A fairly big
day of driving today as we crossed the Queensland NSW border to stop here at “The
Primitive Bush Camp”, Walgett. The town is fairly small and remote and does not
have a caravan park but the local shire has provided this free camp. It says “primitive”
but honestly, with clean, flushing toilets, a lovely dam with geese and a
fountain, some very interesting information boards and displays plus the
cemetery across the road, it is nearly perfect. Once we’d set up I headed over
the road to explore the cemetery and it was very interesting. It had the grave
of the well-known Aboriginal entertainer, Jimmy Little which I managed to find.
Following this, I came back to read some of the information boards and
discovered some really interesting things about this town and Australia’s more
recent history. This town has a large population of Aboriginal people living in
it and this is obvious from the many services offered in the town. It seems
that racial discrimination towards the Aboriginal people in Walgett was rife.
During 1965 there was a “Freedom Ride”. The group of mainly university
students, including Charlie Perkins came to the town in a bus to tackle things
like Aboriginal women not being allowed to go into the ladies frock shop,
segregation of the Aboriginal people in the picture theatre and no Aboriginal
people who had fought in the wars, being allowed to join the RSL. The tour bus
was run off the road by an angry local. You can probably find out more about
this Freedom Tour if you “google it”. This link tells you a little and the
short video of the Aboriginal woman speaking is interesting.
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