Opposite the outdoor basketball court, the Karungkarni Arts Centre is selling dot paintings by Gurindji woman Biddy Wavehill. Later at the riverside acoustic stage, Peter Garrett steps unexpectedly from the long grass to sing ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ with Paul Kelly – a song about the Wave Hill walk-offs in the 1960s lead by Gurindji man Vincent Lingiari. At the Barunga Festival in 1988, Aboriginal leaders presented Bob Hawke with a statement of rights. By 1990, responded Hawke, there would be a treaty. There wasn’t, but there was a song by Yothu Yindi, co-written by Kelly and Garrett.

Neil Murray and Sammy Butcher of legendary desert act Warumpi Band play an acoustic set that closes with their 1987 track ‘My Island Home’: ‘I come from the saltwater people / We always live by the sea.’ Walking to a billabong that morning a Jawoyn boy had told me: ‘We’re surrounded by freshwater at Barunga – we’re freshwater people.’