Tjapukai

Didgeridoo
Making Fire

We enjoyed breakfast on our patio overlooking the park that overlooks the beach in a quiet sector of Port Douglas away from the main centres of activity. Keila wanted us back by 2:30 p.m. and we had booked tickets at Tjapukai, the Aboriginal Cultural Park near Cairns so we departed early. The drive along the ocean was lovely with a few strategic lookouts. It seemed we were back in Cairns in no time. Unlike the rest of Australia, the significant sights are within an hour or two of one another. And the climate and terrain are so varied; rainforest, tableland and dry eucaplyt forest are all within an hour from Kuranda. This is a surprise, because in the rest of Australia one must drive so far to get from one major attraction to another.

We arrived at Tjapukai in the pouring rain just in time for the history film. Archival footage relates the history of the locals from the aboriginal point of view rather than the Eurocentric one that white people are accustomed to seeing and hearing.
From there we moved to an excellent dramatization of the Dreamtime Stories I thought I’d hear from Kuku Yulangi guide, Rosie. The stories explained the division of the seasons into wet and dry and told the story of people and animals associated with each e.g. kangaroo, possum, snake and lizard are animals from the dry season and crocodile, platypus, frog and turtle are from the wet. The Tjapukai people spoke their language and all viewers wore earphones and dialled to hear their own language.

Next we moved to didgeridoo demonstration and explanation of bush tucker that we had heard in other locations. We saw traditional dances and the program ended with spear throwing and an explanation of the boomerang. Because it had been so wet the program was shortened, and we didn’t have a chance to try to launch it ourselves. The presenter told us to duck and then duck lower so what he could throw it over our heads, but then said he was kidding, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief and laughed together. On our way over the bridge we looked down to see turtles swimming in the muddy river. They kept their heads out of the water as they seemed to “dog paddle” or shall I say “turtle paddle” along slowly.