Yugambeh Country

Jan 18, 2018

Over the years both Magali and I have had differing experiences that have put us in contact with the many mobs who have protected country up here on the Gold Coast.

Magali has connections with the Bundjalung people especially through the Tweed Valley and through her old hometown for a decade at Stokers Siding, close to Murwillumbah NSW Australia. I had my own years of attending the old Lismore CAE and many years of travel up and down the Pacific highway with children spread across three states. We are up here visiting Aunty Jackie and Aunty Joyce and thats the best bit of it all here up this way as far as people go.

So it is that we are feeling very privileged to be on Yugambeh country, spending the day in forests where the Yugambeh, Ngarangwal, Nganduwal, Mibin/Miban, Danggan Balun(Five Rivers) clans would come together, long before it was logged and marginally saved by one old fella...the whole tragic story but one last remnant standing tall and strong amongst other towering cliffs nearby.

Surfers Paradise is the worst example of rampant consumerism gone wrong and the countless traditional sites that have been decimated to make way for these ugly times and ugly humans that inhabit piles of concrete boxes. It is a complete nightmare along this coastline and incredibly frightening to see the impact and pressure that a last remnant forest is under as tourists throw their coke cans into the bush, tramp through sensitive rainforest and kill off the waterways with their ridiculous canal houses.

In summary it is a place of extreme and paradoxical contrasts, absolutely amazing country in some pockets and decimated under tons of crap right next door. The cancer of estate houses and the mall after mall of shopping mayhem makes me sick. Thankfully the country will heal itself long after this scourge has left this planet.