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| Make sure your Outback-bound clients have a professional guide; it is not a place to explore on one’s own. |
Maureen Jones is president of All Horizons Travel, a division of Frosch Travel Group, is a Premier Aussie Specialist, a Kiwi (New Zealand) Specialist, and a Luxury Travel Expo Top Educator of the Year. Here, based on her firsthand experiences, she takes a look at touring the regions of Australia where the Aborigine people and their culture thrive.
According to Tourism Australia, 40 percent of visitors to Australia want to learn something about the indigenous people, the Aborigines. To get to one of these remote communities, you go in a four-wheel drive vehicle, on dirt roads.
Many of the remote locations I have been to have been done by helicopter and the airlines with quirky names like Sling Air, and Alligator Line. (I once flew with a cattle station owner who had no doors on either his helicopter or small plane. I was too scared to even take a photo of his million acres of wonderful waterfalls and rock art.)
All over Australia, you will find wonderful art work done by Aboriginal people. In many remote locations, the rock art paintings are spectacular, and the stories of the paintings are best heard from a member of the local tribe.
Preparing for the Outback
The outback is not a place anyone should be exploring on their own. It is important to join a group when visiting this part of the world. One has to be dressed appropriately for the weather, wear a brimmed hat with a fly net, and watch out for snakes. The temperature can go as high as 120 degrees in the summer months, December to March, which is also the wet season so the humidity is unbearable. Highlight: It is interesting to learn how to collect, prepare and eat “bush tucker,” native food found in the outback.
There are more than 450 tribes, with their own language and dialects. Many groups were unchanged by European influence until the 1940s, and the last traditional nomadic families moved from the desert regions to settlements in the 1960s. People of the Torres Strait Islands in the far north of Queensland don’t consider themselves Aboriginal since they are a mixture of people from Papua New Guinea as well as mainland Australia.
Two icons of Aboriginal culture are the curved returning boomerang and the didgeridoo, a wooden pipe, the world’s oldest wind instrument, which is only played by men. A corroboree is a ceremonial meeting, and worth attending if you can.
There are several places in Australia where a visitor can learn something about the Aboriginal culture.
Here are the ones I recommend:
Queensland
You’ll meet the Tjapukai people when you go on the Kuranda tour out of Cairns. The tour covers the Kuranda rail, the sky rail, and the Tjapukai settlement where you learn to throw a boomerang and a spear and learn about the tribe’s ancient medicine and customs. The dance performance is excellent and the gift shop is a good one. It may seem a little “touristy” but it’s worth seeing if this is your only chance to experience Aboriginal culture.
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| Aboriginal art in northern Australia’s Arnhem Land. |
Northern Territory
Alice Springs is the heart of the Red Center, where the Arrente people have lived for 20,000 years. This little town, which has good art galleries, is the starting point for outback camping trips. Years ago, with no roads, folks traveled by camel. There are very few roads even today; thus camels are a common mode of transportation for trips into the desert.
Kings Canyon
This is a great destination for hiking the rim and seeing a less visited part of the outback. From the rim there are sweeping views of the sheer sandstone cliffs, palm-filled crevices, valley floor and desert.
Uluru
Best known as the site of the red monolith known as Ayers Rock, Uluru is sacred to the Aboriginal people. This is home to the Agangu tribe and there is a great museum and also shops selling crafts made by the locals. Two “must” activities are the Sunrise breakfast at the rock, and the Sounds of Silence dinner.
Tiwi Islands
An hour’s flight from Darwin, this is where the film Australia was made, and where the Aboriginal children all have wonderful smiles and white painted faces (This is my favorite place to send visitors to.)
Kakadu National Park
This park is three hours east of Darwin but well worth the drive, if only for the 50,000-year-old rock art galleries. Other attractions include rugged escarpments, lush rainforests, great fishing and millions of birds, crocodiles and snakes. It’s also a wonderful place to take a plane or helicopter ride. Visits must be scheduled from May to October as it is impossible to use the roads during the wet season.
Western Australia
There are more than 60 tribes in Western Australia. The Wikipedia site for “Western Australia tribes” is a good place to start checking out their various locations. And of course the Tourism Australia website, www.australia.com, has abundant information.
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| Australian Aboriginal cave art, Northern Territory |
If you can fit in a visit to an Aboriginal settlement or go on a tour, no matter where you go in Australia, it will give you an insight into a piece of real Australia.