Wild At The Art

Australia’s Kimberley Coast is an isolated region of dramatic waterfalls, tides, and cliffs all best experienced by ship. Ian McGuire discovers one of the world’s final frontiers.

- Ian McGuire

As our helicopter flew low over brown bush cut by dried gullies and speckled with eucalyptus, I asked the pilot, Rob Colbert, if, in all the years he had been flying over the Kimberley, he had ever seen anyone on the ground. He shook his head: Never. I wasn’t surprised. The land flashing below us looked raw and untouched, magnificently empty. A few minutes later, we landed near a sand-colored rock formation, which was different from the hundred we had passed. Rob led us forward, and as the path climbed, he directed our gaze to a long, flat overhang, something like a shallow cave with a broad extended roof. There they were: Aboriginal rock paintings depicting the wandjinas mythical, ghostlike beings with white mouthless faces and large staring eyes that had been executed perhaps 4,000 years ago, but were as bright and striking as if they had been made only last week. They were breathtaking in their boldness and power. Suddenly this landscape, which had seemed fiercely beautiful but also strangely inhuman, felt different to me, and much richer. The Kimberley was not empty or uninhabitable, I realized, but rather haunted by the presence of an ancient people, the original Australians who had for thousands of years found a way to flourish.