When I first heard about the upcoming Cape York 2024 trip, I was quite interested by the idea of it, and felt that it would be a fun trip, especially the day at the Great Barrier Reef. At the actual end of the trip, we all felt that we didn’t actually want to leave. This was thanks to the amazing hosts we had as we travelled in Cape York, along with the two Red Earth leaders we had, Pat and Georgie!
On the first few days, we stayed at Binthi Warra, with our first three hosts, Mel, her daughter, and her niece. When we got there, we thanked our amazing bus driver, Hugh, and began to unpack and get ready for our time staying there. We began setting up tents, making our first dinner, and checking in with each other. After eating dinner, we had some circle time and talked about how we were feeling now that we were actually on the trip. The next day, during the afternoon we split up into two groups, one learnt how to weave baskets using dried-up reeds, the other participated in a fire competition trying – and somewhat failing – to light a fire using sticks and dried grass, and then used the coals to cook Mel’s damper, which we ate while waiting for the other group to finish up.
Afterwards, we swapped groups, and spent some time chatting with Mel while we all attempted to weave earrings. The next day, we ventured out on the bus to visit the nearby Isabella Falls, where we relaxed and enjoyed the sun while swimming and playing games in the water. While we were relaxing at the falls, our dinner was cooking in the underground oven we had prepared earlier with the help of Mel and her brother. After we got back, we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon before enjoying a feast of pork, chicken and crackling. Afterwards, we had a talent show, where everyone was graced with the winning act, a rap about Cape York. Unfortunately, that was our last day at Binthi Warra, and the next day we had to pack up and sadly farewell our amazing hosts.
After saying goodbye to Binthi Warra, we headed to the town of Hopevale, where we visited the Lutheran church, built from scratch by the people of Hopevale, which had survived the many cyclones that had previously hit the town, while everything else was partially destroyed in other parts of the town. After paying a visit to the church, we explored other parts of the town, and got some ice cream to cool off. We also learnt about the Easter traditions of the peoples there through a documentary shown to us by Mel the second night we were in Cape York, and how they clean up all the graves at the cemetery every Easter, to commemorate the lives they lived. When we heard this we were greatly affected, as we reflected on our own traditions, and the way we ourselves mourned, compared to the way they mourned and celebrated. This stuck with us greatly.
After departing from the town, we were driven to Isabella falls again, where we spent some time cooling off from the heat (and beating Ms Nguyen in a competition of skipping rocks). After farewelling the falls for the last time, we then headed off to the second country we were staying in, Panamuunji.
We were greeted by our new hosts, Tim and Elaine, and participated in a welcome to country ceremony. We then got everything set up as fast as possible – not wanting to be putting up tents while it was night. After munching on some delicious snags and garlic bread, Tim decided to tell us some mildly terrifying ghost stories which had us all screaming.
The next day, Tim took us on a walk around Panamuunji, where he showed us the different bush tucker and got some green ants for us to try, along with showing us a tree that leaves purified water for us to drink. Because the sun had risen to its peak, Tim and Elain decided that it was the perfect time to take us down to the creek, where we could relax and play in the water, or have the option to take a cold shower before one of the big days in our trip.
As we were on a Red Earth trip, we all had to participate in a community project, to help the future groups that would travel up to Cape York and Tim and Elaine. Our job was to prepare the concrete base for a pair of flushing toilets, so split up into groups, to drill holes in pipes, to dig to find the water pipe, paint over some steel framework, create a wooden base for the concrete and then we all came together to lower the septic tank into the ground.
After celebrating that we managed to get the 125kg tank into the ground, we split up into two groups again, one with Elain to talk about the history of Hopevale, where we learnt about the Mission run by their pastor who was German, who had been given the nickname “Mooni”. Around this time, World War 2 had begun, and the government, assuming that the pastor was a spy took the residents of Hopevale, relocating them. After this, because of the unfamiliar environment, many residents ended up dying from diseases that were unfamiliar to them. Once World War 2 ended, all the residents of Hopevale decided to return to their homes, and rebuilt the town, building up a Lutheran church because of all they were taught by Mooni.
Meanwhile, the other group was busy constructing a banner for our stay, with our handprints, along with various symbols that represented journeys and other indigenous peoples’ symbols. Once the banner was finished, we all sat together to chat or read. That night, Tim asked us some questions for us to reflect on, and we all shared our answers after to think about. Unfortunately, that had been our last night at Panamuunji, and the next morning we had a rushed packup to be able to make it back to Hopevale in time to visit the Art Centre run by Mel, and talk about the Tree of Knowledge with Tim.
Once we farewelled Cape York, we began the journey back down into Cairns, eventually, after six hours ending at our destination, where we began to set up our tents for the final time, and began to prep for the big day ahead of us; The Great Barrier Reef. The next day, many of us woke up to see the sun rise over the beach or to begin to get ready for the day ahead.
We set out from the marina at Cairns on a Reef Magic Boat, to get to their pontoon at the outer reef, where we would be spending our day. Once we arrived, we met the cultural guide, Brian who taught us about the reef and his people’s ways of hunting the marine life found along the coast. Our marine biologist guides, Kayla and Ethan, taught us about the reef and pointed out the world that lay just beneath the oceans surface. We saw fish such as the Red Bass, and Mäori Wrasse, which was about half our size! We saw multiple turtles and reef sharks, and many different species of coral.
In fact, we even helped out with the project taking place on the pontoon, a reef restoration project, where we carefully attached coral fragments to MARS Stars, to help regrow the underwater ecosystem. It was inspiring to realise how even small actions can make a big difference.
After our big day out at the Reef, we took the boat back and had some dinner while reflecting on the trip with some hot chocolate. We all felt increasingly sad to know that we may never come back, though we also felt incredibly grateful for being able to have this amazing experience.
Did I mention that we were without our phones the whole time?
