"This film is about what happened to my culture, when it was interrupted by your culture" (David Gulpilil).

I have just returned home from watching a screening of the documentary Another Country, narrated by Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil (Walkabout; Rabbit Proof Fence; Crocodile Dundee) and hosted by Films for Change Wollongong. It was a reflectively sobering experience to say the least.

I grew up near this majestic mountain and yet it's taken me over thirty years to actually climb it! As a child my Dad would recount many stories of the steep ascent (and descent!) that he would take with the schoolkids he taught at one of the local High Schools in the area. At the time I had no real inclination to do the climb myself, however in recent months I felt so drawn to this mountain from my childhood that I was even dreaming about it! Then it appeared in a major feature article in National Geographic magazine and I learned so much more about it's spiritual significance to the local Aboriginal Yuin people, and I felt so incredibly ignorant that it had taken me this long to notice its vital value to the local area. So, over the Christmas break I strapped on my boots, packed my backpack and reserved a full day to immerse myself in a mountain of discovery.

 I have been reading a fabulous book lately called ​'Elders - Wisdom from Australia's Indigenous Leaders' and how much we can all learn from this! One of my favourite chapters was called 'Healing', authored by Max Dulumunmun Harrison of the Yuin people on the Far South Coast of NSW.