Out of the cold and into the warmth. Where red ochre dirt meets a bright turquoise ocean. Indigenous publishing house Magabala Books are holding a week long workshop for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Hence we travel north to help participants tell their stories through words and paintings. Our aim is to nurture creators, through skills development and hopefully eventual publishing opportunities. The participants are beyond talented in their own artistic right that we’re humbled to be helping them. Just to show you a few please click on their names: Norma MacDonald, Peter Farmer, and Kirsty Burgu.

Broome is made up of two square blocks of corrugated iron shops with same iron roofs. Quaint and paintable. The town has a multicultural mix from the history of Japanese pearl divers who intermarried with the Indigenous traditional landowners = beautiful people.
Pearl shops line the streets and vie for customers. I try on a golden strand of pearls, first thinking they’re 420.00, on second glance, perhaps it’s 4,200. The pearls light up my face. An instantaneous face-lift, I feel ten year younger. Perhaps it’s the shop lighting. In any case, the price is actually 42,000.00 so I carefully remove the strand and move away from the counter.

Most recently at a chance meeting at a restaurant, but will get to that….The initial spark for us to create our book on Ned Kelly and the Green Sash started on a typical Sunday morning with Mark flicking through the Sunday Times classified ads. We faithfully recreate the scene from the movie The Castle every week. Mark reads out some unusual item he finds in the classified, like a pair of jousting sticks and I ask how much. He then says the amount and regardless of price I say, “tell them they’re dreaming. This particular Sunday morning he reads out: Ned Kelly helmet - Accurate Reproduction of the helmet worn by Ned Kelly at the siege of Glenrowan fully wearable will easily fit all adults and I ask him how much, but there’s silence and I don’t get to say they’re dreaming’ he’s out the door and he’s off to Mount Pleasant. He calls me soon after and says, the guys got the whole blood amour what should I do? So a life size Ned Kelly armor, museum quality replica now lives in our kitchen with all the bullet holes in the right place. He stands at the head of our kitchen table ‘at one’ with us.
So this takes me to the chance meeting at a restaurant the other night when I bump into Kim Ledger (Heath’s Dad). Kim came over today with his daughter Kate to tell us about their exciting new projects. I was in a moral dilemma about the armor. If you’ve seen the movie Ned Kelly you know why I might be anxious. Heath played the best Ned ever. Heath wasn’t my son or brother, but all the same, I took it very badly when he died. In fact, I still tear up thinking about him. I know Kate still suffers and I didn’t want to have the imposing presence of the armor to be a sad reminder. I had no need to worry and if you believe in quantum theory, then you’d realize that Heath was here ‘at one’ with us.

Bookwhiz another opportunity to be with me mates. The Children’s Book Council inaugural event had a blessing of authors to support our West Australia Branch. Not being biased, but we have the best CBC in the country. We love them and in return I believe they love us. We’re all one big happy family out here.
Here’s me mate Kate McCaffrey. They might call us sand gropers (a colloquial name for people in West Australia), but even Jim Morrison of The Doors would say, the west is the best.