Yalari Trip

During the July holidays I attended the Yalari year 9 and 10 camp in the Northern Territory. Yalari is a non-profit organization which sponsors Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to go to private schools across Australia. The camp is held with all the year 9 and 10 boys who go to school around Australia so that we can form stronger bonds and visit places that Aboriginal people have had strong relationships with and have been attached to since the beginning of time.

We landed in the dry Alice Springs to begin our journey. We stayed here for a night in the local caravan park and slept in the freezing cold underneath the stars. We started the lap around the NT by visiting Ormiston Gorge (Kwartatuma). We landed and began a walk up to the top of the unbelievable gorge. The view from the heights revealed the whole gorge and the flat dry river bed which surrounded it. We drove on and stopped at Hermannsburg. Here we visited the Lutheran mission. We were educated and shown the conditions in which Aboriginal people live in. After a day visiting the mission we continued our travels to Palm Valley (Mpulyngkinya). We got to experience the wonderful land in an off road drive which was eye opening to me as it was a lot different then was I’m used to.

Continuing the travel we trekked it 5 hours to the Kings Canyon cattle station (Watarrkal). After a long drive this was our resting point before we got to Uluru. In the morning we hopped back into the vehicles for another drive to Uluru. We finally reached Uluru, and it was worth the drive! It was truly amazing.

We started off the day by visiting the Information Centre at the rock where we gained knowledge of the struggle to gain land rights and the years of history around the rock. We walk around the rock and read all the dreamtime stories and even got to visit the carvings and paintings on the rock. The next morning we got to visit Katatjuta which was equally as amazing. But the highlight of the camp was watching the sunset over Uluru. Sitting there and just being able to reflect on the wonderful time and being able to connect with the traditional land of my people was remarkable. 

Braydon Mundy – (Year 9 Yalari recipient School House)