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AUSTRALIA’S SONGLINES
Intriguing Indigenous experiences across the country
The medicine man greets me with open arms, his fingers splayed like candles. On all sides a parade of sorcerers, kangaroos, barramundi and turtles glow, as if lit from within. I’m inside Magnificent Gallery, a 40-metre-long rock-art cave on Cape York Peninsula, and the highlight of a new Indigenous tourism experience designed to connect visitors with Australia’s traditional culture.
“What I love is how it [the gallery] shows the many layers of original society and how it was before colonisation,” says Johnny Murison, a Kuku-Yalanji man and the owner/operator of Jarramali Rock Art Tours.
Walking along the gallery of 450 etchings, stencils and paintings, some of which are
20,000 years old, Murison talks about the importance of art and how it is used to communicate knowledge. “In our culture you are considered rich if you have knowledge,” he says, pointing out an ancestral hero who ‘lives’ in the gaps between the sandstone. Standing before such culturally significant artwork, I feel my own spirit open, filling me with a sense of wonder and gratitude.
A decade ago, with the discovery that my maternal grandmother shared ancestry with the Awabakal tribe from the Central Coast of New South Wales, I began a quest to learn more about my own Indigenous heritage. What started as a personal pilgrimage has widened into a journey of discovery, leading me to explore some of Australia’s best Indigenous experiences.
Heart, art and country
A SeaLink trip to the tropical Tiwi Islands introduced me to the complexities of Pukumani burial poles and crosshatch painting, while a tour through Arnhem Land with Venture
North Safaris taught me about the meaning of connection to country.
“The land is our mother, the sky is our father,” said Thommo Nganjmirra, a senior artist from the Injalak Arts in west Arnhem Land. “We must take care of it because it is our family.” Today, one of Nganjmirra’s paintings takes pride of place above my desk, the delicate threads of the mimih spirits anchoring me to the world’s oldest continuous living culture.
After each experience I emerge challenged and renewed; where I once saw empty desert, I now see Songlines, the Dreaming tracks that trace the journeys of ancestral spirits; I can feel the Earth’s vitality, a strumming, thrumming being; and I can better appreciate the sophistication needed for a civilisation to have flourished for more than 60,000 years.
Adventures on sea and land
It was on the wukalina walk on Tasmania’s northeast coast that I learned about the Palawa people’s vision to reclaim their lands, culture and language. “Language is central to our identity,” said Carleeta Thomas, one of the three young guides accompanying us on the experience. “Today there are only about a dozen people left who can speak palawa kani, so it is vital that we preserve it.”
Tasmania’s first Indigenous-owned, -operated and -guided tourism venture offers full cultural immersion on a fourday hike amid the stunning scenery of the Bay of Fires. While our sleeping nooks for the first two nights – cubed on the outside, pod-shaped on the inside thanks to architects Taylor + Hinds – are a delight, the real strength of the walk is in supporting a community as it claws its way back from the brink of destruction.
Another time, over in Western
Australia’s World Heritage-listed Shark Bay, a kayak tour with Wula Gura
Nyinda Eco Adventures introduced me to Gutharragunda, a place of powerful energy where red sand country meets white desert country. With Darren
‘Capes’ Capewell as my guide, we paddled through an ethereal blue seascape, where dugongs, rays and turtles appeared, as if conjured by magic.
The language of food
Food is another portal through which curious travellers can connect with culture. Whether spearfishing for mud crabs at Cooya Beach in the Daintree, on a Kuku Yalanji Cultural Habitat tour with Adventure North Australia, or enjoying a bushfood experience at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden, the aim is the same – to keep ancient hunting and gathering traditions alive.
It was a full moon the night I dined under a blanket of stars in the West MacDonnell Ranges outside Alice Springs, enjoying delicacies such as tangy bush tomatoes, hand-ground emu rissoles, kangaroo fillets and a steamed pudding dessert of quandong and wattleseed. Cooked and served by Arrernte man Bob Taylor from RT Tours, the Mbantua Starlight and Bush Dinner blends traditional foods with storytelling amid one of the outback’s most spectacular landscapes.
Further north in the state, I rose at dawn to cruise the misty waters of Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge as a Jawoyn guide shared Dreaming stories. Later that day, I thundered above the watercourse by helicopter before enjoying a chef’s menu of local and traditional specialities at the luxurious Cicada Lodge. It’s a food-for-thesoul experience, as all tours and accommodation within the Nitmiluk National Park are Jawoy-owned and -operated through Nitmiluk Tours,
whose guiding passion is to share stories of culture and country.
Across Australia, the rise of Indigenous tourism experiences not only provides meaningful employment, but also helps the traditional custodians reconnect with country while preserving culture for future generations.
Surely there’s no better reason to travel than this.
Travel file
Curated by Tourism Australia, the Discover Aboriginal Experiences portfolio is a collection of more than 140 Aboriginal-owned and -guided tourism offerings. Many of the experiences in this article are part of the collection, while a couple, including accommodation, are independent.
“On a kayak tour across Shark Bay, we paddled through an ethereal blue seascape, where dugongs, rays and turtles appeared as if conjured by magic.”