Page 33 - Tropic Magazine Issue 32

TROPIC • COVER STORY

Image credit: Colyn Huber, Lovegreen Photography

If you’re not having a good
time then you’re doing the
wrong thing

Judy Freeman

“Where we live in Goa is on the 17th The Oddyssey You’ll Ever See, Kuranda
degree parallel in the Northern
Hemisphere, and Cairns is on the 17th
degree in the Southern Hemisphere,”
Judy explained. “We’d never been here
before, we didn’t know anything about
the place, and we said okay, let’s go there.”
In 1982 the family landed in Sydney, After many awards and world tours, 70s, they trekked at 18,500 feet altitude in
bundled their growing family into an old they sold off their stake in Tjapukai Ladakh, the Indian Himalayas.
ambulance, and drove north to Cairns. Aboriginal Cultural Park in 2009 and set That’s a higher altitude than base camp
“That’s where the pavement ran out, about reinventing themselves once again, at Everest. They say it’s all part and parcel
it was the end of the road,” Don said. always led by their sense of fun. of their tendency to take measured risks.
“Kuranda had – and still has – such a “We’ve been explorers through all of it and “Knock wood it’s all worked, nothing
diverse mix of people, but it’s the only not really stayed in any particular box,” disastrous has happened,” Don said.
place we know of where everybody gets Judy said. “We work on the edge. We take the risks,
along. That’s why Tjapukai worked.” Until the COVID-19 pandemic, they were but we always cover our backsides.”
The pair was granted residential visas splitting their time between Kuranda The couple is still in the psytrance
on the basis that they establish regional and Goa, where they maintain their scene, this year involved in staging the
theatre projects, which they set about family home. Orin-Aya Festival at Homerule near
doing with passion and dedication In Goa, they’re still a vibrant part of Cooktown. They also remain friends
for well over two decades, all the while the Anjuna psytrance scene, while on with the world’s top psytrance DJs, who
putting Australia on the world map for their property in Kuranda, they host hip they have on speed dial. “We’ve moved on
cultural tourism by creating and growing campers and agile wallabies that have from Tjapukai,” Don said. “And we’re still
the country’s first Aboriginal been relocated from Cairns’ Northern having fun.”
cultural show. Beaches. A few years ago, aged in their

33 • tropicnow.com.au