Please alter your bookmarks.

Due to the prolonged mismanagement and subsequent insolvency of The Australain Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), there has now been a domain name change from: http://www.acmi.net.au/FOD

to http://www.duckdigital.net/FOD

You may encounter unusual backgrounds or broken images while the site is being transfered and checked.

Journey to Horseshoe Bend by TGH Strehlow (1969) has been removed from the Flight of Ducks due to Aboriginal sensitivities relating to accidental discovery. Journey to Horseshoe Bend was the story of Strehlow's father Carl and his ill-fated 1922 journey that ended in death, and the revelation of an Arrernte totemic landscape to the young Ted Strehlow.

Carl Strehlow, a Lutheran missionary at Hermannsburg, had become gravely ill with 'dropsy' and attempts were made to transport him by buggy to the railhead at Oodnadatta and then on by train to Adelaide and medical relief. The party, which included Carl's wife Frieda, their son Ted, the schoolteacher Heinrich, and Arrernte friends Hesekiel, Jakobus and Titus, set off on Tuesday 10 October 1922 but only got as far as Horseshoe Bend on the Finke River before Carl died.

Woven into the narrative are stories of the stations and the people who established them. A deeper and older strand of history is present in the Aboriginal stories that colour the country through which the party travels. This journey was to shape Ted Strehlow's future understanding of the significance and meaning of the land to Aboriginal people.

A stone churinga (tjurunga) believed to be from Arrente country with grooved circles and dashes both sides, rubbed with ochre has been purchased through e-bay from an arts and crafts dealer in Vermont, U.S.A. According to the seller, it was collected by and came from the estate of UCLA Professor Joseph Birdsell, who was a specialist in Aboriginal Art and Artifacts.

The trade in ceremonial objects such as churinga (tjurunga) is now being recorded for it's insights into how such objects are described and valued.

Regular captures of The Flight of Ducks are now availabe on CD-ROM at $27.00 (includes postage). Just email me with your order and postal details: simonpockley@gmail.com

I'm working on migrating this work into XML because the cracks in HTML are beginning to show. The poetics of XML are very demanding and this migration will probably change the structure of The Flight of Ducks. Transitional work in XHTML is accessible through the sonnets

Following numerous requests for information about Harold Bell Lasseter and his reef of gold. His diary has been digitised and is now available for access.

Tracy Spencer is looking for information about a united Aborigines missioner, Jim Page, who served at Nepabunna in the 1930's, and about a white women living with the community at Nepabunna, Rebecca (Becky) Forbes (nee Hardcastle). She can be contacted through this site or by mail at

PO Box 48 Hawker South Australia 5434

Marina Williams is looking for information on Koori history in Eildon Central Victoria. She can be contacted through this site or by mail at

P O Box 76 Eildon Victoria 3713