Latest Posts

  • Charles Sturt’s Journey Down the Murray, 1829-30

    Captain Charles Sturt, of the 39th Regiment based in N.S.W. was the next officially sanctioned explorer to venture into the unknown of Southern Australia. His party of soldiers and convicts, after setting out from Sydney on 3rd November 1829 with… Continue reading

  • Uluru Handover Ceremony, 1985

    This is the second account in the Desert Star, of my attendance at the 1985 handover (or should that be hand-back) of Uluru to its traditional owners. The accounts were written at different times, the previous version being written closer to the… Continue reading

  • Uluru Handover

    I recently came across these short esays written soon after the hand over of Uluru in 1985. An interesting contrast to the version I wrote recently read here in my Aboriginal Culture blog category. Flying To The Red Heart Flying low… Continue reading

  • Kangaroo Dreaming

    A wild leap of my life story into a period beginning in the early 1980’s, some 30 years later – which encompasses some dramatic changes. These changes lead inevitably to my future association with Aboriginal people and their culture. This… Continue reading

  • History of the Western Desert Art Movement

    In 1971, a young school teacher named Geoff Bardon arrived at a remote Government settlement north-west of Alice Springs, called Papunya. Papunya was established to enable government agencies to provide essential services to various language groups of Aboriginal people, increasingly… Continue reading

  • Darwin, 2009

    It was more of a loaf in Darwin this trip, with no trip to Croker Island, though I did catch up with some people from there, and I mostly stayed within the city itself, although I managed to venture south… Continue reading

  • Lake Mungo

    Sometime in the late seventies or early eighties, I saw a television program about the discovery of some human remains, revealed by a relentless desert wind blowing over ancient sand dunes fringing a lake which had last seen water some… Continue reading

  • Collet Barker

    The Mount Barker township, region and mountain, on the south eastern outskirts of the Mount Lofty ranges, was named by Captain Charles Sturt, after Captain Collet Barker, of the 39th Regiment (Barker’s compatriot and friend Captain Charles Sturt was a… Continue reading

  • Darwin Again

    Saturday morning I flew out of Croker, via Goulburn Island again, and back to Darwin. Another week in the sun, then back to the ‘now when it’s freezing, here in these cold, cold, hills.’ The trip has been successful and… Continue reading

  • The View From Coker Island

    It has now been ten days since I arrived on Croker Island. During that time, John Howard has demonstrated his new found concern for Aboriginal welfare. I have long held a cynical view of anything Howard does, and nothing has… Continue reading