The biggest bath in the Universe

There are days that will always stand out in my mind. Falling in love, watching my nephews be born, seeing it snow for the first time. I think I just had one of those days.

I’m not even quite sure why, but there was something about it. I had made a decision at the start of the day to surrender to it, to give way to whatever chaos a bushtrip usually brings, to surrender to the flys, the additudal teenage girls who I was accompanying, stop worrying about the state of the dirt track, or the troupe tyers, stop focusing on feeling alone and just ride with it. So I did.

There is something about the rolling desert here that reminds me of the ocean, mesmerising undulations, subtle changes in colour, endless horizons. We drove for hours, most of the time in some quite medatitive state, broken only by teenage banter (most of which I fortunately couldn’t understand). We arrived a Dalehousie Springs, natural lagoon like hot springs in South Australia, surrounded by palm trees and reeds in the middle of the desert.

 

Delahousie Springs

 

The water was 43 degrees and we all plunged in, diving and leaping off the bank. It was the most beautiful bath I have ever had. Even the teenagers broke their cool exterior to play with rubber tyres, giggling like children in the water.

Having a bath...

 

not wanting to get out of the bath!

We walked are around the other hot springs to the home of the rainbow serpent. The particular spring was perfectly round, calved by the serpent’s body coiling under the surface. I was warned not to go too close to the edge, in case he woke and pulled me under. We watched the patterns on the water, watched while the water moved in a circular motion and screamed and ran away when large bubbles rose to the surface. We returned to the fire where our damper, sweet potato and kangaroo tails were cooking in the coals.

 

 

Kangaroo tails cooking on the fire

 

We visited another tropical paradise on the way home, low palm trees tucked into a valley in the desert, each one making a small cubby house on the ground, each bearing big brown sweet dates. Naturally we picked as many as we could carry and the gilrs scared each other with stories of the serpent. My troupe is now covered in stick date seeds. Definitely worth it.

I don’t think it was just the beautiful landscape that made the day so memorable. I think there was something that epitomised where this journey has taken me, how far I have travelled from the Shannon that started. Something about letting go of expectations, allowing beauty to find you, about contentment, about handing control over to something other than me. Something about the magic of the culture, magic that can follow me anywhere.

I have been so worried about what to do next. I keep thinking that I want to affect change on a bigger, more strategic level, I also keep thinking about the people I am missing, about what I should be building. I still have no idea where to go from here, but I think I stopped worrying for a moment about whether I was having enough positive impact on the community and thought about the whole two-way learning concept. This has changed me, even amid all of the chaos here somehow the world seems more magical, peaceful.; Someone said to me the other day that our world is a reflection of ourselves, maybe I am more peaceful.

I hope you can excuse my internal monologue (if you have made it this far), I think it is in part due to having watched too many episodes of Dawson’s Creek ( I found series six on sale in Alice Springs). I have turned into one of the overly verbose characters, and I am still hanging out to see if Joey does eventually end up with Pacey. Sad but true!

Have another week of trying to get the batik dying program and beading program up and running so we have enough stuff to have a market stall (either in Alice or at the Finke Desert Race on the first week in June). Will be fun to get the girls making stuff and hopefully proud of what they are making and learning skills with money handling. The Desert Race will be interesting apparently our little community of 150 gets 2000 tourists for a couple of days… Strange.

Might be heading into Alice this weekend for a writers festival with a few of the kids. There are some really fabulous central desert writers and film-makers showing their work. Fingers crossed I get to go, because I think I am starved for brain food (not that Dawson’s Creek doesn’t count!).

I hope that everything is beautiful in everyone’s worlds, that it is not getting too cold and again thank you for your emails and blog posts, they make the belly button of Australia seem a little closer to what Territorians refer to as the um… bottom of Australia.

Me xo
P.S Still trying to work out new web browser and photo uploading thingy… photos await!

Advertisement