Wow, what a ride in and what a place! We loved our first NT community visit and workshop. Thanks to the Minyerri people for making us feel so welcome and for being so enthusiastic about our workshops.
Driving in was terrific. We bought last supplies at Katherine, drove south to Maturanka and headed east. Minyerri is 470 km south East of Darwin. The journey to Minyerri by road passes through some of the most popular tourist icons - parks and pools. Travelling 270K from Darwin along the Stuart Highway to Katherine and then 100 K to Maturanka, the journey turns east for 110 Km along the Roper Highway to the Minyerri turnoff. Then down a red dirt road for a last 35 km to a small community of 400 people, 35 houses, community buildings, a school a shop, a council office and some Govt buildings.
After arriving in the community, we printed some posters, put them on the side of the van and then drive around the community. I felt like we had a Mr Whippy van. People came up to see what we were doing. It was a great way to encourage people to attend our workshops. Managed to geta great sunset in too. Wet season build up creates great skies.
Minyerri Alawa Corporation Headquarter and training roomThe workshops were a hoot. We had up to 30 people in the room at a time and lots of families doing jobs together. It was a great learning environment. It's hard to capture the excitement in words or pictures. After such a great start to the NT projects, we can't wait for the new year and the next set of workshops including the next few visits to Minyerri.
We drove back after 4 days through a huge storm to arrive at Marg and John's for another curry night. Love their hospitality.
Hope everyone has a great Christmas and we will have much to share next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment