The trip I was looking the most forward to was our trip to the Outback. To me, that's what I saw when I pictured Australia; the great mass of iconic barren land that was so characteristic to Central Australia. Practically all of Australia's major cities clung to the coastline, and was a distinct commonality between all the cities we had visited so far. The Outback would be something entirely different and I could not wait to roam through the desert and meet an Aboriginal, the group of people we had learned so much about in our Australia History class.
The Aboriginals were the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The controversy between white settlers and Aboriginals for land rights, political recognition, and civil rights is one that has existed for over a century and still continues today. Our tour guide was an aboriginal and I was eager to learn about his heritage through the aboriginal practice of oral tradition. He guided us through an 'Aboriginal walk,' across the desert stopping to explain certain artifacts along the way. We learned that some of the artifacts, tools to make fire and animal bones dated back thousands of years ago. The best part about the tour though was that our guide carried a hand-made Aboriginal guitar with him. It was hand-painted with representations of an emu, a fish and a kangaroo in colors that had histories of generations in its hues. Once the tour was over he sat with us we looked across the arid brown desert out onto the horizon of a parched gray-blue sky that blazed over a mass of a sandy weathered brown that was somehow still thriving despite centuries of wind tormenting its timeless sleep. His face was copper as a new penny, and shone like one for how much he sweat as the sun beat down on his long pants and shirt. But despite the heat he managed to whip out a couple of tunes:
Click these links to hear Our tour guide singing to us!
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