We had a chilled out day in preparation for our evening visit to the Tjapukai visitors park, dinner and show. It started really well with an intro to different Aboriginal spirits – it was really evocative and slighty scary for Cora, but put us in the mood for more. We then joined a procession down to this huge campfire, where there were 3 Tjapukai tribesmen in traditional body paint and clothes doing a traditional fire lighting ceremony – it was fun as we were given trad rythm sticks (as in “hit me with…….”) to beat along to the chanting and singing. There was a bit of theatrics with fire and spears and then we all trooped inside for a buffet dinner – was tasty.

At dessert the floor show started with some didgerdoo playing – much more musical than i would have expected. After that we had the most bizzarely amaturish, downright rubbish “musical and mime show” that i have ever seen. It was cringy.

We left completely mystified and disappointed – we learned nothing about the culture of what they call the “tradiitional owners”. I was also a bit cross as this cost us $250…..for $100 worth of dinner and a show you would be disappointed to see as a primary school annual play.

The real star of the night was the night sky. It was a gorgeous night and the first time we were away from city lights. It was actually a little disorientating looking at the sky and not being able to recognize anything – no familiar points at all. We could actually see the milky way and the sky was crowded with bright stars. Pity the aboriginals didn’t sit us down around the camp fire and tell us their trad stories about the sky and their environment – thats something I would have been happy to pay for!