Swagging On Country reveals the ancient allure of the Pilbara
In the remote Pilbara, can an Aboriginal-led program convey to its white Australian participants what life is really like on country, in the heart of the nation?
We stand at the edge of a vast plain, deep in the Pilbara, surrounded by spinifex, tussock grasses and the cloying red dust of ancient sunbaked earth. In the face of this enormous expanse, our group of seven – all of us white Australian women – remains still and silent. We have climbed to this sacred place atop an outcrop of ochreous boulders beside a dry riverbed. The Aboriginal people of the region, the Kariyarra, call this place Jilya. It is a women’s place, or more specifically, a thulu – a “place where things happen” – and according to local lore, women who visit Jilya may ask the spirits to bless them with a child. Aboriginal women of the desert have visited here for as long as we can imagine; they have left their markings on the rocks – motifs of mothers with their arms outstretched and carvings of their wished-for babies.
The temperature is hovering at around 30 degrees on this June day (positively “winter” in these parts) as we visit Jilya as guests of its custodian Jasmine Green, a Mangala Nyulnyul woman entrusted with its protection by Kariyarra elders. We’re here at her discretion, with her permission, to feel the power of this place first-hand. At her instruction, a member of our group participates in a sacred fertility ceremony. Struck silent, we bear witness to what is a deeply personal experience for her, in a deeply sacred place for Kariyarra women.
We wait here for the whispers on the wind to arrive – a signal that her request has been heard by the spirit world. We wait, and wait, until suddenly, just as Jasmine said would happen, the wind gathers in speed and volume. A fierce gust rips through our group; hands clutch at wide-brimmed hats, shirts whip madly against our skin, and hair slaps at our faces. A gaggle of young local girls who until now have matched our silent reverie emit the slightest of restless giggles. The silence and stillness are broken, and the spirits have spoken.
The Jilya lies in the lands around the Western Australian township of Yandeyarra. Its official population is only 400, but when I visit it is surely no more than 100. “Yandy” is a closed community located more than an hour’s drive south of the largest bulk export port on Earth, Port Hedland. This is not a place one can visit on a whim. I’m here with the Swagging On Country program, which has gained mandatory approval from the Mungarinya Community for our visit. The town consists of a collection of modest homes (some well-kept, others long abandoned), a school, a partially-staffed medical centre and a small pool. Camp dogs roam the yards and avenues but scatter when the whoops and jeers of local children come into focus. Now, this is a free-range childhood, I think to myself as they zip past on their Polaris four-wheelers and mini-motorbikes.
Yandeyarra serves as a gateway to Mugarinya’s lands – a sprawling wilderness covering 7,875sq km (or 787,500ha) of awe-inspiring, tear-inducing cinematic landscapes, with its deep ravines, sprawling ranges, plains, rust-coloured rock monoliths, watering holes, springs and luminous sunsets in shades of pink, mauve, yellow, indigo and orange. They’re sunsets that set the skies ablaze.
Since 2022, members of the community have been inviting outsiders onto their lands through Swagging On Country, led by Margie Stewart and her son Gaston, both long-time Yandeyarra residents. The initiative welcomes only very small groups and offers a chance to experience country through the eyes of – and with the guidance of – the Kariyarra people. It’s a cultural immersion on the community’s terms. I am a guest of Swagging On Country’s nascent women-only program – a three-night stay by the banks of Two Mile Camp, just outside Yandy on the (currently bone-dry) Yule River. The program, which has been run only three times previously, is designed to connect Australian women from all walks of life with Aboriginal women, so we can discover for ourselves the extraordinary pull of country – how it shapes their lives and the lessons it brings.
Our journey takes us to sites such as the Jilya, and to experience a brilliant glowing sunset at a former Aboriginal settlement known as Black Range, where by the watering holes there is evidence of a once-thriving community from perhaps thousands of years past. Here, senior lorewoman Nanna Biddy Norman joins our group and demonstrates the technique of a master handline angler as she catches fish after fish from the local watering hole with a mere flick of the wrist. She will later make us damper – the way she has since she was a small girl – to be eaten under the stars and around the fire back at Two Mile.
The Stewarts freely share their stories of the spirits and their lore with us – tales of their ancestors and of the songlines that connect their community to Aboriginal clans throughout the nation. Moreover, they are on hand to explain aspects of more complex customs, such as “sorry business” and the intricacies of avoidance relationships. (I become particularly fond of the phrase “humbugged”, which they use to describe the unsettling feeling when you’ve upset the spirits and need to set things right.)
The Swagging On Country experience cannot be separated from this family’s story. It was the brainchild of Margie’s mother, Irene Roberts, a respected elder who died after a long period of illness in 2024. Irene’s presence looms large over both the family and the town, and when we visit, the period of mourning or “sorry business” that followed her death had barely concluded. We meet Margie’s father, the Pilbara’s head loreman, Stephen Stewart, aged 105, a renowned cattleman and a veteran of the 1940s Pilbara Strikes which were pivotal to achieving workers’ rights for Aboriginal pastoral workers.
Swagging On Country was initially designed to appeal to another group of Australians with an interest in the land surrounding Yandeyarra: the mining industry. Margie tells me that her mother Irene had grown frustrated with the convoluted and fraught consultation process between miners and her community. She was convinced the form-filling and testimony she gave to big business had been falling on deaf ears. Irene wished to show employees of these great mining titans what she meant when she told them her country was alive.
“She said, ‘They just won’t believe me, not until they experience it for themselves’,” Margie tells me one afternoon on the banks of a real oasis in this desert landscape – a watering hole known as Warden’s Pool. Under a canopy of paperbark gums, as a flock of rainbow bee-eaters fly past, with the footprints of dingoes still fresh in the mud, she continues: “She was angry, she wanted something to be done, and she was looking ahead. Mum knew the only way to get people to understand was to bring them here, on country – that was how we were going to change their minds.” She says senior leaders from the mining companies who attend Swagging On Country leave with a greater cultural understanding. “It gives me satisfaction to know that the country is talking to people, in ways they don’t expect.”
On our final day in the Pilbara, I find myself at the back of a convoy of five 4WD vehicles, trundling off-road for more than two hours across the rocky terrain. My driver is Swagging co-founder Geraldine Reilly, a Perth-based executive coach and psychotherapist. She helped Irene develop the program after the pair met in 2020. Reilly, a white woman, is on the ground to lead each of its tours. “I describe my role like this: these guys tell me what they want to do next, and I just say yes … then try to figure it out later,” she confides. The next iteration of Swagging, she says, will be to reconnect young Aboriginal men living in Port Hedland to the land of their ancestors.
Leading the convoy is Gaston, who forges ahead, steering his cherry Land Cruiser on the barely visible tracks. Several times during the journey he pulls ahead of the group, leaps from his vehicle and lights a fire among the spinifex. The flames, fuelled by dry grasses, rise metres into the air; smoke billows skyward. “He’s telling the spirits we’re coming, that we are his guests,” Reilly explains.
We continue on what must surely be one of the world’s most extraordinary car journeys. I hardly notice being tossed around in the back seat, so transfixed am I by the view outside the window – towering ranges in all directions, their streaked terracotta mounds formed over millions of years. We each crane our necks from side windows, to side mirrors, and out the front windscreen, our eyes hungry to take it all in.
It’s even more extraordinary when Gaston brings us to a spot that, until a few years ago, even he was forbidden to visit. Margie, too, recalls the warnings from elders past, and hadn’t dared to venture there. However, modern demands necessitated action from the Stewarts when they were compelled to evaluate damage at the site caused by prospectors encroaching on their land. Gaston leads us onto a natural ledge over yet another dry riverbed. He asks us to take a branch and scrape its leaves over the rusty boulders – another sign to the spirits to ensure our safe passage. He guides us to a recently-discovered camp used by the old people, where signs of a long-ago time are everywhere. Huge swathes of rock art stretch around the walls and inside caves, depicting people and animals, and elements of stories the Kariyarra elders still share with their children today – of serpents and stars. Midway up the riverbed Gaston stops, he will take us no further, wary of the influence from the spirit world on the group of children with us.
Before we leave, Gaston is drawn to a crack in the rock wall above him; something is glistening there in the dark. In an instant, he manoeuvres his body inside the chasm, disappearing up to his hips. We watch as he bends and contorts. He emerges, reaches for the phone in his pocket, then unable to reach the mystery item, he thrusts his arm high above to take a photograph. When he reappears, this head-loreman-in-waiting is briefly transformed by a boyish grin. “There’s a shell up there!” He shows us the photo of an oyster shell stashed high between the rocks – a physical reminder of his ancestors and the life they lived on this land, evidence of the trade they forged with neighbouring clans, of a civilisation born long ago, whose people remain here today. The country is alive, indeed.
Checklist
Getting there: Flights to Port Hedland leave Perth five times daily (flight time is a little over two hours), and participants are urged to arrive for an early morning start. Camp co-ordinators collect participants from Port Hedland airport and drive the 1 hour 40 minute journey to Yandeyarra for an orientation session. Two Mile Camp is a 10-minute drive from town.
Cost: The women’s program costs $3300 per person for three nights and includes all meals, as well as airport transfers. Group program pricing for 1, 2 or 3-night experiences are available on request. More details can be found at swaggingoncountry.com.au or email hello@swaggingoncountry.com.au
Stay: Swagging On Country provides comfortable swags at Two Mile Camp. Zip back the cover to watch the Milky Way dazzle. BYO sheets, pillow slip and sleeping bag. Days are very warm but nights can be chilly, so pack accordingly. Participants from outside Perth are encouraged to stay in the city for the day, before making the journey north. InterContinental Perth City Centre is a superb option. This five-star hotel, designed by Woods Bagot, opened in 2017 and rooms offer city views and the option of a luxurious bath upon your return from the Pilbara – you won’t regret it! Dining choices include the very good steak and seafood grill Ascua, and cocktails at The Loft Lounge & Bar.
Eat: Fresh meals are prepared by the camp cook, in our case Sydney-based chef Tom Sarkis. Breakfasts and dinners are made onsite, while picnic lunches are taken on daily expeditions. Dietary requirements are accommodated.
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