For the dozen or so protesters at Canberra's Aboriginal "tent embassy," these freezing winter mornings still start with coffee brewed over a campfire. But after more than 30 years, it is the last days for the site: the government has vowed to close it by the end of this month.
Since its establishment in 1972, the embassy has been a constant embarrassment to Australian governments. The standard complaint is that it is an eyesore, and it is certainly not the most polished monument in the capital.
There is a broken-down old caravan, twin huddles of tents, a rusting car covered in graffiti. In the green space between the two main camps, a sacred fire, surrounded by flags from sympathetic countries, has smouldered since 1998.
But it is the symbolic value that is most troublesome. Just meters from the entrance to Australia's old parliament building, the camp is an emblem of the sovereignty that local governments have denied Aboriginal people since European invasion in 1788.
The government has been trying to close the protest down for more than a year, led by Federal Territories Minister Wilson Tuckey. Now he wants the tents packed up within a fortnight.
"It's time the matter was settled," he said. "We can't just let it drag on any longer."
Power to the site was cut off last winter after a minor electrical fire and portable lavatories were also removed to try to force the residents out. But solar panels were brought in and the campers resolved to sit out the freezing temperatures.
In June an arson attack gutted a Portakabin on the site of the original tent embassy, which was being used as an information center.
Police have still not produced descriptions of the attackers and claim that CCTV cameras have no footage of the incident.
"It was all our history, historic documents and photographs from back in 1972," said Wayne Gray-Williams, pointing out a burnt patch of ground.
Even those who might have been expected to be the embassy's most vocal supporters seem to be deserting it. The government's indigenous affairs body, ATSIC, produced a report last week recommending the embassy continue "without permanent camping," with a monument and occasional temporary camps taking its place.
The plans are similar to Tuckey's.
"My personal preference is that it should be replaced by some sort of a memorial, a small building with an information counter, some toilets and a refreshment area," he said.
The proposal receives short shrift from Michael Anderson, the only one of the three original tent embassy protesters still living.
"They're trying to sanitize it for the government," he said. "You put memorials up to the dead and we're not dead. We're a living people."
Anderson first came here at 1am on a rainy January night. The original structure was put up hastily between police patrols, and consisted of a beach umbrella, the plastic sheeting from a double bed mattress and a few old sacks. The words "Aboriginal tent embassy" were written on a manila envelope and attached to the umbrella with shoelaces.
Ironically, the land rights that were the focus of the original protests are now the government's main tool in closing the camp down.
Tuckey has left the future of the embassy up to ATSIC and to Canberra's native Ngunnawal people, a group of 11 families who happen to be among the encampment's most vociferous critics.
Last November Ngunnawal elder Matilda House was involved in scuffles with tent embassy residents when she tried to extinguish the sacred fire and remove structures from the site. Like many indigenous bureaucrats, she feels the ramshackle campsite gives a bad image of Aborigines and wants to see it replaced. The residents have vowed to fight any attempt to move them on, but Tuckey says protests will not be tolerated.
"They will continue to be shifted until they stop going back there," he said.
But Darren Bloomfield, who has maintained the sacred fire since 1998, says: "We'll just keep coming back."
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