14 Mar 2007 - Mamadawaree and Port Keats

Off today to a place called Mamadawerre. Something electrical has broken down, a generator or some such. I couldn’t get much sense out of the guy who I was taking to work on it, so I stopped asking. He slept most of the way, which is fine by me.

The coast, West of Darwin

A flooded river

For all those students out there, if the GPS track shown in the picture doesn’t look ‘straight’, well I guess you could call those kinks 'diversions'. If you get rain so thick you can’t see what’s on the other side – you go around!

The windy road to Mamadawaree

East Alligator River??

About an hour and a half to get there, and about an hour spent on the ground, throwing stones at my hat for amusement. Note to self – take a book next time. Right on queue, the electrician returns, and we set of with the words from him “will probably only last the afternoon – the generator won’t switch off, it’ll be burnt out by dark”. An hour and a half their, and the same return, and the job won’t last until tomorrow. It’s an expensive place to live, when you’re electrician has to come by plane.

Not that there’s much at Mamadawerre, the name is bigger than the place. In the photos, you can see the runway with a couple of buildings set back from it, and about the same number are on the other side. Probably a dozen houses all up. The runway serves as the main street also. One end probably heads to Darwin, the other to Gove, or somewhere… (since I still don’t really know where I am, I’ve really no idea!)

There’s also a school, as you can see in the picture, but I don’t know if it still gets used. This is as close as I was game to go.

The School

Aside from the lack of amenity the town, or rather, the runway & houses, are really in the most beautiful location. It’s probably not evident from the photos, but it sits adjacent to the Kakadu escarpment, and the river runs right next door (probably through the same door last week, when it flooded).

Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow, when the generator breaks. Who knows. It’s all a little strange, how these places exist, and get the support they do (some might say, it’s still not enough). In any case, it keeps me employed.

Finally, on return, job done... and someone needs to go to Port Keats. I stick my hand up. 2 hours later, I'm back just before dark... another long day.