Walkabout (15)

If you want to go walkabout in Australia make sure you know where you're going. It's a long way if you get it wrong. I set off to walk to Balmain. Every sign to Balmain says 4. At first I thought 4Km. But no, route 4. Only after a while did the penny drop. Until then I thought I only had 4Km to walk. I never got to Balmain. Instead my thong started to rub.

OK, I wasn't being weird. Aussies call flip flops, thongs. After four hours walking yours would rub too. Well I didn't think I'd be that long.

When Aboriginal Australians go on 'Walkabout', they undertake a spiritual journey to a Belonging Place to renew their relationship with their Dreaming and the Landscape. The land is their life, their mother, their way, their nourishment, and their spiritual connectedness.

Adolescents boys, when they come of age, are sent out on their own to fend for themselves for six months. It focuses the mind on learning I suppose.

Their story goes that during the Dreamtime the Ancestral Spirits gave form to the land and established community relationships. Afterwards, in order to liven up the landscape, the Ancestral Spirits changed into animals, stars, hills, trees, and other aspects of the landscape, empowering the Natural World with their numinous presence in forms that are most commonly referred to nowadays as Devas, Nature Spirits, and Elementals. If you believed this you would treat the land with care and reverence, wouldn't you?

For the Aboriginals, their spirituality and the Sacred is deeply rooted in the Landscape and in their relationship to the environment which sustains them. There are many different Aboriginal tribes who have their own Dreamtime folklore, customs, languages, and totems. They also share many things like Animal Totems, strong kinship, and family structures.

Dreaming Tracks or Songlines distinguish all features of the land created by their Spirit Ancestors as they Journeyed and travelled across it. The story of the Aboriginals is in the land; the law is imprinted on their Sacred Spaces. These Songlines are the footprints of their Spirit Ancestors as they sang Beingness into the landscape, setting the law.

Today the Journeying Walkabouts of the Spirit Ancestors are brought to life through these Songlines. By performing the appropriate Corroborees Ceremonies and singing certain songs at precise points along the Dreaming Tracks, the Aboriginals gain direct access to the Dreaming.

Many groups travel, Journeying along these Dreaming Tracks with their children, educating them by telling them stories of the Dreamtime. Through the verses of songs, Aboriginal Australians know every part of the Landscape and where to find sources of water and food. I hope someone is keeping these memories and songs alive.

Aboriginals also use their Songlines when they move about within the territory of the tribe or when visiting other tribes. Clan members regularly move camp and go on cultural Journeys for Taking Care and for Corroborees, initiations, and other cyclical, ritualized ceremonies of the Dreamtime.

My walkabout wasn't so spiritual. One of the things I just had to do was to have a beer. I had been going for some time by then. I walked into the first Aussie pub I came to, somewhere in a working class part of the city, not far from the harbour. The bar looks just like those in Hulme, Manchester, when I first worked there 25 years ago. The television is on, big screen, sound off. The music is middle of the road eighties pop. Half a dozen men are sitting on stools around a semi-circular bar. The language being spoken was not discernible. Australia is now smoke free so no fumes. In the corner is a pool table, ageing and unloved. Posters on the walls are peeling off and in any case the events they're advertising are well past. Did it go silent for a moment, and did they look round when I walked in? I'm not sure. They returned to their brogue once I'd ordered my drink. $3 a scooner, the cheapest by far and unlikely to be matched anywhere.

I resumed my treck. After another hour my songline was distinctly stuttering. I found myself in Birkenhead. Birkenhead Point actually. It used to be a series of warehouses dockside. Over time it became derelict, and in the last year or so has been renovated. It is now a series of retail outlets. Large parts of Sydney docklands have been modernised to cater for the materialistic dreamtimes of our society. Like Manchester, Sydney has moved into the 21st century. I kept going.

In the end I spotted a bus stop, and to my relief there was a bus going to Five Dock. When it came I got on, paid the $3.50 and got back. Phew. One of the things I feared travelling abroad is that I would not be able to find my way about. The bit of visual cortex I lost is responsible for recognition and so I'd tend to get confused about where I am. I passed this unexpected test with flying colours. I'm tired but pleased with myself. Time for a little dreamtime of my own.