Up close and personal Meet the guides from Discover Aboriginal Experiences

A visit to without an Aboriginal tourism experience is like going to Bondi without a surfboard. Or going outback and never seeing a kangaroo.

From gateway destinations like Sydney, to Central Every part of Australia is Aboriginal country and Australia or the red earth of the Kimberley, every part of that country has a series of unique Aboriginal people across the country are waiting stories and experiences. The Discover Aboriginal to tell their stories and share the meaning of their Experiences collective offers an exciting array cultures and way of life. of activities, tours and accommodation; from exploring labyrinths of ancient and contemporary Aboriginal culture dates back more than 60,000 rock art, quad biking, kayaking, whale watching, years. It existed long before Stonehenge, predates fishing, mud crabbing, hiking, taking a walking the Pyramids and is older than the Acropolis. tour in a city centre or staying in a lodge on over What’s more amazing is that this culture can be 200 square miles of lily laden flood plains teeming experienced today. with wildlife.

Who better to introduce you to the world’s oldest It’s often who you meet when you travel to Australia living continuous culture than those who live, that stays with you. Aboriginal guides are no breathe and dream it every day – Aboriginal guides exception. They bring a unique cultural insight to who call this vast continent their home. the land and history of Australia through their stories and way of life. Meet just a few of Australia’s Whether it’s through feeling the light strip of ochre notable Aboriginal guides to see just what makes across the forehead or walking along the beach with them so unforgettable. an Aboriginal elder who can read the tides by how the birds call, Aboriginal people bring another side of Australia to life.

Manuel Pamkal Top Didj Cultural Experience & Art Gallery, Katherine, Manuel Pamkal was born in a Northern Manuel turned his life around, quitting Territory community so remote that alcohol to become a role model for the first time he saw a white person, his community. he thought he was looking at a ghost. When he first arrived at school (as a At Top Didj, he shows visitors how to teenager, having never sat on a chair throw a spear, light a fire and paint or held a pen), the principal guessed – while telling a few jokes along the his birth year as 1966. Manuel is more way. He welcomes people by playing inclined to believe a whitefella who the didgeridoo and singing a song married into his family and saw him as in Dalabon – a central a baby – he says 1963. language that experts say is now spoken fluently by less than half-a- Today, the charismatic Dalabon man dozen people. tells his fascinating life story to visitors at Top Didj Art Gallery near Manuel is a talented artist who Katherine, 320 kilometres (200 miles) specialises in rarrk (cross-hatching) south-east of Darwin. It starts with painting. His fine brush is made from his childhood spent hunting goannas billabong reeds and his preferred and lizards and digging for yams. After medium is acrylic on canvas. “I’ve been a near-death experience as an adult painting all my life, from young up until (detailed in an episode of the ABC now,” he says. television program Australian Story),

“I really love my job – I meet people from everywhere,” says Manuel. He’s chatting during his lunchbreak after entertaining a “big mob” of Contact Information: 42 visitors. “I want to work here until I retire.” [email protected] topdidj.com Blake Cedar Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel, Cairns, Queensland

Working as one of Dreamtime Dive also has the chance to tell guests about & Snorkel’s Indigenous rangers is a his own Komet cultural group, one of dream job for Blake Cedar. eight on Murray Island. “Island life is very nice – especially to be somewhere Blake is from Murray Island in the where your culture is strong, you don’t Torres Strait. Visitors can learn more need to speak English [islanders speak about his island home and its unique Meriam Mir, a traditional language, and culture when they join this recently Torres Strait Creole], you’re relaxed and launched day tour with a difference. you’re living off the sea and the land,” Like other reef cruises, it takes visitors he says. “It’s an unreal feeling – it makes from Cairns to diving and snorkelling you feel appreciative of what’s still left sites on the World Heritage-listed in the world.” Great Barrier Reef. The twist is that this tour includes storytelling from He might also discuss his grandfather, members of four Indigenous groups – Eddie Mabo – the revered figure behind Gimuy Walubara Yidinji, Gunggandji, a landmark land rights case. The Mabo Mandingalbay Yidinji and Yirrganydji Case altered the foundation of land- – whose lands stretch from Port rights law in Australia. “I’m royalty on Douglas to the Frankland Islands south my island,” says Blake. “A lot of Torres of Cairns. Strait Islanders are royalty on their islands because we used to have chiefs.” Blake has learned a lot about the various Aboriginal groups and their Dreaming Visitors are often “blown away” when stories – including the account of how he talks about his culture. Blake says “I’ve had locals from Cairns come on the boat who can’t recognise the the reef was formed when a hunter it’s rewarding to educate people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags,” he says. “At first that was a speared a sacred black stingray – but he including fellow Australians. little bit heartbreaking, but then I took a step back and realised I could educate them about how our Indigenous cultures are tied to the reef.” Contact Information: [email protected] reefmagiccruises.com/dreamtime-dive

Margaret Campbell Dreamtime SouthernX, Sydney, New South Wales

When you meet Margret Campbell, As you stand in front of modern feel free to call her Aunty Marg. In wonders such as the Sydney Opera Australia, addressing an Indigenous House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Elder as “Aunty” or “Uncle” is a sign Aunty Marg’s stories will take you of respect. Aunty Marg is the founder- back to a time when this land and owner and managing director of the harbour looked very different. Dreamtime Southern X, which Before colonisation, Indigenous people runs tours offering fascinating would watch out for the whales they insights into Sydney’s Aboriginal considered a spiritual ancestor. They’d Dreamtime beginnings. also bring fish here to cook over their campfires. You might encounter her – or one of her guides – cradling a tiny pot of Aunty Marg is from the Dunghutti ground ochre while standing in The and Jerrinjha nations of NSW but has Rocks waiting to welcome you to the 10 other ways of identifying herself, 90-minute walking tour. The pale including various animal totems. These paste is dabbed onto your wrists to all link her into a deep network of connect you to Earth Mother and the kinship and connection. Spending time sandstone lying beneath your feet. with Aunty Marg will highlight how Aunty Marg might also draw symbols the Dreamtime still shapes the world’s on herself with the ochre paste, which oldest continuous living culture – dries in the sun as she talks. estimated to be more than 65,000 years old – and the responsibilities of elders in today’s society. “Reconciliation is not just about shaking hands and feeling welcomed into country, reconciliation is about all peoples connecting with Contact Information: Aboriginal Peoples culture to learn how we can respect and conserve [email protected] dreamtimesouthernx.com.au our Earth Mother that we all live and walk upon”. Bob Taylor RT Tours Australia, Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Bob Taylor runs a million-star After spending two years as a guide restaurant in the desert near Alice around Alice Springs, Bob launched his Springs. It has no walls, but it own venture – RT Tours Australia – does boast one of the world’s most that combines his passions for tourism extraordinary views. At night, you and food. “Food, country and culture is can admire the Milky Way and the my motto,” says Bob, who offers lunch glittering sky, thanks to the lack and dinner tours near Alice Springs, as of light pollution in the Central well as private tours further afield. Australian desert. His tours typically start at the Alice Bob, a Southern Arrernte man, is a Springs Telegraph Station, continue professional chef who started cooking to Simpsons Gap and then to a nearby in Adelaide at 15 years old. He rattled site where Bob cooks a feast over the pans in big-city kitchens in an open fire. Guests enjoy a spread Australia and Europe before coming that includes bread with wattleseed “home” to the land of his ancestors dukkah, an outback hotpot, sweet – the traditional owners of Rainbow potato fritters with saltbush, lemon Valley, south of Alice Springs, where myrtle vegetables, and a dessert freestanding sandstone-banded bluffs featuring quandong and coconut. and cliffs spectacularly turn from ochre to vivid orange and purple in the light at dawn and dusk.

“I have Australian people coming on this tour who want to learn more [about Aboriginal culture] and that’s bloody wonderful,” says Bob. “I talk Contact Information: about Aboriginal culture and Australian culture combined. It’s walking [email protected] across country and just taking a look at it in a different way.” rttoursaustralia.com.au

Juan walker Walkabout Cultural Adventures, Port Douglas/Daintree, Queensland

Juan Walker was a shy young In the World Heritage-listed Daintree man considering an electrician’s Rainforest, he shows visitors the lush apprenticeship at a mine when layers where cassowaries roam. relatives talked him into staying on country in Tropical North Queensland. “It’s one thing to learn about The Kuku Yalanji man can thank his Aboriginal history through textbooks, grandmother for directing him onto sitting down in a classroom, but out a different path when she found him on country, it makes things a whole a job as a tour guide with Daintree lot more real,” he says. “It’s a lot more Ecolodge in 1999. “It took me a while hands-on – you can see how we know to be able to talk to strangers – that about bush medicine and bush tucker.” was the hardest part, getting over that shyness,” says Juan. Today he runs his You’ll also see his country through new own business, Walkabout Cultural eyes, as just about every landmark Adventures, from his Cooya Beach comes soaked in myth and legend. base near Port Douglas. Juan can tell you, for instance, a There’s no trace of that shyness Dreamtime story about how a hungry now as Juan leads visitors through snake slithered down from the the landscape he knows so well. mountains towards the coast to look In the mangroves and shallows, he for food, its body carving out the demonstrates how to spear a mud crab sinuous Daintree River along the way. and dig for pipis in the sand.

Contact Information: “I tell my kids Dreamtime stories at night for their bedtime stories,” [email protected] he says. walkaboutadventures.com.au Helen Martin Banubanu Beach Retreat, Bremer Island, Northern Territory

Helen Martin grew up surrounded ingredients into the retreat’s new by Central Australia’s red desert, menus. She talks about how wild figs but these days she looks out upon can be turned into jam, bush apples the sparkling blues of Yolngu sea into dessert, and how salty, crunchy country. Helen, an Arrernte woman pigface, a succulent that grows on from Alice Springs, runs Banubanu the beaches, makes a textural addition Beach Retreat, on Bremer Island off to salads. She plans to learn more East Arnhem Land, together with her about bush tucker from the women husband, Trevor Hosie. of the island’s Gutjaŋan community. Retreat visitors, who often say they In 2019, the couple completed a feel like castaways from modern life, major upgrade of the property, which can also visit the Yolngu sea country now comprises six eco-safari tents, a community for cultural experiences plunge pool and a chef-run, 30-seat such as fishing, mud-crabbing restaurant. The retreat also offers day and painting. tours to visit the island from Gove, a 90-minute flight from Darwin. An island stay gives an insight into this rich traditional culture, as well It’s been a steep learning curve for as all that nature has to offer in this Helen but one she wouldn’t change for Top End paradise. Birdwatchers can anything. “It’s been a journey for me,” look for brolgas, brahminy kites, says Helen. “But I like it – this is home orange-footed scrubfowl and emerald now – and I’m passionate about it.” doves while anglers can fish the deep waters for coral trout, red emperor Helen is also passionate about food and mackerel. The island also attracts and cooking and is excited about nesting leatherback, hawk’s-bill and green turtles. “I am blessed to be living in East Arnhem Land, it is a special place that incorporating the island’s native reconnects visitors to the land and sea, a place to reflect upon our journey, I love sharing this experience with visitors”. Contact Information: [email protected] banubanu.com

Darren “Capes” Capewell Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures, Monkey Mia, Western Australia

Darren “Capes” Capewell once played and my culture,” he says. Wula Gura Australian Rules football for East Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures Fremantle but these days he’s kicking will take you kayaking through the different kinds of goals. Capes, as he’s region’s stunning bays. Along the way, universally known, is now sharing you learn about the strong spiritual the Indigenous history of Shark Bay connection between this land and – the land of his ancestors. The World its traditional custodians. You can Heritage-listed region, 800 kilometres also slip from the double kayaks into (500 miles) north of Perth, is the crystal-clear waters to snorkel and Australian continent’s westernmost swim with rays, fish and turtles. point. Among Shark Bay’s highlights is Monkey Mia, famous for its wild Capes also runs a Didgeridoo Dreaming dolphins. It’s also home to Francois night tour – a didgeridoo meditation Peron National Park, where acacia- around an open campfire. Bush tucker covered red sand dunes contrast and fish are cooked over the fire, and vividly with turquoise waters that are males can try their hand playing the home to manta rays, dolphins and timeless instrument. Traditionally, the elusive dugongs. didgeridoo is played only by men but females on the tour can try coaxing Capes came home from the big city music from a conch shell. On a 4WD in 2000 and started his tourism tour of Francois Peron National Park, venture in 2004. “Apart from my you might spot the thorny devil, a family, it combines two of my greatest spiky lizard that stars in one of the passions – and that’s the environment region’s Dreamtime stories. “When you visit places it is easy to ‘see’ country, but to truly take something away with you – you need to feel the spirit of country. This is Contact Information: what I share with visitors. People walk away with a deeper appreciation of [email protected] what country means to my people, here in Gutharraguda (Shark Bay).” wulagura.com.au Andrew Smith Sand Dune Adventures, New South Wales

Andrew Smith is the boss of a When Smith started developing the thrilling venture that combines high- business, he had only eight quad adrenaline quad-biking with ancient bikes and “stood by the side of the Indigenous coastal culture. The CEO road waving signs at passing cars of Worimi Local Aboriginal Land hoping they would come”. Tourism Council, which operates Sand Dune Australia backed the venture, naming Adventures at Port Stephens on the it an Indigenous Tourism Champion. NSW North Coast, was a long-time Business mentorship, along with great Australian Taxation Office employee word of mouth, also helped turned when the opportunity arose in 2006 Sand Dune Adventures into a thriving to do something completely different. enterprise within just a few years.

“I didn’t know anything about quad Profits are poured back into the bikes or Aboriginal tourism or tourism local Indigenous community, funding in general,” he says. He did know a lot employment, housing, education, about governance and accountability, health and elders’ programs. “It’s though – expertise that helped as he about the growth and empowerment pondered how to turn the Southern of our community,” Smith says. Hemisphere’s largest moving sand dunes into a viable business that Quad-bike riders journey up to supported his community as a not- 20 kilometres over the awe-inspiring for-profit social enterprise. “We were dunes – some of which are more than asset-rich but cash-poor,” he says. 30 metres high.

“About 95 per cent of people who come on our tours are really after the quad Contact Information: bikes but every single tour gets exposed to the occupational history and [email protected] Aboriginal culture of the area.” sandduneadventures.com.au

Dale tilbrook Dale Tilbrook Experiences, Perth, Western Australia

Dale Tilbrook needs little prompting Maalinup Gallery was developed where to discuss her favourite topic, the activities around bush tucker, culture native foodstuffs Australians call “bush and Aboriginal art are promoted. tucker”. “People regard lots of them as superfoods because of their nutritional Dale expanded her work with Maalinup make-up. Kakadu plums have the highest Gallery and created Dale Tilbrook vitamin C content of any fruit in the Experiences. Today Dales two signature world,” says the Wardandi Bibbulmun experiences focus on taking guests Elder and chef. “If something interests on an in depth, hands on journey into me, I’m like a big sponge – I suck it all in Aboriginal native edibles as food and and retain it.” medicine. “Food is our medicine “, Dale explains. During these experiences’ Today, Dale is such an expert on guests are able to eat the bush food Indigenous bush foods that she’s in high and learn many interesting facts about demand to talk about them and cook the nutritional profile of bush food and them in far-flung countries such as Italy. medicine plants. Dale also reveals some That makes her one busy woman as she remarkable insights into Aboriginal also runs Dale Tilbrook Experiences in food traditions such as the yam garden “People call me the bush tucker queen as I have a passion that borders Perth. along the Swan River, the Noongar on obsession regarding native edible plants and their pharmaceutical Six Seasons and sustainable hunting and nutraceutical qualities. This obsession has continued to build for After returning from 10 years overseas and gathering. In her art experience the last 20 odd years and is something I never tire of”. Dale’s journey in Aboriginal tourism the history of Aboriginal art and dot began 25 years ago starting with paintings is explored and participants a boomerang and artefact making create their own piece to take home. enterprise with her brother, then an Dale’s storytelling skills come to the fore Contact Information: Aboriginal art and gift gallery with when she delivers her Local History and [email protected] some bush food products. From there Culture experience. maalinup.com.au Bart Pigram Narlijia Experiences, Broome, Western Australia

When Bart Pigram gazes across the Bart embodies the rich flat, Tiffany-blue expanse of Roebuck multiculturalism that runs through Bay in Broome on the Kimberley Broome. He has Aboriginal, Asian coast of Western Australia, he doesn’t and European heritage, and he uses just see water. He sees dinosaur it to express the way locals embrace footprints hidden by the tides, cultural diversity. His family history mangroves harbouring crabs and also links back to the pearling boom molluscs, and pearling luggers that at the turn of the 20th century, used to dot the horizon. enabling him to share both fascinating and sinister stories of the past on Bart, who started Narlijia Experiences his walks between bays, along the in Broome in 2015, likes to take people mangroves and through the town. to a spot high on the hill, where a new lookout stands. Circles have been cut He weaves Dreaming stories through through the shelter’s steel to create his well-researched talks, and crushes symbolic dot paintings on the ground. fragrant leaves or cracks open a Just to the right is a spot most people boab nut for a sensory experience. miss: a clearing littered with shells “I’m close to this area,” he says. “My that have bleached white over the people’s language, our understandings, thousands of years they’ve lain in our creation stories all come from the sun. This is where his people, the here. I believe the environment here is Yawuru, would come together to eat among the best in the world and my and watch over the bay. culture belongs here.”

Contact Information: “I want to get people grounded when they get to Broome and reveal all the [email protected] secrets and all the history. The good, the bad, all of it – and give them a true toursbroome.com.au experience of what it’s like here.”

Kevin Baxter-Pilakui SeaLink NT , Northern Territory

Kevin Baxter-Pilakui was born in the visitors to smoking ceremonies, where air, way above his remote island home. wafting plumes from native leaves rid His mother was flying from the Tiwi people of bad spirits and feelings. He Islands to hospital in Darwin, the takes them through the island’s lauded capital of the Northern Territory, to screen-printing art centre, where deliver him, except that Kevin arrived iconic designs make their way onto early, half-way between both. He colourful materials. He teaches them jokes that he’s from no-man’s land, about sourcing ochre pigments from but in truth, Bathurst Island (which is the island and mixing them 60 kilometres off the mainland) has for painting. always had his heart. He also shows off the hard, heavy He lived on Bathurst Island until he was ironstone used for carvings of birds 12, when schooling in the big smoke and towering pukamani poles, the called, and he began tour guiding after sacred, decorative posts placed at graduation. Seven years ago, he decided burial sites during a traditional the scenery in Darwin was no match ceremony. Kevin also loves to surprise for the ‘islands of smiles’. He wanted to his guests with the news that neither return to his ocean-lapped roots to help the didgeridoo nor the boomerang is share its culture. found on the islands – revealing the differences between them and Now, the former football player leads greater Australia. Tiwi by Design tours. He introduces “There are some 900 to 1000 different dialects across the Northern Territory, and sometimes it’s taboo for the mainlanders to share parts Contact Information: of culture, but the Tiwi Islands and our culture are open to the world. [email protected] For us, it’s important to share.” tiwidesigns.com/pages/tiwi-tours Dwayne Bannon-Harrison Ngaran Ngaran Culture Awareness, Narooma, New South Wales Dwayne Bannon-Harrison, a me the ways. You’ve got to be chosen to descendant of the Yuin people of New receive that kind of in-depth teaching,” South Wales’ far South Coast, was an explains Dwayne. accomplished football player and a plasterer by trade in Bathurst, west of At 26, the transformative experience Sydney, before experiencing what he was so profound that it inspired describes as his “call back to country”. Dwayne to establish Ngaran Ngaran Culture Awareness (NNCA), an “In 2010 everything really turned on Aboriginal-owned and -operated its head. I was all set up in Bathurst cultural training service, that today but I had a really strong urge to return shares Yuin culture in the form of to the New South Wales South Coast, immersive travel experiences. like I was being spiritually called back,” says Dwayne, who hadn’t lived You can learn about the Yuin way on his ancestral land since he was a of life by joining one of NNCA’s very young child. experiences such as the three-day Djirringanj Dreaming Tour, which takes Unable to resist the pull any longer, you on spectacular short coastal walks he sold his house and business, packed deep into Yuin country. Hear sacred up his young family, and moved Dreaming stories passed down for 400 kilometres (250 miles) south-east tens of thousands of years, and bear to the coastal town of Narooma. witness to traditional ceremonies, There he was welcomed back to song and traditions; at night, retire to Yuin country by his grandfather, a your lavish “glamping” tent, complete renowned elder, who quickly became with plush bedding, ensuite bathroom Dwayne’s cultural mentor. and gourmet catering that showcases “Because I was his eldest grandson, he native ingredients. really took me under his wing to teach

Contact Information: “I believe that’s why I had the calling to come home, to create a vehicle to [email protected] continue the traditional teachings of our bloodline.” ngaranaboriginalculture.com

For more information on Discover Aboriginal Experiences please contact: Nicole Mitchell [email protected] tourism.australia.com/aboriginal australia.com/aboriginal More info For more information on any of these experiences, including famil opportunities, high-res imagery or to arrange interviews, reach out to:

Nicole Mitchell Global Project Executive, Experiences Discover Aboriginal Experiences [email protected] tourism.australia.com/aboriginal