JJ: Hello I’m June Jones, I’m a Barkandji nhuungku from Wilcannia. I’m just here sittin’ around yarning with my family; we’re sitting around talking about the Darling River. We’ve got Kayleen, Kayleen Kerwin my cousin she’s here, and Eric Kerwin my cousin, also Joan Kerwin, and we’re just sitting around having a yarn about the river because we was all reared up on the river, lived here all our life in Wilcannia and it’s sad to see the river how it is today. We never seen the river this bad.
KK: And I’d like to carry on, my name is Kayleen Kerwin, I’m a proud Barkandji nhuungku. I remember how the river was so clear back in the day and as for fishing, that was, you know, that was a feed for us when we couldn't get any meat, we couldn’t afford meat from butcher shops and stuff so my mum Jessie Kerwin and her sister Aunty Elsie Jones, they always went to the river and we were sure we would have a good feed of fish when they came back and it’s sad to see the river as it is today and I don’t think my grandchildren or my great-great grandchildren will ever see the river how we saw it years ago. It was clear as, like you’d walk over the whole bridge back in the day and you could actually see the fish all swimming on the bottom, and it was so clear. We used to go to the river swimming, and you go underwater, and you could see your hand in front of you, that’s how clear the river was back then. And when the river is sick, I suppose all us people who are up and down the Darling River, we’re sick too because of our river’s been sick and it's not safe you know to drink the water anymore, whereas back then you could just dip your cup in when you’re down there fishing’ and just get a fresh clean drink of water. That’s my memories of the Darling River.
EK: Hello, my name is Eric Kerwin. We just heard Aunty Kayleen talk about the river. I was a young fulla, used to go fishing with my grandmother, Jessie Kerwin, my aunty Elsie Jones, and back in them days, I didn’t like school that much but I loved going to the river, getting so many fishes and having a good old feed of fish and it was really good. But today it looks sad, and I am sad to see it how it is, the Darling River today, thank you.
JJ: Also, we remember the days when our mothers used to ring for the taxi or send someone to town to tell the taxi to come over and pick them up, they wanted to go fishing down the Five Mile. And they didn’t have the money to pay, but they used to book the taxi up and pay him on pay days. He'd drop us all off at the top of the riverbank down the Five Mile with our box of food, fishing lines, shrimp tins, and he'd ask what time would we like to be picked up, what time we’d like him to come back and pick us up and they’d always say “after dark”. He’d say “why after dark?”, that’s when the fish bites the best. And we used to be scared because it’d be dark sometimes crossing the river back onto the other side again. We had to carry the food across on our heads, us kids.