Emanuel School from Sydney are back again this year to learn about aboriginal culture.  The kids had fun painting with Manuel and the mothers  joined in with getting the pandanus reading for basket weaving by having a go at striping the pandanus and crushing the roots to make the colour.

Sacred Earth came in yesterday wiht Ken and Cathie who enjoyed their time with Manuel.  Cathie even got to see how a Kangaroo was prepared for eating.

We are at the end of Wurrkung when we get the first dry winds that blow from the south-east.  Manuel is happy with the new area as we have see through blinds we can lower when it gets too windy.  As you can see from the images you are never to young to have a go at spear throwing.  We have had some great families coming through who have really had a great time learning about the first Australians and how they use to live in the bush, light fires and catch their tucker.

See our latest video on Pandanus stripping and dying for basket weaving. The ladies had a wonderful day creating this video.
Check it out!!

See Video here….

The Checklist was an online video game show like “Race around the World” produced by Tourism NT.  Top Didj featured in one of the episodes where the contestants had to light a fire with only 2 sticks and spear the kangaroo to acquire points to be able to continue to the next checkpoint. Here is the link for that episode. The Checklist

Easter was a bit of a wash out with a monsoon sitting over the Katherine Region. There was minor flooding but with our new shelter we were still able to continue with the Cultural Experiences.  We even did the fire lighting under cover see below.  We released Tilly (one of our wallabies) November 2011 who is the middle photo that I have included with her joey Rosy. so now we are grand parents again.

Check out the new uniforms on Manual, Jessica and Marion.

Here we are in Melbourne.  We were lucky to make the plane as I did not allow enough time for the traffic at 6am!!!! Not like getting to Darwin airport.  We had a good taxi driver who got us there in time.   This time it was not so daunting and we had a good time getting to know the agents and them us.  Again Manuel gave everyone a hands on experience into in the art of Rarrk painting.  Fun was had by all using the Julk reed brush to finish off their paintings they got to take home. Like in Sydney, Manuel got to dip in the bowl and pick out a winner for the great prize you can see on the screen.  We look forward to the winners coming into see us during the year.  I took Manuel to the Melbourne Museum where we met Trevor Chapple who use to work for us at Top Didj.

Our first muster was very nerve racking at first but once we got into it we had a great time meeting the agents and they had a great time interacting with Manuel and loved the hands on painting activity with him.  Manuel and I got to meet some very tame wild life.  Before the event I took Manuel to see the icons of Sydney and we even had time to check out the Archibald Prize.

Manuel and I have been spending most days lately getting ready for the NT Muster to be held in Sydney and Melbourne.  A bit like speed dating from the sounds of it with 8 minutes to sell your product to the agents before they move on to the next tour operator.  We have got the painting down to 4 minutes with enough time to tell them about what else happens during the experence.

So much for the wet!!!!  The Djowok, the stormbird or eastern koel, has not been heard around our place for a long time.  Their coo-ee calls in the storms of the wet season so I think it might be all over for this year.  I will keep listening for their song.

We had the pleasure of entertaining some of the crew from the Ghan this week.  Damien being the great chef that he is got the fire going and speared the kangaroo. Kristen also had success with producing an amber.  Leah show how big she likes her diamonds and Tim painted some tasty looking bush tucker.