Fun Times With TINA Pt1 (My Newcastle Trip Retrospective)

Gold Participant: Ben (Young Person - Griffith)

Thanks to Davo’s magic sandwich making skills, i’m putting this up. Seriously, i’m easily bribed. Gimmie a block of chocolate and im your pal for life. or atleast the next day or two.
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As I stood waiting for the train to Newcastle, I took another look at the written directions I had been given by Davo. I had just gotten off the Griffith to Sydney flight, and I was still slightly shaken from the ride. Those planes rattle like crazy. Seems like they shouldn’t even be allowed to take off, let alone carry passengers.

The written directions Davo had given me were not complicated; Get on plane, fly to Sydney, get off plane, then take the train to Newcastle. Simple really. Only problem, the timetable on the screen hanging above the train track had nothing to do with Newcastle on it. All it had was “City Circuit” in big white letters on the top with a bunch of random places underneath. I waited and waited for a train heading to Newcastle to appear on the screen, but it never did. I was getting more and more worried. What if I had missed the train? What if I was late for the opening of the TINA festival? As these questions swirled around in my mind, two beautiful ladies walked up to me out of the blue. One was blond, the other was a brunette “Do you know where this train goes? I’ve never ridden this train before” The blond one asked me. She had an English accent. I assumed they were backpackers. Ivan Millat jumped to mind. I assured myself that if Ivan were to turn up, I would kick his ass. “I’m not sure myself” I replied “ I’ve never ridden this train before either. So where are you from?” My guess was correct. They were backpackers from England. I explained my dilemma that I was waiting for a train to Newcastle. Another of the “City Circuit” trains pulled up. The two girls decided to jump on the train and see where it took them. We said our goodbyes and they left. Then it hit me. This is a “City Circuit” line. I.E, these trains were taking a circuit around the city. Swearing to myself, I took another looks at my instructions. Somehow, the instructions had magically changed. I was SUPOSSED to take the City Circuit train to The Central Station and take a train there all the way to Newcastle. Waiting here for a train to Newcastle had gotten me nowhere. And I had missed out on spending quality time with two young ladies. I kicked one of the nearby benches in anger, and I garnered a couple of weird looks from people, but I was angry to care. I jumped onto the City Circuit, then got off at Central Station and got on the train that was headed for Newcastle.

One of our Hume Weir Trips (aka Empress of Scum)

Gold Participant: Ben (Young Person - Griffith)

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After much goading from various denizens of the Big hArt Gold Project, I finally sat down to write about my weekend at the Hume Weir.

I looked into the glowing monitor and thought about where should I start. Should I talk about how we played Poker, or should I start with Chucky D (aka Shakthi) breaking the Fellowship of the Room. Suddenly, I realized the best place to start: when Vanessa’s Birthday Cake, which was in a box (I didn’t know it was a birthday cake at the time) fell from my hands, only to be caught by those very same hands seconds later (note: never dropped the cake!).
“Shit” I said under my breath as I steadied myself. I hoped to dear god that no one noticed my slip up. I looked up from the cake. The whole world went into slow motion as Carlie, who was walking only a few meters in front of me, had begun to turn around. Unfortunatly, the slow motion effect ended and Carlie stood facing me like a giant snake, ready to pounce
“Did you drop the cake!” she said in a hissing voice. I stood there like a deer looking into oncoming headlights. The word cake rang through my head like a bell.
“Uh, no” I said, regaining my composure.“It fell-”
She glared at me
“-And I caught it.”
She glared at me for a few seconds, then snatched the cake from my hands.
“You ruined Vanessa’s Birthday Cake!” she hissed as she placed the cake in the car
“It’s her birthday?” I gasped, finally realizing the extent of my screw up. Again I stood there like a deer in headlights as I contemplated the consequences of my actions. People walked by me carrying various boxes, which were placed in the trailer attached to the car. Suddenly Rowan was telling me to grab one end of a greenish tarp that had been pulled out of nowhere. I helped/hindered Rowan as we covered the trailer with the tarp. Still worrying about the cake, I sat in the backseat of the car and waited for someone to start driving. Carlie and Paul jumped in with me, then a few minutes later Davo jumped into the drivers seat and started the car and began our long journey .

I began to fall in and out of a dreamy state, hearing various snippet of the conversation that was going on. It kind of went like this:
“-Then I got thrown off the bike ……….. There is a lot of abuse in the book…….I looked up at my teacher and said ‘hello Mrs Cudmore’.”
Suddenly, we stopped. I blinked a few times and looked around. It was dark everyone was getting out of the car. Using my amazing deduction skills, I realized that there must be a reason everyone was vacating the car and leapt out after them. As I stood on the sidewalk, someone asked me if I was cold, as I was wearing a button up shirt and cargo shorts.
“No” I replied. “ So what are we doing here anyway?” I ask no one in particular.
“Food” someone said. People were heading to a fish and chip shop, so using my aforementioned deduction skills, I realized we were going to have dinner.

I walked in and the first thing I noticed was an old man with white hair standing over a fryer. I got large dose of Déjà vu as I saw the old man, but I couldn’t quite figure out why. Carlie wandered into the shop seconds later and said
“Hey, that looks like Mr Barker from school.”
The Déjà vu disappeared as soon as I got a good look at the old guy’s face though. I wandered into the shop, still slightly dazed from the car trip. I stood next to the counter and watched as people grabbed drinks from the fridge. Once more, my deduction skills kicked in and I realized I didn’t have to pay so I grabbed a Red Bull to pep me up. I stood there gulping the stuff down when someone asked me what I wanted to eat.
“Huh?” I muttered as I turned around. It was Davo.
“Um…..” I began as I looked at the chalkboard menu up on the wall. “I dunno”
“Come on, you must want something?” she asked
I stood there desperately trying to think of what I wanted to eat. It was like I was under interrogation. My brain just went into complete lock down.
“Do you want a burger?” Davo asked.
“Yeah, ok” I answered, latching onto the offer. I sat down at a table and whipped out my Pink Nintendo DS. The nature of my DS has garnered many a question from both the inquisitive and the annoying, but I really cant help doing things like buying weird stuff. I sometimes think the pinnacle of this weirdness might be the fairy poster on my bedroom door. Eventually, Davo and Chris came over and sat down with me. As Davo was from the inquisitive portion of humanity (Who knows what side Chris is on) I gave her a quick rundown of the Nintendo DS’s touch screen capabilities. Obviously, Carlie was from the annoying side, as the first thing she questioned when she saw the DS was the colour.

Soon, our food came; I was expecting a sad shadow of a true burger, with half a leaf of lettuce, a drop of tomato sauce, a slice of cheese and a low quality beef patty. I got the complete opposite. This mammoth of a burger had 4 giant slices of beetroot, 3 giant slices of tomato, a handful (by my hand, which is large) of onion, a big bunch of lettuce, delicious cheese and a beef patty to rival any other burger. And it came with a side of chips. It looked like i was being served a mountain. I asked Chris, who had payed for all of this, about how much this cost
“The burger cost 4 dollars” he replied. I was shocked. This place had just got a customer for life. Happy with our meals, we left and jumped into the car for what I guessed (correctly, I might add) would be the last leg of our journey.

I had fallen into the aforementioned dreamy state fairly quickly. As my head leaned against the window, it rhythmically bumped against the window in a way that felt extremely nice.
“OH MY FUCKING GOD!” someone screamed. I jerked awake, fearing the worst, thinking that the shit had hit the fan and gone through the roof. It was Carlie.Again. I tried to make out what she was saying, I could barely understand, she was having some kind of one sided yelling match with Davo,
“WHY DIDN”T YOU TELL ME AUSTRALIA’S NEXT TOP MODEL WAS HAVING AUDITIONS IN ALUBRY!”
Davo seemed to be forming a reply when Carlie leaned out the window
“IM GONNA BE AUSTRALIAS NEXT TOP MODEL!” she screamed to as we drove by. This went on for quite a bit, I got bored and fell back into my dreamy state until we arrived at a farm, owned by a man named Frank, at around 9-ish.

“Where’s the cake” Carlie hissed to me as we unpacked the car. I shivered. this was going to get bad quickly. it was too dark to see anything clearly, so Carlie stood by the car until the cake was found, and whisked it inside.

We went inside and everyone was introduced to Frank. Frank is pretty cool. I like him, but there was one thing I thought that was weird about him. I could never, and I mean NEVER figure out if he was mucking around or being serious. If he wanted, he could be one hell of an actor. Eventually, everyone ended up in the lounge room.

When we had all settled down, Frank launched into a welcome speech, then food and drink was brought out. I caught Carlies eye for a second. She looked like the devil incarnate. looking away, i concentrated my cup. I knew what was going to happen. I was going to ruin Vanessa’s birthday. They were going to bring out the cake, open it up , and find the disgusting monstrosity that was put in the cakes place. Carlie would then jump up and accuse me of murder, and i would be hung drawn and quartered. i was literally shaking. The cake was brought out in its box with much fanfare. This did little to ease my fears. Chris opened the box.

THE CAKE WAS OK!!!!!!!!!!

In fact, Everyone was amazed at how it looked. I gave Carlie a smug look. I had just escaped certain doom. After eating the exquisite cake, Chris and Vanessa took their child and went to bed, while the rest of us stayed up and had extremely rousing game of Poker. Playing with matchstick’s, i managed not only to make a matchstick Skyscraper with my winnings, I also managed to win a man slave, namely Kurtis, who i still own to this day.

Eventually, we all retired to our bedrooms. for the guys, this meant 6 of us jammed into a single room.This would prove to be disastrous, as the smell of 6 burly men farting all night can take its toll on ones soul. that morning, i was one of the first to wake, and i wandered out to the kitchen, where Frank was sitting.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked me

I smiled ” Could i have two cups please, i usually have a short black and a flat white in the morning”

“Make it yourself” Frank replied.

What i didn’t know at this time was Frank was only mucking around, in a way that only Frank can. He made me some coffee and we talked about the interviews we would be conducting that day. Eventually everyone was waken up and people began running around trying to get everything ready for the first interview. The first interview was with Ray; an old farmer who had been working in the Hume Weir for a looong time (don’t remember how long). the entire crew was there, sitting around listening to Ray talk about his life. I was stuck with the job of writing down everysingle thing that was interesting during the interview, and I’m glad that i did, because if i didn’t have that job, i would never have stayed around till the end of the interview.

Some still pics from our Timelapse Workshop

Gold Participant: Robert (Young Person - Griffith)

We have been doing some timelapse photography. We will be putting the video up soon.

Check out the pictures below and the best ones (in my opinion) are the ones of me reading the paper. That was so much hard work, standing still for so long.

[Show as slideshow]

Sydney Trip

Gold Participant: Robert (Young Person - Griffith)

On Monday Feburary 4th 2008 - Wednesday Feburary 6th 2008.

Big hART’s GOLD team went to Sydney to see a play called Ngapartji Ngapartji - held on Tuesday 5th Feb. Ngapartji Ngapartji is a Big hART project run in the Northern Territory.

Ngapartji Ngapartji explores themes of dispossession and displacement caused by being torn away from your home and family. Trevor Jamieson, who is the star of the play talks about what it was like for his family when european settlers came to this land 200 years ago.

The play is partly in English and partly in Pitjantjatjara (the tribal language in Spinnifex Country). This is to teach people the language of the tribe.

The play was absolutely amazing and has been a good inspiration for us to see what our project could be like when we finish.

The parts of the show I remember best were at the start of the show when Trevor and his family tought us some of the Pitjantjatjara language, then got us to sing the song, “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” in Pitjantjatjara. I felt this was really good because rather than just sitting down watching the show we were part of it, which made it more interesting.

I also remember they showed us a film about Trevor’s brother Jangala who has been to jail a few times. While the play was on Jangala was at the back of the play in the darkness then came out at the end and sang with Trevor.

Overall I thought the play was absolutely amazing and would love to see another play like it. I hope that our project can reach out to people in the same way when we finish.

For more information about Ngapartji Ngapartji go to www.ngapartji.org

Thanks for reading
Robert Brewer

GOLD Participant.