Page 244 - Mit dem Wohnwagen durch Australien

the peril and bother. From black to sand coloured, to golden, to orange, to brown, silver, white and mauve, all in all
there are 72 colours. We could have walked the whole 10 km along the cliffs, but it is time to go back. Will we have
to swim? No, we were lucky. The tide had turned and was receding and we could walk back dry footed.

HOW THE BEACH GOT ITS COLOURS
Long before our time Murrawar, a beautiful maiden, lived by the river. She fell in love with Rainbow who visited her
every day. One day, Burrawilla, a huge very bad man from another people came to the river kidnapped Murrawar.
He took her as a slave, beat and abused her and had her doo all the heavy work. Meanwhile he was sitting in the
shade and admired his killer boomerang. This boomerang was bigger than the biggest tree and full of devilish
maliciousness. One day Murrawar decided to flee. She ran and when she looked back, she saw, that Burrawilla had
thrown the killer boomerang after her. She called for help and fell into the sand. All of sudden she heard that huge
ear-splitting noise from the sky. Her faithful rainbow came to her rescue. The killer boomerang and the rainbow
clashed with a thunderous clap. The boomerang dies on the spot and the poor rainbow lay shattered on the beach
dying. His colours can still be seen on the cliffs.

GOOD BYE BEACH
We have seen beautiful blue lagoons, golden sand beaches bordered by dark lush rainforests, the dream of all
fishermen, surfer and beachgoers. Since we do not belong to either, we will go back to the outback, we go bush.

CAPE YORK
Laura is as far as we can go in direction of Cape York, the northernmost Cape of Australia. Laura is a small hamlet
and lies oh the only track to the Cape. All adventurers come through here. We see every kind of 4WD with or without
tent trailers which go North. They all have one thing in common, their colours are still distinguishable. All cars
coming back from the cape are Uni-coloured, red-brown dirt and dust, mostly up to the roof. He Off-Road Track
leads over many river crossings, Rock levies, Mud holes and sand holes. Not only that, but the rivers are inhabited
by the large fierce Crocodiles. Good that we stay in Laura.

The land belongs to Aborigine and the surrounding hills are full of rock art. Some of them are up to 34’000 years old,
but we also see some newer ones which are only about 150 years old. One of them is sort of a cartoon. It shows a
white policeman tumbling headlong from his horse. Others portray Quinkans, powerful good or evil spirits. Up to ca.
1970, Rock Art and adornments to Didgeridoos and tools, were the only expression of visual art by the Aborigines.
Only thereafter they stated to bring their dreams on paper, bark or canvas. Laura and Cooktown are our last stops
at the Australian East Coast. From now on, we go west.

WATER FOR EVERYONE
This Aborigine tale tells of sharing
In the time of creation all living things were animals. The bluetongue lizard, Bangaarra, was the only one who had
water. Al the other animals had to eat grass, when they were thirsty. One day the animals decided to ask Bangarra
for some water. “What do you mean? I do not have any water, just like you” did he reply. “Your whiskers are all wet,
how come?” Bangarra grumpily turned away. The other animals decided to follow Bangarra in order to find the
hiding place of his water. They failed miserably, Bangarra discovered them everytime and went somewhere else.
Until the smallest fo the all, the mouse, Galu to up the pursuit. Bangarra was clever, but Galu was even cleverer.
Every time the suspicious Bangarra turned around, little Galu quickly jumped over Bangarras tail to the other side
and so evaded detection. So Bangaarra went to his waterhole and took away the covering stone. When Galu saw
the water he squealed with joy: “Water, water for us all”! Alarmed by the racket the swallow came flying in and took
beaks full of water and flew of the land. It created lots of lakes and rivers and all animals now had water. Bangarra
was ashamed about his selfishness.

THE DREAM CASTLE
Beginning last century, a young Spaniard emigrated to Australia to find his luck. After hard labour on the sugar cane
plantations he became wiser and started to buy and sell plantations. Once he had enough money, he went back to
Spain to get his fiancée. Unfortunately she was already married to another, most likely because he never even
wrote one single letter in the past 11 years. The family was rather embarrassed and gave him the younger daughter
of his former bride for a wife. Hey went back to Australia. First he built a little cottage for him and the family before
he started on his castle. He did most of the work himself, and built a castle with a large ballroom, which he used as
Theater, Cinema and Partyroom. He planted hundreds of trees and shrubs to build a romantic garden with fountains,