Despite a dodgy tyre and three-hour delay, the team arrived in Wadeye with great enthusiasm and set up ‘camp’ in the usual accommodation – the floor of the secondary school.

Classroom sessions included health and hygiene activities with the junior students, along with role models assisting teachers with reading and literacy programs. Sporting activities were centred on softball, with Jess and Glenn (M) spearheading a game for secondary students. Later the team helped to prepare the community for the upcoming athletics carnival, to be held the following day, cleaning up the oval and surrounding areas.

At the athletics carnival, the Red Dust team assisted as marshals and officials in what was a long, hot and dry day. The team was greatly impressed with the talent displayed in the range of activities, and maintained enough energy to join some of the school and community staff later in the evening for a friendly game of netball and a barbecue.

A long drive back to Darwin meant an early start on Friday, which made the visit end all too soon for the team. Red Dust looks forward to returning later in the year!

Red Dust was extremely pleased to be returning to Nguiu, having enjoyed a long and positive relationship with this Bathurst Island community for several years.

This particular visit held a special goal for the Red Dust team: to not only deliver a Lifestyle Education Program, but to also complete the painting and enhancement of 12 shipping containers that were set to become ‘safe houses’ and ‘cooling-off houses’ for the community as part of the Australian Government’s Safe Places project.

After late flights and early arrivals, the team arrived in the community Tuesday and hit the ground running, meeting local contacts from both the men’s and women’s sites, as well as with Greening Australia, who was leading the landscaping of the sites. With a plan for the week in place, the team set about painting and completed two containers on the women’s site before finishing up for the day. As can be imagined, the team was grateful for the hospitality of the local school, Xavier Secondary College, and was also very happy to hit their swags.

By the next day the project gained momentum and members of the community started pitching in, with the team enjoying the expertise of Polly Farmer and Simon Black to help complete the women’s site and much of the men’s. By Thursday lunchtime the last of the containers was finished and the team prepared for a community barbecue, with much help from the women’s centre, to help launch the sites. A special Red Dust team arrived to help with the festivities, and the community excitedly welcomed Western Bulldogs stars Brad Johnson and Lindsay Gilbee. The two were met with cheers of excitement as they drove through the community, and after a stop at Xavier Secondary College to talk to the students about working hard and achieving goals, they joined the rest of the community at the barbecue.

As Brad and Lindsay walked to the barbecue they were inundated with questions, mainly to Brad asking why he missed a goal against Geelong a few weeks earlier that would have won the game for the Bulldogs; he smiled and said that he would try harder next time, an answer that seemed to placate the masses that all posed the same question. Another asked Lindsay to pose for a photo with a four-year-old child, and when he asked the boy’s name he was shocked to learn that his name was, in fact, Lindsay Gilbee. A true fan, indeed.

The barbecue created a positive community reaction to the introduction of the Safe Place sites, and capped off a very successful project.

After the flurry of excitement and photos, the two Bulldogs players headed back to Darwin to prepare for their upcoming match against Port Adelaide, and some locals took the Red Dust team fishing in a nearby creek. After two hours and no luck, the group was just getting ready to pack up when one of them got a big tug…as the handline was brought in and the catch was getting closer, everyone was anticipating fresh barramundi for dinner that night. Imagine their surprise when the ‘barra’ surfaced and proved to be a 1.5-metre crocodile! The group was quite happy to become the ones that got away.

Red Dust thanks the Nguiu community and the staff at Xavier Secondary School for their warm and generous hospitality, and we look forward to our next visit with great anticipation.