Art, footy, culture – oh, and shopping: we're on Tiwi time and there's much to see and do

There are babies being handed between adults, kids chasing each other around the aisles and a fair smattering of footy jerseys all round. It’s the first Saturday in November and we’re on the ferry from Darwin to Bathurst Island, one of the two main land masses that make up the Tiwi Islands.

After two-and-a-half hours, we dock on a beach rimmed by clear aqua water and verdant tropical vegetation, fallen mangoes lining the path from the beach towards the tiny township of Wurrumiyanga, home to many of this island’s 1500-odd inhabitants.

A Tiwi Island artist painting a carved wooden bird. Credit: Felix Baker/Tourism NT 

It becomes clear that our ferry friends are here today for an Aussie rules match between the Tiwi Bombers and the mainland’s Palmerston Magpies. Not just any old match, mind, but one in which four-time AFL premiership winner Cyril Rioli will take to the field he was blooded on as a kid. Despite a mid-match downpour, the retired Hawthorn player doesn’t disappoint, kicking the winning goal in the dying moments of the game to give the Bombers a one-point victory.

Aussie rules is huge on the Tiwi Islands, which has exported more than its fair share of top players. Rioli is a fabled name here, Cyril being one in a long familial line of AFL stars that includes Maurice, Dean, Daniel and Willie. Michael Long hails from here, too, the local museum dedicating a whole panel to both his playing career and his famed 2004 walk from Melbourne to Canberra to meet then PM John Howard to discuss the dire plight of Australia’s Indigenous people. Long, too, is related to the Riolis.

The Tiwis are also known for their artists, most famously the late Kitty Kantilla, who grew up on the other of the big islands up here, Melville Island, and whose intricately patterned paintings, prints and sculptures have been collected and exhibited by most of the country’s big public art institutions.

Art is why we’re here, most specifically, for a tour organised by Tiwi Design, the art centre which began in 1968 and now runs day trips designed to lure tourists to the island, steeping them in its traditions, footy, art and otherwise.

We head towards the art centre, out the front of which a dozen or so white plastic chairs are placed around an open fire. We’re invited to sit as community elders – the men in red loincloths, the women in skirts – tell us about their local practices and totems. We’re then invited to walk clockwise around the fire while a couple of the women pat us with branches from the fire and wave the smoke in our general direction. We sit down again and they perform traditional dances for us – of the dingo, the crocodile (there are apparently quite a few) and the shark (ditto: don’t go swimming). They joke about, one man making much fun of the “traditional method of fire-lighting” they’ve used to get the fire going – a red lighter, which he niftily tucks into the back of his loincloth once it’s done its job.

The smoking ceremony is not only for us but for half-a-dozen crates full of glass Pukumani burial poles that are about to leave the island. They are destined for the University of Wollongong, which has spent years negotiating their purchase and will install them in the foyer of its new creative industries building.

The smoking ceremony over, we move to the art centre for home-made damper and tea. I’m keen to spend time in its shop, which has fantastically colourful screen-printed fabrics, prints and wooden carvings of birds. But that will have to wait: after morning tea, we head off with our guide, Kevin, to the Patakijiyali Museum, a five-minute walk away, past the old radio shack where the first message about the arrival of Japanese fighter planes in 1942 was sent to Darwin before the city and its harbour were bombed.

The museum gives a fascinating snapshot of life here over the ages, from local Dreamtime stories to the Catholic mission established here in 1911 – from which there are hundreds of black-and-white photos – through to the island’s Aussie rules stars and its role in the Darwin bombing.

Australian rules football is huge on the Tiwi Islands.Credit: Getty Images

Tropical rain is stranding us at the museum, but nobody seems to mind. We’re on Tiwi time. When it eases we gingerly make our way through puddles to the nearby Catholic church, a pretty-as-a-picture wooden building with louvres looking out to sea and a fantastic altar decorated in Tiwi art. Built in 1941, the church is probably best known to mainlanders for its role in Miranda Tapsell’s delightful 2019 rom-com Top End Wedding, which ends here (happily, of course).

Once we’re done at church, we return to the art centre for a lesson in screen-printing, where locals help us print our own T-shirts and tea towels. Lifting the screen off the print to see what’s underneath is thrilling in the extreme.

Before we depart, they finally let us loose in the store, where I buy more fabrics than I can use (Christmas is coming!) and a brown glass bird. It now has pride of place on my mantelpiece, reminding me of the time I finally visited the famed Tiwi Islands, home of footballers, artists – and a very informative, laid-back tour that’s part history, part fun.

Katrina Strickland travelled to the Tiwi Islands courtesy of Tourism NT.

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