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The Lilac Hat
Bonnie, a bubbly Servas guest from Port Angeles, Washington had arrived
in January without a hat, so the lilac hat began another brief journey, shading
her from the summer sun. It watched the blue waters of St Vincent gulf brush
softly on the long white beach of Silver Sands and saw again the sweep of the
Southern Ocean from Goolwa to Victor Harbor, remembering its last journey to the
wild beaches of Kangaroo Island across the strait. After Bonnie left, the hat
returned to its place on the shelf, and another summer and autumn passed.
Charmian and Neil's thoughts had turned to the north of Australia as
the winter began to close in, and the lilac hat was taken down, its upturned
brim a perfect nestling place for the fly net carried by all north-bound
travellers. And so its next journey began, north through the deserts of the Red
Centre, past the Tropic of Capricorn and onto the Top End of Australia. The
hat watched with wonder as the long reaches of the desert unfolded, the sand
becoming redder and redder as it travelled. Eucalypt woodlands gave way to myall
and titree scrub and then to empty saltbush deserts, a huge cloudless sky
arching above. It passed by broad salt lakes and crossed wide sandy creek-beds,
empty now of their summer monsoonal rains. It sat patiently on the back ledge of
the car through the freezing winter nights of the desert, knowing that soon it
would be needed as it moved north. In
Alice Springs, in the centre of the continent, it saw, sometimes with hope,
sometimes with despair, the condition of Aboriginal Australians and wondered
when the time would come when this people could both reclaim their ancient
heritage and take an honoured place in modern Australia. It marvelled at the
exuberant Sturt's Desert Pea at Desert Park, the rich red of Standley Chasm,
and the sweep of the McDonnell Ranges with its ochre-red cliffs retreating into
distant blues. Just
north of Alice Springs, the lilac hat crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and
entered the tropical north. Now temperatures began to rise and soon the hat was
in regular use. It sat on the edge of the Roper River and in the hot springs at
Mataranka watching the kangaroos coming down to drink and the parade of
brilliant birds—scarlet finches, shining flycatchers and rainbow bee-eaters.
It heard the strangled cry of the blue-winged kookaburra, and longed for a
glimpse of this elusive bird, only to be constantly disappointed. On the
Katherine River, with a light wind off the water providing some relief from the
heat, the hat marvelled at the harsh red beauty of the sandstone cliffs as it
travelled down the spectacular gorge. It
crossed into Aboriginal land in Kakadu National Park, again providing Charmian
with much-needed shade, as the afternoon sun blazed out of skies clear apart
from the occasional haze of smoke from the controlled winter burnoff. Cruising
quietly on Yellow Water, the lilac hat was thrilled by an abundance of birds it
had never seen before—brolgas and jabirus, sea eagles and jacanas, azure
kingfishers and kites and, reminding it of Canada, flocks of magpie geese. The
hat's shade was in continual use in Darwin, Australia's northernmost city
and capital of the Northern Territory, as it bustled around markets, museums,
galleries, and harbourside dining, re-acquainting itself with familiar hats that
had also travelled from Adelaide and met in Darwin. It was jolted out of the
reflections about old stories and an ancient land into the realities of the
modern world by seeing warships in the harbour, displays of the destruction of
the city by Cyclone Tracy in 1974, and hearing about the on-going news of the
recent bombings in London. Pleased
to be turning south again, the hat found the shade of springs in Litchfield
National Park and Douglas Hot Springs. At Batchelor, a small settlement near the
entrance to Litchfield, it paused as Charmian chatted with Jeannie, an Arnhem
Land Aboriginal woman, who was selling her traditional woven mats and baskets in
the town park. They discussed techniques, fabrics and dyes and learned that
Jeannie taught traditional crafts at the local college, and was instructing her
daughters and grand-daughters in the arts of weaving. At
Kununurra, the lilac hat took a plane ride into the amazing Bungle Bungle Range
of Purnululu National Park. It walked among the striped beehive domes of the
range into Cathedral Gorge, where the guide's didgeridoo music echoed
hauntingly around a huge sandstone bowl, sculpted by flooding waters over
millions of wet seasons. It paused as Charmian sat on the rocks at the entrance
to Piccaninny Creek, shading her from the afternoon sun as feelings of awe
settled on the travellers as gently as the soft breeze brushing down the valley.
On a drive out to Wyndham, the hat stopped at Parry's Lagoon for a quiet hour
of bird-watching from the bird hide, and Charmian was able to tick more
sightings in her bird book. After
over 6 weeks of travelling, it was time for the hat to turn for home and its
quiet resting place on the guest room shelf at Hawthorndene. But, somewhere
during a stop at Katherine, Charmian and the lilac hat became separated and the
discovery of the loss was not made until the travellers were well down the road
south. We
wonder where the lilac hat is now. Who may have discovered it? What travels may
it have taken? We will never know, but we want to dream a destination for it. We
want to imagine that it has made its way north from Katherine to the little town
of Batchelor and is sitting, even now, on the head of Jeannie as she gently
weaves the stories of her people into the fabric and colours of her mats and
baskets—the astonishing reds of the earth, the soft blue of the sky, and the
blazing orange of the tropic sun. Neil
Quintrell 26
August 2005
Charmian
and 'The Lilac Hat' at
Burrunggui Aboriginal rock art site in Kakadu
National Park, July 2005 |
