr/ Bininj indigenous people - a living cultural landscape now known as Kakadu. Later, the lyrics of 70’s song ‘Go West’.
Several assignments to allowed me to dig deeper into the intangibles, to wrestle with ‘spirit’ in it’s varied manifestations and ways. In particular, the ‘give it a go’ and ‘why not give it a go’ spirit I’ve seen alive up there …
… with this, a reminder to venture into this world, to tread carefully with eyes wide open to the ether, this undertaking became about seeking out the beauty amid the roughness, ‘relative to the invitation’.
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The photographic shoot with handsome Darwin carpenter, led to highly popular gaze about ‘What makes the North special?’ and his appearance in national women’s magazine, CLEO.