For nearly four weeks in June and July, I travelled to Arnhem Land in the Northern Territories on two separate trips with my school, Australian National University. Arnhem Land is about a 4 hour drive east of Darwin, with one very large river crossing (with many crocs spotted!). We stayed in an Aboriginal community called Gunbalanya. The rock shelters beyond the town (Injalak Hill) have many significant rock art sites.
This first trip up in June was for a rock art field school, where we learned to document, photograph and draw rock art sites for conservation purposes. The following research trip in July put many of these skills into practice.
My friend Gemma took this photo from Injalak Hill. The town of Gunbalanya is to the bottom left and I am pictured in the far right of the photo.
I took this photo from the town we stayed in, Gunbalana (formerly known as Oenpelli). Behind the billabong, you can see Injalak Hill where we did much of our rock art recording
Students and professors in the field school
Playing soccer with kids in town
Photo of me in front of a site we documented.
Lunch at the site
Collecting pandanus leaves to strip and dry to weave into baskets
Root used to make the red dye
Collecting bark to use as canvas for the paintings
A day's work: pandanus leaves and dyes to use for the baskets
Clara teaching me to weave a basket
About halfway completed
My finished basket which took about 3 hours to complete
An example of some of the rock art recorded
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