NEW SOUTH WALES
Tours
Even if you’re the kind of person who normally shuns organised tours, the chance to spend time with an Aboriginal guide may well become one of the most memorable experiences of your trip. A day tour with Aboriginal Blue Mountains Walkabout taught me about the meaning of connection to country, while an Aboriginal discovery tour of Mungo National Park introduced me to the stories surrounding Mungo Lady and Mungo Man. Whether you’re riding a quad bike through the Stockton Sand Dunes on a cultural tour with Sand Dune Adventures or taking part in an ochre ceremony in Wagga Wagga with Bundyi Cultural Tours, the aim is the same — to enjoy an authentic, immersive experience, while having the time of your life.
Museums and galleries
While Sydney’s Australian Museum offers one of the world’s most significant First Nations collections of art and objects, regional museums shine in their ability to showcase the culture of local clans. Don’t miss the Minjungbal Aboriginal Centre in South Tweed Heads where you can tour the museum and then see an authentic bora ring — a sacred ceremonial site. If you fancy a hands-on weaving workshop, head to the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Corindi Beach.
Festivals
The Boomerang Festival is a three-day event of music, song and dance held annually as part of the annual Byron Bay Bluesfest. See bluesfest.com.au/boomerang.
VICTORIA
Tours
Get a taste of Aboriginal culture on a bush tucker tour of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, where Aboriginal guides offer insights into traditional uses of plants. If you’re in the south-west of the state, don’t miss a tour of the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape, where 6600-year-old eel trap systems will blow everything you thought you knew about Aboriginal culture out of the water.
Museums and galleries
It was in Melbourne’s Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre that I first saw an historic possum skin cloak, one of two known surviving cloaks of its kind in the world. The intricate markings, gathered and added to over a lifetime, tell the story of a person from birth until death when they are once again wrapped in the soft fur.
The centre is also home to First Peoples, a permanent exhibition celebrating the history, culture and achievements of Victoria’s Aboriginal peoples. Visit the Benalla Art Gallery for contemporary and traditional artworks or check out street art by renowned artist Adnate.
Festivals
Deadly Funny is a national comedy competition run annually as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.See comedyfestival.com.au/deadly-funny.
Benalla Art Gallery features works of contemporary and traditional artists
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Tours
Not all Aboriginal experiences involve desert sand and dot paintings. Go Cultural Aboriginal Tours and Experiences offers 90-minute walking tours of Perth, taking in sacred sites and forgotten lakes that lie under modern skyscrapers. Learn about the six seasons and how they continue to influence the lives of the Noongar people today. Or join a bush tucker tour through Perth and surrounds with Dale Tilbrook Experiences for a hands-on lesson in the uses of plant and animal resources as medicine.
In the World Heritage-listed Shark Bay region, 800km north of Perth, Darren ‘Capes’ Capewell from Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Adventures leads kayaking tours while sharing Dreamtime stories about the bay’s Saltwater people. It was here I paddled alongside Capes, caught in a trance as dugongs, rays and turtles swum around our kayaks, as if conjured by magic. Further north in the historic pearling town of Broome, local Yawuru man, Bart Pigram from Narlijia Experiences, will take you on a walking tour, explaining the Dreamtime stories connected with Roebuck Bay.
Museums and galleries
If you are visiting the Kimberley, don’t miss the Mowanjum Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre outside of Derby. The centre hosts exhibitions, workshops and community projects, as well as the annual Mowanjum Festival. Or, if you find yourself near Mount Magnet in the Goldfields, the Wirnda Barna Art Centre is the place to purchase authentic artworks produced by local communities.
Festivals
The Karijini Experience is a five-day celebration of culture, music, food and art held each April against a backdrop of the stunning Karijini landscape. See karijiniexperience.com.
QUEENSLAND
Tours
There’s rock art, and then there’s the 40m-long rock art cave on Cape York Peninsula known as Magnificent gallery. Hidden until 2016 and only accessible with a Traditional Owner through Jarramali Rock Art Tours, the 450 paintings glow with an otherworldly intensity, as if the characters are about to step out of from the wall. Never have I been moved by something so ancient.
If you prefer reefs to rocks, Dreamtime Dive and Snorkel in Cairns offers a unique Great Barrier Reef cruise with Indigenous rangers as guides. Love rainforests? Join a tour of the Daintree with Walkabout Cultural Adventures where you will learn about Kuku Yalanji culture, including how to throw a traditional fishing spear. The knowledge and cheeky banter of guide (and owner) Juan Walker makes this tour a stand out.
Museums and galleries
For total immersion in Kuku Yalanji culture, spend a day in Mossman in Far North Queensland at the Janbal Gallery. Explore the gallery, take a private art class or join a boomerang-painting workshop. Aboriginal owned and operated, you can be sure of an authentic experience.
Festivals
The Laura Quinkan Dance Festival is held biennially on Cape York Peninsula to celebrate culture through music, song and dance. It is the ultimate finale to a road-trip from Cairns. See lauraquinkanfestival.com.
NORTHERN TERRITORY
Tours
Since every part of Australia is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander country, you never need travel far to find an authentic experience. Join Saltwater Cultural Tours in Darwin for a three-hour tour, which includes a traditional welcome to country, an introduction to language and a lesson in fire-making. Or travel by Sealink NT to the Tiwi Islands where Aussie Rules football is the third religion alongside Catholicism and art. Time your visit for the annual football grand final and art sale.
Further afield, Nitmiluk Tours offers a range of cruises, canoe trips, hikes, walks and helicopter flights in Nitmiluk (Katherine) National Park. It was a blue bird day when I took to the skies on a chopper tour, enjoying an eagle-eye view of the aquamarine river with its daisy-chain of 13 gorges.
If you’d prefer to get some Red Centre soil under your boots, chef Bob (Pernuka) Taylor from RT Tours Australia offers a campfire dinner in the West MacDonnell Ranges outside of Alice Springs. Steamed pudding with quandong and wattleseed? Don’t mind if I do.
Rock art in the eastern MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs, NT
Museums and galleries
The Araluen Cultural Precinct in Alice Springs is an art gallery, museum and theatre in one. Set over 9 hectares, it is home to a collection of 1100 pieces of artwork that reflect the vitality and diversity of art from Central Australia. The Aboriginal-owned Injalak Arts is a worthwhile stop on your drive through western Arnhem Land. Some of the best rock art galleries can be found in the MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs.
Festivals
The Garma Festival of Traditional Cultures, which is part of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, is held annually in north-east Arnhem Land.See yyf.com.au.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Tours
To scientists, Wilpena Pound in the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park is an 800-million-year old natural amphitheatre of mountains. To the Adnyamathanha people, the pound’s walls are the bodies of two intertwined Dreamtime serpents. To learn more about these creation stories, join an Aboriginal cultural guided walk to Brachina and Bunyeroo Gorges. The Aboriginal-owned and operated Wilpena Pound Resort is the only accommodation with the park and includes hotel rooms, glamping tents and campsites.
Museums and galleries
Adelaide’s South Australian Museum is responsible for the largest and more comprehensive collection of Australian Aboriginal cultural material in the world. New partnerships are being forged with Aboriginal communities, including the repatriation of ancestral remains and sacred objects. Visit the World Cultures collection to see items from the Pacific, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Construction is currently underway to build a world-class Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre at Adelaide’s innovation precinct, Lot Fourteen.
Festivals
Adelaide’s annual Tarnanthi Art Fair alternates its format from a 10-day city-wide festival one year to a three-month exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia the next.See agsa.sa.gov.au.
TASMANIA
Tours
The wukalina walk, which launched in 2018 as Tasmania’s first owned, operated and guided tourism venture, was a chance to rewrite the history books. When Truganini passed away in 1876, she was considered to be the ‘last Tasmanian Aboriginal’, yet, in a twist that would only come to light in recent decades, 47 others had survived on Flinders Island. Today, their ancestors are proudly reclaiming their palawa language (all letters are spelt with a lower case) and inviting guests to join them on a four-day walk through their cultural homeland. Located in the larapuna/Bay of Fires and wukalina/Mt Williams region in the state’s north-east, the tour includes two nights in domed huts, their shape reflecting Indigenous design.
Museums and galleries
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart offers an introduction to Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, and an insight to where it is headed today. Don’t miss the ningina tunapri exhibition, which means to ‘give knowledge and understanding’ or mapiya lumi, designed for children 0-7 years.
Festivals
The Furneaux Islands Festival is a three-day celebration held on Flinders Island each January. See fifestival.com.au.
Learn to make shell jewellery on the wukalina walk, Tas
THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
Tours
Canberra is rich with many significant Aboriginal sites — the trick is knowing where to find them. Dhawura Tours offers a variety of cultural experiences, from a two-hour introduction to Mount Majura, taking in bush foods, scar trees and cultural artifacts of the Ngunnawal people to a 3.5-hour driving adventure. If you have more time up your sleeve, consider joining them for a full-day, 4WD tour through the Namadgi National Park, where there is evidence of 21,000 years of Aboriginal occupation. Enjoy detailed Ngunnawal interpretation of the landscape, wildlife, bush food and rock art sites. If self-drive is more your thing, Canberra Tracks has a network of heritage signs that incorporates eight self-drive routes covering Aboriginal and Colonial history.
Museum and galleries
Canberra is home to many embassies, but none are more poignant (or perhaps controversial) than the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. First established in 1972 as a protest occupation site against the government’s approach to Indigenous Australian land rights, it has been located on the lawn opposite Old Parliament House since 1992. Listed on the Australian Heritage Commission’s National Estate, the protest site of today also stands for Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. To learn more about Indigenous history, visit the First Australians Gallery and Talking Blak to History exhibition at the National Museum of Australia. The National Gallery of Australia is home to over 7500 works by Australian Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.
Festivals
Numerous celebrations are held across Canberra each July as part of National Naidoc Week. See naidoc.org.au.
The writer is a descendant of the Awabakal people of the mid-north coast of NSW.