UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL Meet the guides from Discover Aboriginal Experiences A visit to Australia 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, Northern Territory 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 Arnhem Land 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] dreamtimedive.com MARGRET CAMPBELL Dreamtime Southern X, 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 and ground ochre while standing in The Jerrinjha nations of New South Wales Rocks waiting to welcome you to the but has 10 other ways of identifying 90-minute walking tour. The pale herself, including various animal paste is dabbed onto your wrists to Totems. These all link her into a deep connect you to Earth Mother and the network of kinship and connection. sandstone lying beneath your feet. Spending time with Aunty Marg will Aunty Marg might also draw symbols highlight how the Dreamtime still on herself with the ochre paste, which shapes the world’s oldest continuous dries in the sun as she talks. living culture – estimated to be more than 60,000 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 Aboriginal Contact Information: Peoples’ culture to learn how we can respect and conserve our Earth [email protected] Mother that we all live and walk upon.” dreamtimesouthernx.com.au BEC SAMPI Kingfisher Tours, The Kimberley, Western Australia Gija woman Bec Sampi grew up in catch fish using spinifex grass, and Woolah Country (also known as Doon understand cultural Songlines that Doon), a tiny outstation community reveal ancient, unmarked paths near Western Australia’s World through the wilderness. Heritage-listed Purnululu National Park. It’s a wonderfully remote Bec, a former schoolteacher who place, nine-odd hours’ drive east is fluent in the Gija, Wola and of the Kimberley region’s tourism Kriol Indigenous languages, shares hub of Broome. This remoteness much of this knowledge on her has informed Bec’s personality: her tours of Purnululu, home to the observational skills, her ability to extraordinary Bungle Bungle Range. connect with Country, her comfort As the head guide with Kingfisher in isolated, outback locations. As a Tours, she blends modern science 13-year-old, she explored Purnululu’s with traditional education to provide curious landscape of red rock fascinating explanations for how the boulders and rounded sandstone formations in her homeland came to domes during a cultural immersion be, woven together with song and trip with her grandmother. The pair softly spoken truths. camped in the bush, with Bec learning how to read hidden messages in Aboriginal rock paintings, find plants that serve as bush medicine, “The way you see my Country is different to how I see it. Some people are amazed, because they only had an impression of Aboriginal people on Contact Information: the street. I see this as a reconciliation tour; you’ll see we’re First Nations [email protected] people and we’ve lived through hard times.” kingfishertours.com.au JUAN WALKER Walkabout Cultural Adventures, Port Douglas/Daintree, Queensland Juan Walker was a shy young and dig for pipis in the sand.