Guluyambi Cultural Cruise (pronounced Goo-lee-arm-bee)

The Guluyambi boat cruise left from the upstream boat ramp on the East Alligator River, headed down to Cahill’s Crossing - which is the only road into Arnhem Land – and then back upstream to a sandy river bank where the wet had dumped 20,000 tonnes of sand. I did the cruise with one of the bar staff, Keith (A.K.A one half of the infamous Keiffany, go hard or go home) along with a group from AAT Kings. As Keith so eloquently put it, it was like “being in God’s waiting room” with the two of us being the youngest by oh, maybe forty years or so.

It was a really interesting cruise though and our guide taught us about the uses for some of the plants that line the river bank including beach hibiscus (spears, string, mozzie repellent and antiseptic) and paper bark trees (shelter, water carrying vessel, cooking utensil) as well as explaining some aspects of traditional aboriginal law (if you were naughty you got a spear in the thigh or if you were really, really naughty, in the Achilles tendon so that you had a limp for the rest of your life and people knew that you were a ‘bad fella’).

Highlights:
Seeing my first croc in the wild.

Lowlights:
Being stalked above mentioned crocodile. I am nobody’s dinner.


This is me. And a bus. Yay.


Conway doing his best tourist impersonation.


Guluyambi means 'paperbark raft' in the local aboriginal language. This however is not a paperbark raft.


My second croc in the wild - woo hoo! I didn't get a proper photo of the first one as it kept cruising around the boat and going under. Cheeky little devil...


This is a water carrying vessel made from paperbark. Pretty neat, eh?