About 125 kilometres west from Alice Springs, a drive will take you to Hermannsburg Historic precinct. It’s a beautiful trip with the magnificent red sandstone cliffs and hills of the West McDonnell’s to the south and to the north, the rolling hills of the Arrente. The trip only take 90 minutes along a sealed road. There are signs warning of horses and kangaroos but these are much more of a danger at night than in the daytime. For some lengths of Larapinta Drive, stock can wander over the road as well, so it best to be alert day or night!
Hermannsburg is a living community with about 700 people of which over 600 are Aboriginal. We drove past the roads that lead to the houses and the few shops, instead following the signs to the historic precinct. After being there for two hours, enjoying it enormously, we would both strongly recommend a visit if you ever have the opportunity.

Hermannsburg, the name, comes from the city in Germany where the first Lutheran missionaries to this region were trained. The first two arrived in 1877 only a few years after the explorers and the even more recent pastoralists. The Aborigines who lived in this area, now called the Finke by thewhite people, faced an uncertain future. Their land was taken from them because the pastoralists needed it for their stock. Police were pretty hostile too, with many local people shot and killed. Charges never lead to a conviction for a white policeman for doing this sort of thing.

They were lost, starving and extinction was a real possibility. 

Many missions in Australia, and in colonies all over the world have been rightly criticised for being the soft side of colonialism and as important in destroying local culture as guns and soldiers were. Here I think it was different. The Finke River Mission provided a refuge, food, accommodation, and what medical help they could offer. The difficulties in getting supplies to the mission in its early days were horrendous and expensive. None the less, tradespeople who came as well as the pastors, built the church and out buildings, some of which are still standing. 

Notably, Carl Strehlow, the pastor from 1894 to 1922 at the mission, was fluent in Arrente and produced the New Testament in that language. This had never been done before, anywhere in Australia. During his time there, he and his wife survived droughts, financial difficulties and the hostility of many people including government during world war 1. 
Up until the 1920s, the children suffered terribly in droughts. No food could be grown, particularly vegetables and in one particularly terrible drought, 85% of the children died from scurvy. In those days there was no rail link from the south and no way of getting food to this remote area. Soon after, the mission built what was regarded as impossible, a pipe to a reliable spring that could fill their massive water storage tanks and finally grow vegetables and food all year round. 

Trade schools were set up, especially a tannery and leather processing business. The Aboriginals made leather from cattle and kangaroos. They made shoes. The women processed salt to help safely store meat for many months in the dry, hot conditions. It was a viable community until the attitudes to missions changed, and many Aboriginals drifted away to outstations now funded by government and nearer their own lands. The modern pastors and families of the seventies would no longer put up with the deprivations of the early years. The Lutheran church pulled the pin, moving its administration, efforts and funds to Alice Springs.

The old buildings still exist. In the middle is the tall white church. Out the front are two river red gums. A steel beam balances between them, and from that beam hangs the church bell. The early pastors had serious doubts about the safety of building a steeple. The walls are thick, cool, and limed white inside and out. The walls are made of limestone blocks that were dug and prepared nearby and moved by cart. Around the church are the Tannery, the manse, the bakery, five massive buried water tanks, accomodation, infirmary and dental office. Behind the buildings are a grove of date palms, a useful food supply in this hot climate. In the buildings are artefacts left over from the working years of the mission. Restoration projects on cars and equipment is slowly happening, including a mechanical, motorised borer. 
A highlight for our visit, is all the information as well some paintings by Albert Namatjira. He was born near Hermannsburg and spent most of his life nearby. As a young man he had the great good fortune to meet Rex Batterbee. Rex was a water colourist, and a very good one, who had travelled northwards from Melbourne to explore and paint views of the country around Alice Springs. He quickly realised what a great painter Albert could be, and taught him the artistic skills he needed. The student soon overtook the master. In 1936, he had a solo exhibition of his work in Melbourne. He soon became very famous. He produced a tremendous body of outstanding work. However, this fame backfired, as he was given the unique right amongst Aboriginals, to buy alcohol. Under the humbug rule, where you have to supply friends or family with whatever they want if you possibly can, he supplied lots of grog to these people at Alice Springs. Outside town, there was notorious drunkenness and violence due to this preventable situation. When a girl was murdered in the camp, enough was enough, and he was jailed. It truly broke him, and he died a month after his release. 
We had some of the local fare at the tea rooms, formerly Carl Strehlow’s home. Strudel of Course! If you look up from the desser, you can see the mulga tree branches still forming the roof supports. We walked through the dining rooms, reading the displays, enjoying Albert Namatjira ‘s paintings, and enjoying the peace and quiet. However, as we stood near the church, we could hear local Aborigines singing enthusiastically as part of a a Saturday church service. There are CDs in the gift shop of their concerts performed both here and overseas. The modern church is much more comfortable, it is also built from local stone but it’s not limestone but sandstone that forms the walls. It’s only just big enough for its congregation.

This mission is a reminder of the courage and resourcefulness of the early pioneers of central Australia, and the religious zeal that inspired the early Lutheran pastors to protect and foster the Aboriginal people. Today, there is a strong Lutheran presence in many communities, but they are mostly Aboriginal pastors. There is no problem at all blending the Christian message with the dreamtime stories. And there never has been. When a pastor became very sick, one of the mission Aboriginals said he would get help from Alice Springs. He left the mission, picked up a handful of grass and laid it in a fork of a tree, and sang a song to the sun, for it not to set until he had completed his trip. He travelled far and fast covering the distance from Hermannsburg to Alice Springs and back in three days. He then removed the grass, placed it back on the earth and thanked the sun. He was a well known Lutheran pastor in his own right.