Any time during the weekend, this is the place you can drop in to for a yarn with the Gumbaynggirr community. Uncle Tom Kelly is one of the most senior men of the Bellinger region and on Friday evening at 6.30pm he will welcome everyone to the festival along with Uncle Martin Ballangarry and his colourful and dramatic dance group ‘Jumbaal Dreamin'.  The Gumbaynggirr Elders and community will also be joined by the senior men and women of the APY (Anangu, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara) who have come all the way from the far North West of South Australia.

This year, the local Uncles, Aunties and children are also bringing their beautiful Rainbow Serpent into the festival.  Here is the story: 

Aborigine dreamtime - the rainbow serpent- time after time and time before time.

In the year 2005, in the mist of the dawn, a beautiful grandmother from the Gumbaynggirr tribe in a little North Coast town called Bowraville, lay sleeping in her granddaughter’s room. The bed was near a big window. Awakened by a noise in the house, she looked out of the window and saw a big rainbow coming across the sky. She opened her eyes up properly. It was so beautiful. It was the Rainbow Serpent. He was so big. By the time he could say anything in her mind, he was at the window. He put his head in the window and smiled at her. She said: “What’s the matter? You are so big and beautiful. Why have you come so far and left your tail in Uluru?” He said to her: “I am the Master of all Rivers and I don’t want little ones to forget me” … by then he was fading away. So the old beautiful grandmother was worrying why he did not tell her about the tail he left in Uluru. Two weeks went by… she was watching TV and there was a story about the Rainbow Serpent. The storyteller said: “The Master of all Rivers, known as the Rainbow Serpent can never take his tail out of the waters because if it is taken out, we will have no rivers.” He also said,  “He is the Master of the Universe and he flows with Mother Earth.”

Yarn Up will be an extra special place this Year in which stories can be told, dances exchanged and friendships made.  It will also be a place where collective art and craft will be on show and sale so please take the time to drop by and meet everyone.for a yarn.