Saturday 26th May 2018
Well today we are going on Brian’s Tagalong Tour at Kooljamon. We met at the office at 8.30am for a 8.30am-9ish start. Brian works of Broadbent time. Believe it or not but when we have to be somewhere on time we can do it. After sharing our tools around for deflating tyres we set off on our way. There were 7 vehicles in the tagalong tour and 21 people including 5 children plus Brian and 3 of his kids from his community. The kids made it extra good value as they just say what they think and don’t worry about political correctness.

So of we go, without even a word about who has driven on sand etc, but considering the roads we have driven on to get there, I suppose that conversation was unnecessary. Or was it? We only drove a very little distance before we stopped for our first educational chat. What tracks could we find and what were they. There were ant lines, bird tracks, a marsupial, a cat (every cat kills about 60,000 native animals in its lifetime, so if there are a hundred cats in the area, that is 600,000 native animals dead. Not very good statistics). We also heard a lot about his family history. We then drove a little further and stopped at a midden where Brian explained about these. (Shell middens are places where the debris from eating shellfish and other food has accumulated over time. They can contain: shellfish remains. bones of fish, birds, and land and sea mammals used for food. charcoal from campfires). Often Aborigines leave signs at the midden to inform further visitors to the area things like – the water here is good, or it is not – just by the way they leave or place a shell. We then went to a swimming spot. We haven’t been in the water sine Exmouth with the Irukandji and now crocodile risk so it was lovely to have a swim. The water was crystal clear and a pleasant temperature.On the way to the swimming hole our first car fell victim to the sand. Brian also taught us how to blow in a shell to make a whistle sound. Some of us were better than others. As we left the swimming spot our second victim in a hire car got bogged. The rest of the group were gone so David and I stayed to help, he let his tyres down a bit more but without success. He was stuck and overheated the transmission so we left him with our tyre deflator for when the transmission cooled down and went on to the group. On the way Brian came back to rescue them. He just let their tyres down to 10 PSI and drove them out. The group then did some spear fishing in Hunter creek. We just watched as we had missed the initial instruction as Brian hadn’t even realised 2 cars were missing until someone told him. They caught 3 Mangrove Jack fish. We then had a break for lunch and then went o a mud crabbing expedition. This went for ages as we waled around the creek in search of mud crab holes. We asked the aboriginal girls if there were crocs in the creek. One answered YES, the other No, so take your pick. The young Aboriginal boy was straight into the snorkelling, fishing and crabbing. He was having a great day. We managed to get 4 large mud crabs which Brian cooked on an open fire and we shared. The meat was very tasty and so fresh. He shard some more stories. We then headed back to camp at about 4pm, so it was a long day. We sat and watched the sunset near the restaurant and then headed back for dinner.

It was a great day. Brian was a real personality.