Tiwi Islands: Dreamtime voyage

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Step aboard, climb the rigging and explore the waters and ancient culture of Australia’s second largest island.

The heavens are still inky blue and just beginning to blush with the first melon streaks of daybreak, but the wind is howling at 25–30 knots. It’s the last morning of my four-day sailing trip to the Tiwi Islands, 80 km off Darwin, and, after a calm trip, we now have a short and steep 2 m swell. I stand on the outside deck where the sea tosses buckets of water over me as we streak across the Arafura Sea towards a turtle nesting area. I came here to get away from everything, but somehow the Tiwis have got me.

Melville and Bathurst islands are two beautiful, tropical islands in generally sheltered waters. They’re home to just 2500 people, even though Melville is Australia’s second-largest island (following Tasmania).

The Tiwi people came from mainland Australia, but became isolated when sea levels rose about 7000 years ago. As a result of this isolation they developed a rich culture and language that is different to mainland Aborigines.

At the Patakijiyali Museum on Bathurst Island, Trevor Tipungwuti shares some of the finer points about Tiwi culture.

“Unlike the mainland, we never developed the boomerang or the didgeridoo,” he says. “If you throw our sticks, they don’t come back.”

Trevor’s skin name is ‘Sun’, given to him by his mother; his dance is the buffalo, bestowed on him by his father. According to custom he cannot speak to his mother-in-law, his female first and second cousins or even people of the wrong skin group. It’s not all serious though. “Aussie rules football is part of our religion too,”  Trevor says with a grin.

The morning we leave Darwin is clear and lovely and the sky and seas loom large. We are a small group; just four passengers and a crew of three on board the 15 m catamaran Sundancer NT. It takes half the day to reach Apsley Strait, the narrow stretch of water separating Melville from Bathurst Island. On either side of the passage the landscape alternates from wide sandy beaches and clay cliffs to dense jungle and mangroves. “The beaches are beautiful, it’s just a pity we can’t use them,” says Martin Challenor, a fellow passenger and NT local. “Too many snappy handbags.”

Skipper Ben Kerley is a patient and careful teacher. We are encouraged to learn the ropes (even to climb into a bosuns’ chair and get hoisted to the top of the 24 m mast to change a light bulb), but passengers can do as much or as little as they like. Under Ben’s watchful eye I practise holding course at the helm and trimming a sail.

On day two we go ashore at Pirlangimpi (Garden Point), a community of 450 people on the north-western side of Melville Island. Due to its remoteness this community receives few visitors. As we walk through the community, children smile and wave. The lawns are green and reasonably well-tended.

At Munupi Arts and Crafts I meet Declan Apuatimi who is carving Pukamani (burial) poles from heavy ironwood. These tall totemic poles are carved and painted and placed around a burial site six months after a burial. The shapes and patterns symbolise the status and prestige of the deceased.

Later, a group of female artists from the centre invite us to join them to collect mud mussels and long bum (a type of mollusc) from the mangroves for a barbecue lunch. In bare feet we squelch through the cool shadows. Nellie Puruntatamen takes my arm and points to the tell-tale sign of a tasty long bum buried in the mud. To me it looks like a fallen eyelash. To Nellie, it’s lunch.

I am covered in mud and mozzie bites and the soles of my whitefella feet are cut and bruised from the short, sharp mangrove roots, but I feel privileged to have shared this experience with these happy ladies. The final long bum count? Visitors: nil, locals: four shopping bags full.
Down at the waterhole a couple of children are splashing and swimming. Soon I’m bobbing under the tea-green water with these little rascals; they warn me to keep away from the dark patches where the leeches live, introduce me to a leaf that can be used as soap and show me where the special mud is that will make my skin smooth. They smother my face and arms with the creamy-yellow mud and giggle when it doesn’t show up on my white skin. Looking at their mischievous faces, I finally get it – I’m the novelty here.

Soon the barbecue is ready. The ladies share their salty long bums and silty mud mussels with us. We share our sausages and salad with them. As always, food eclipses the cultural divide.

Every day’s an adventure when you’re travelling on the whim of the wind. Evenings are spent trawling for barramundi, setting out crab traps or just laying out on deck, star-gazing and talking about life, love and longing and everything between. Mornings are spent under sail.

We stop in at Nguiu community (pronounced new-yoo) on Bathurst Island. With 1500 residents, it is the largest of the Tiwi communities. We visit the Ngaruwanajirri cooperative art centre, where we watch the artists at work, and also Tiwi Design, famous for ochre paintings on bark and screen-printed fabrics.

Tiwi art is also on display at the beautifully preserved St Therese’s Catholic church. The altar of the white wooden church, which was built in the 1930s, is covered in bold cross-hatched designs and enormous paintings of crocodiles, crabs, pelicans and turtles. There’s even a painting of a baby Jesus being held up by a tribesman in a loin cloth. Incredibly, the Tiwi were able to weave traditional beliefs into Christianity and still maintain their culture.

Outside the church stands the tiny white shack from where, in February 1942, Father McGrath sent a frantic radio message to the mainland as dozens of Japanese bombers streamed overhead towards Darwin. We’ll be heading back there soon too, but via the peaceful flatback turtle nesting site of Bare Sand Island.

The Essentials

How to get there:  World Expeditions offer four-day sailing adventures aboard Sundancer NT departing Darwin, from $2160 per person (website). Qantas operates regular flights to Darwin from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Cairns (website).
When to go: Best time is the dry season between May and November.
Permits: People wishing to visit the Tiwi Island must obtain permits from the Tiwi Island Land Council or be part of a tour with a recognised company. Art: Art is available for purchase from the Munupi Art and Craft Centre on Melville Island, Ngaruwanajirri or Tiwi Design, on Bathurst Island.
More info: Website