These days there are many and varied sorts of tourism in Australia; there are eco tours, adventure holidays, educational tours, trekking holidays, cultural festival tours, colonial architectural tours of Tasmania and so on. But recently, in Australia, a new sort of tour is being offered. It combines art appreciation, cultural awareness, sightseeing and adventure.
For many years, Aboriginal culture was viewed as an oxymoron by many Australians. And when Aboriginal painting started to attract world interest, the same Australians dismissed it with the comment, 'It's just all dots.' Gradually, however, this attitude has changed within Australia, perhaps due to the huge prices some of the Aboriginal paintings have attracted in other countries, notably America. (Any American wanting to see a good representation of Aboriginal painting could well consider visiting the Seattle Art Gallery where there is an excellent collection.)
You can't just decide that you want to visit an Aboriginal settlement and set off. Australia is a vast country, and most of the communities are isolated and spread far and wide. Furthermore, you need a permit to visit the settlements, and you have to have a good reason for visiting. So, born out of the awakening appreciation of Aboriginal art, a love of art generally and a desire to educate, one Australian academic, Dr Garry Darby, three or so years ago began offering guided tours to the Aboriginal communities where much of the art is produced.
Anyone squeamish about flying in small aircraft would be well advised not to embark on one of these trips. Because of the distances involved, travel is usually by two light aircraft, an 8-seater and a 6-seater, and it is disconcerting to find that the pilot looks scarcely old enough to shave. Another aspect of these tours that causes consternation for first timers is that each passenger is restricted to 10 kilos of luggage in a soft bag. Imagine condensing nine days needs into this meagre amount! But this weight limit is rigidly enforced and sometimes passengers are put on the scales as well, so that the weight can be equally distributed over the two planes. However, as you have to carry your bags yourself from bus to plane, you learn to be grateful for the restriction.
The airstrips are merely cleared and rolled land of variable degrees of maintenance. One was just a mown strip of grassland not more than a few meters longer than the minimum length permitted. After landing at that strip, the pilots were asked to tow the planes to the resort's gates and tether them there, otherwise they might be kicked to pieces by wild brumbies during the night!
Very soon you begin to relax and trust your pilots. Besides, you are too busy gazing out of the window at the amazing sights and colours below. Because you are flying so low, you can see the whole countryside laid out beneath you. It is endlessly fascinating, with its changing patterns of desert, salt lakes, mountain ranges, red earth, and bushes and grasses just like the dots in the paintings. Soon the flight is as important as the destination.
What you see at the settlements is often confronting. Visitors are not allowed to wander at will, nor take photographs of the houses or the immediate surroundings. They go directly from the airstrip to the Art Centre, either walking or squashed into a variety of basic vehicles, often rusty, always dusty, usually uncomfortable, bumping over the corrugations in the dirt roads. But it is fun and nobody complains.
For many people, this will be the first time they have had any contact with Aboriginal Australians, and certainly the first time they have met any of the desert people. This will be the first opportunity they have had to talk to an Aboriginal person and moreover it will be on his home turf. They will see a different Aboriginal person from the ones they will encounter in Alice Springs, standing about, often with nothing to do and nowhere to go, and having consumed too much alcohol. These Aboriginals, the painters, are gentle and shy and they have a quiet dignity. It is a good experience and we take away some happy memories to counter the more common picture.
One of the first things you have to get used to in any Aboriginal community is the ubiquitous camp dog. There are dogs everywhere, and mean looking, skinny, unattractive animals they are too. There are usually lots of children around as well; dusty kids with great big brown eyes, shy grins, matted hair and runny noses.
The Art Tour group spends most of its time within the Art Centre. These centres are run by dedicated young people who live on the settlements for two or more years at a time. It is an isolated life and a demanding one. They do everything, from preparing the canvases and distributing the paints, to cataloguing the paintings and arranging sales. They keep the accounts and see that the painters are paid. They work for, and with, the community elders to whom they are responsible.
It is quite an experience to see the painters at work. Aboriginal paintings, by and large, are maps of the countryside and were traditionally scratched in the ground and viewed from above. So Aboriginal artists sit on the ground to paint, rather than stand before an easel as non-Aboriginal painters do. What is a surprise, though, is how the artists sit down anywhere, whether in the dust and grime of the yard or on a grubby section of shaded concrete. Camp dogs wander round and over the paintings and have been known to urinate on a picture. The kids run around, stirring up dust as they go. (I've seen one child step right in the middle of a work in progress!) And in the midst of the heat and flies and chaos, the painters quietly paint, turning out works of such stunning composition and beauty that you are left shaking your head in disbelief. In some of the more affluent communities, there is more order and less chaos and artists may sit at a table.
People who go on Garry's tours have to be prepared to take whatever comes up in the way of accommodation. It will vary from the luxury of 5 star hotels in towns like Broome, to the VERY basic shelter provided in Kalumburu, a former mission town in the far north of Western Australia, where the sleeping arrangements are somewhat primitive. In the Bungle Bungles you bed down in tents; sometimes the group stays in accommodation provided by homesteads on cattle stations. The variety and uncertainty add to of the appeal of these tours. You don't know what lies ahead, and you have to be prepared to take what comes.
Art viewing is not restricted to canvas or bark paintings; in areas where rock art is to be found, it may be necessary to scramble over rocks and up rocky outcrops in search of these paintings. Viewing rock paintings is not always comfortable; you may have to lie on your back or contort your body into awkward positions to get the best view, particularly when the painting has been scratched onto the underside of an overhanging ledge.
Not every day is spent in pursuit of art, however. There are lazy days either spent on a boat chugging up a picturesque gorge spotting crocodiles, or indulging in a barbecue lunch as you recline on the top of a small hill sipping champagne, with a 360° view of the world laid on for your private enjoyment.
With Garry, you can visit places generally off limits to most non-indigenous people. You can go into Arnhem Land, a restricted area in the north of the Northern Territory. This part of the country is scenically very different from the arid, central desert area. It is covered with winding rivers snaking their way to the sea. Here you find the bark paintings and carvings of the Mimih spirits. You visit many different communities, you meet many different Aborigines. And, at the end, you emerge with a better understanding of the Aboriginal people, their culture, their history, and the problems confronting them today. It seems to me that this combination of art, culture, adventure and fun contains every ingredient needed to make a perfect holiday.
