Australia: Relaxing in the lair of the Rainbow Serpent

The spectacular Katherine Gorge has been home to the Jawoyn people for 10,000 years. Photo / Supplied

Step away from champagne and strawberries in a 21st-century platinum-class rail carriage, shift back a few millennia into the oldest surviving culture in the world, and it's champagne and crocs.

Well, no crocs this time.

But we know they're there somewhere, skulking in the depths of the Katherine Gorge, as we slip gently from the shade of trees hung with the inverted bodies of sleeping fruit bats and glide up the river.

We are told that just the shy freshwater variety of croc lives here - huh, they'll hardly take a toe off.

But you do have to watch for the odd big, mean saltie that sometimes slides through in the wet season.

We're using a stopover on the Ghan, the train that runs 3000km from Darwin to Adelaide, to visit this home of the Jawoyn people, who call the spectacular series of 13 gorges that carve through ancient sandstone hills to the sea Nitmiluk, or "cicada dreaming".

The creation spirit Nabilil gave the gorge its name as he passed and heard the "nit, nit, nit" song of the cicada.

Today we slide between immense bluffs in a flat-bottomed skiff, passing canoeists paddling a much harder tour in the heat.

They look at us in envy as we sip champers: we raise chilled glasses to them in return.

Above us is the vast, deep blue canopy of the sky.

On each side are small sandy bays at the foot of the great cliffs and the hardy vegetation of the gorge: river pandanus, used by the Jawoyn for secret men's business and to make fire sticks; white gums that become didgeridoos when hollowed by termites; chalky apple trees for food; and the versatile silver-leafed paperbark.

Mythology comes alive here.

The Jawoyn say the Rainbow Serpent lives in the second gorge, the deepest part of the system.

They do not swim, fish or drink there.

No one wants to offend a spirit that can vent its rage in a monsoonal storm that destroys everything in its path.

This is a place of initiation.

Boys aged 5 to 10 pass the first by living off the land for five months; 13- to 16-year-olds pass the second by surviving up to a year in the wilderness.

Throughout, they are tested by the Rainbow Serpent.

We do not pass beyond the rock shelf that marks the end of the first gorge.

Instead, we moor and walk in shimmering heat to the vast cliff face, where for 10,000 years or so the Jawoyn have been painting their culture and their lives in black from charcoal, and in reds, yellows and white created from clay-like stone, ground to a paste and blended with animal fat and saliva.

The images vary in size and shape.

Many are mimis, spirits of good and evil: the evil are small and fat, the good tall and skinny.

Some are painted impossibly high on the cliff face.

The Jawoyn say they are the work of giant mimis.

As we head back to the boat, a didgeridoo begins its deep, distinctive song. Bouncing from the rocks with a cadence that almost vibrates on the skin, it leaves a haunting sense that the serpent really does lie beyond the bend.

Fortunately, all that awaits us is the next leg of our trip on the Ghan and more champagne.

THE GHAN
Riding The Ghan between Darwin and Adelaide costs A$2987 ($3756) one-way. Adelaide-Darwin trains depart Sunday and Wednesday, arriving Tuesday and Friday. Darwin-Adelaide trains depart Wednesday and
Saturday, arriving Friday and Monday.

FURTHER INFORMATION
See the Great Southern Railways website at www.gsr.com.au

Greg Ansley visited Katherine Gorge and rode The Ghan courtesy of Great Southern Railways.