That time had finally come - I was flying to the Tiwi Islands. I’d been looking forward to this for so long, ever since it was strongly suggested that I visit there as part of my consultations. The problem was that no one told me that I had to fly there in a 6 seater plane. Where are the hostesses? Where are the people showing me where the exits were? What’s that spinning thing on the front of this toy plane? Where are my damn headsets?!?

Tiwi Islands is the collective name for the two islands of Melville and Bathurst Islands. The islands are situated 80km north of Darwin. Melville Island is the second biggest island (the first is Tasmania) in Australia. There are 4 town townships in the Tiwi Islands (two on Bathurst and two on Melville). Despite the sheer terror of being in this dinky plane, flying into the islands was just magical. The islands are a tropical green colour, with that light blue coloured sea washing onto its shores. How’s the serenity.

I was staying in the largest community of the islands, called Nguiu. As soon as I’d put my bags down in my residence for the night (I was staying in the Pool Manager’s house, I headed to the local oval. It was quite a scene, as the oval was covered in young people playing footy. I’m talking about 300 people. It was like this massive game of footy was going on with 150 on each side. It was shirts and skins.

There was a young fella wearing an old school West Coast Eagles jumper (the ones from 1987 that were mainly yellow). I was so jealous.

I can’t explain to you how much football dictates life in the Tiwi Islands. Everyone plays footy. In a place of just over 2000 people (for the whole of the Tiwi Islands), there are 8 male footy teams, and 4 female teams. They are the adult teams - and you can add a whole heap of Auskickers (junior footy) onto that. Everyone supports a team, and the knowledge of footy (dates, names, games played, premierships one, fights got into, mother’s maiden names etc) is incredible.

As I’d been out of contact with a TV for a weeks or so, all the young people filled me in on last weeks results and who were the best players. I didn’t think coming to the Tiwi would help me catch up on all the scores. As the community is quite traditional, I just assumed that thee would be limited contact with mainland Australia. I was wrong.

I got chatting with a young guy who was telling me a bit about his story of how he came to give up drinking. The oval where we were chatting is right next to ‘the Club’. The Club is the pub and is only open 4pm - 7pm, and you can only take away drink on Saturdays. These are the community’s rules. The young man I was chatting to, told me how proud he was of Tiwi culture, and was very excited in showing it off to me. He noted that the one thing that “wrecks our culture is grog.” But none of the thronging masses on the oval seemed the least bit interested in the drink - they were more keen on an oval shaped ball.

I went back to my Pool Manager’s residence at about 8pm for a bite to eat, but within about 15 minutes I could hear a roaring sound about 200m away, so I thought I’d go for a walk and check it out. The sound seemed to be coming from a big tin shed.

As I appeared into the opening of the tin shed (it was about as big as an aircraft hangar), I got the shock of my life. There, inside the shed, were about 450 young people going absolutely bananas. The main attraction of the tin shed was a basketball court, where a semi-organised basketball game was being played. But a game of footy, 2 games of netball and about 6 games of ‘chasey’ were also being played on the court. There was one guy (about 14) running around with a whistle - but I’m not too sure which sport he was umpiring. There were no adults there whatsoever, and it didn’t really seem as though there needed to be - it was kind of organised chaos. It was one of the most incredible things I’ve seen.

I went and hung out and chatted with heaps of the young people. It is still a very surreal feeling walking into a large crowd and being the only white person. As a white Australian you expect it in other parts of the world like Asia, or Africa – but it’s not something I thought would happen too much in my own country. It’s so good for me to experience that. Shoe on the other foot and all that…

In one corner there were a whole bunch of (mainly) young ladies and men dancing. Wherever I have gone all over the country, the choice of music is rap and R & B, and the choice of dance is… well… suggestive. I can’t work out whether I am becoming an old prude (at the grand old age of 23), or I’m just jealous because I can’t dance like that.

When I thought about it a bit more in depth, I realised the bigger picture of it all. Whilst the Club is open between 4 and 7pm, the young people are all out playing footy. When the Club shuts and the people roll out of the pub (many after having one or two too many brews), it is too dark to play footy any more, so the young people go to the big tin shed. By the time that the young people leave the tin shed at about 10:00pm, their older relatives are sober or sleeping off the Club experience. Everyone is happy, and everyone is safe – pretty smart idea… or maybe I’m just reading a bit too much into it.