Henarlia Rex by Henarlia Rex

I live in a small community in the North Kimberley WA called Ardyaloon/One Arm Point, with my 10 year old daughter. I went to primary school here, then went to a boarding school in Kalgoorlie from year 8. Growing up I learnt about my local knowledge and culture from older people.

Our family has an outstation on Iwany (Sunday Island). We go out there by boat (less than an hour) and have picnics. It’s nice there - we’ve got little shacks right on the beach. My grandmother - and everyone in Ardyaloon - was originally from Iwany. Then everyone got moved to Derby, then they came back to Ardyaloon.

I work at the Bardi Jawi Rangers; we look after Country. We go collecting seeds of our native plants, bring them back to the ranger base to propagate in our nursery, then put the seedlings back onto Country, where there’s degraded areas. Sometimes we do monitoring in the sea too - for coral bleaching and other issues caused by climate change. I love the work that we do. Hopefully I keep all the culture and knowledge that the old people taught me.