The Sand Trade (V)
VICTOR HARBOUR, SA – Encounter Bay has two meanings. The original encounter occurred between Matthew Flinders and Baudin in 1802.
The more modern rendezvous dates back to 1980 when Chris Tapscott, a teacher at Victor Harbour High, reckoned his Year 7 kids would benefit from encountering the Anangu people.
Headmaster Noel Young agreed. Suddenly the classroom came alive with desert survival and dreamtime stories. Homework for the excursion a 1000 kilometres away was learning the basics of the Pitjantjara language, as well as Anangu culture.
As for the kids of Fregon, a speck in the Musgrave Ranges near the NT border, they learnt a bit of Anglo lingo, and a few Western ways. Every year, a bunch of kids swap postcodes, from white sand to red, and vice versa.
A generation later, the program is part of the Year 7 syllabus in both ends of the state. To celebrate the link a whale called Kondoli wallows on Kleinig’s Hill. The creature hails from a Ngarrindjeri story that deal with transformation. [Telescope on hand, the whale is also the ideal spot to encounter the genuine article during winter.]