Journeys

With the vast landscape of the Australian outback, long and arduous journeys were a fact of life for many Women of the West – both black and white.

The journeys of many immigrant women were often exhausting and frightening. In popular mythology these journeys have frequently taken on epic proportions.

Aboriginal women, on the other hand, were at home in these landscapes. Yet they too had to make their own, very different journeys.

The journeys of the Aboriginal Women of the West were a search to find a place for themselves in a society increasingly dominated by white settlers. Their journey continues today, with the quest to trace family connections broken during the past 200 years of European settlement.

Temporary buildings were often erected while the homestead was being built.

Food was prepared using a campfire on the journey to a new life, in an alien and often hostile environment.