Poh wears Cappellazzo gown and cape. Her own jewellery.
Poh Ling Yeow’s bare feet dance across the dry riverbed, sand between her toes. Behind her, the edge of the red escarpment glows like firelight as the sun creeps above the horizon. A black-footed rock wallaby watches from behind a boulder as Poh picks up her skirts and runs toward the camera. It’s sunrise at Rungutjirpa, or Simpsons Gap, a place of deep significance to the Arrernte people, whose storylines and dreaming trails cross at this ancient spring.
There are no tourists here yet. The air is still and warm and smells of eucalyptus, and Poh is as curious as a kid about this country, in Tjoritja/the West MacDonnell Ranges. She stops at a grey-limbed ghost gum, puts her ear to its trunk and listens for the sound of water trickling. She calls The Weekly crew over to listen too.
“I love the landscape up here,” she says. Tomorrow she’ll travel to Hermannsburg to meet that community’s famous painters and potters, and she’s eager to hear their stories and see their work. Poh is in her element, immersed in nature, forging deep links with people and places. “I love finding those connections,” she adds.
And there’s something about being here, surrounded by beauty, that is rekindling Poh’s connection to her mother. She reaches into her bag, pulls out a pouch and tips a pair of earrings and a translucent aquamarine ring into the palm of her hand, which she wears for today’s photo-shoot.
“They were Mum’s,” she explains. She’s carried them all the way from her home in Adelaide – her mother Christina’s spirit travelling with her. “I’ve
