Around For A While: Moore River

Update #3: The second weekend in May was another Martin Trip, this time north to the moore river area.

This trip was up north and on it we did a bunch of stuff. We spent the first day in New Norcia, which is a monastery town. Literally the only people that live in the town are the people who either live at or work at the monastery. It was interesting to hear the history of the town and the schools that used to be there from the point of view of the monastery. The boarding schools there were separate for the aboriginals and for the white students. As well, throughout Australia, many aboriginal children, particularly the children that were half aboriginal or ones that had lighter skin were taken from their families and forced into these monastery schools in order to educate them. Basically, in order to teach them how to function in white society and to separate them from their aboriginal culture. Very similar to what happened in the United States. Almost all these schools were closed by the 70s and there are countless stories of abuse and mistreatment of aboriginal children at these schools. The monastery and the tour we were on, however, seemed to portray their school as one of the better ones that treated the children well, etc. I would really like to try to learn about what the former students think though, just to get both sides of the story.

We also visited the Mogumber cemetary and walked partway to the mission site. This was another school which is a setting for the movie "Rabbit Proof Fence." The story follows 3 aboriginal girls who escape from the mission school and follow the rabbit proof fence north to try to get back to their home.

We also visited an olive grove and olive oil factory, which was wonderful and delicious. I love olive oil and we got to taste a bunch of different kinds of it.

Then we spent some time at the Pinnacles, further proving that Australia is a mixture between a Dr. Suess and Jurassic Park. They are basically just a ton of limestone pillars that cover a huge expanse of land and are really cool to take pictures around. I was really glad we got to go to them since we weren't able on our road trip earlier in the semester.

Finally we visited the Grey Settlement and met their "president." Most of the towns on the west coast were made by people squatting there and crayfishing. This settlement however is not an official town and the government has been trying to get rid of the people who live there. The houses are all pretty much handmade out of a lot of various materials. The guy we spoke to was a professor at a university in Perth in Chemistry but he lived up at the Grey Settlement part time. He even self installed solar panels and a septic tank for his home, which was really impressive. Some of the homes up there were really nice. It was really cool to see the community and to talk to him.