Indigenous Australia

Article by: Lonely Planet authors, February 2008

You wouldn't be getting the whole picture if you travelled to Australia without making an effort to experience its indigenous culture. Australian Aboriginal society has the longest continuous cultural history in the world - dating back to the last ice age - and despite concerted efforts to stamp it out, it's still very much alive. Read up on our favourite Aboriginal experiences, and find out what Cathy Freeman, one of Australia's biggest indigenous celebrities, loved about her outback trip with us.

Cathy Freeman

Cathy is one of Australia's most admired and respected athletes, best known for winning a gold medal at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. Now retired from professional track and field, she remains an international personality and role model.

In 2006 Cathy and her mates, the Australian actors Deborah Mailman and Luke Carrol, hit the road for LPTV's Going Bush series with an adventure across Indigenous Australia. Together they discovered the secrets of this visually stunning, culturally rich and spiritually fascinating country. These were her favourite experiences:

1. Meeting artists in Kununurra

They're incredible artists. These are artists who are celebrated not only here but internationally. Their art work is on the walls of the most prestigious galleries in the world so to actually meet them and see how they work, the stories they're telling through their art work… I think the youngest artist there is 70 years old so there's all these old fellas and I was really excited to sit down and have a yarn with them and actually have a look at their work.

2. Seeing Uluru for the first time

It's massive - scary massive - but just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. It's awesome.

3. Eating frogs at Devil's Marbles

Eating desert sand frogs; that experience is at the top of my list of all-time experiences and I'm not talking about in the bush, I'm talking about ever. It was such an emotional roller coaster because for a second or two I became quite emotionally attached to these little frogs. They are the cutest looking little things and in a way it was tough knowing you were going to eat them. They taste a bit like chicken.

Lonely Planet's Top 5 Indigenous Experiences

1. Meet the Malgana Mob - Monkey Mia, Western Australia

'Today you mob are Malgana people,' says Darren 'Capes' Capewell as we start his cultural walk on a bright Monkey Mia day. Capes is a fit, handsome, ex-Aussie Rules player and a one-man Aboriginal Embassy in Monkey Mia . This is his country - Malgana country. Capes has run his own cultural walks, Wula Guda Nyinda ('you come this way') (tel: 0429 708 847; 9948 1320) here since late 2004. Join Capes for a fascinating morning walk: Buna (daytime) Dreaming. It covers Malgana language, 'respect for country', bush medicine, bush survival, tracking, local history and the obligatory bush tucker.

2. Attend the Laura Festival - Laura, Cape York Qld

Every two years, approximately 20 Aboriginal communities from the Cape York region gather 15km outside the tiny town of Laura for three days of song, dance and celebration. The area has been used as a traditional meeting space for thousands of years, but this particular biennial gathering, which began in 1990, is known as the Laura Festival.

'It's an intimate and true insight into Aboriginal Australia and the rich culture of the Cape York region, which dates back 60,000 years,' says Jeremy Gaia, Festival Director since 2003. 'It's about keeping those cultures alive.' Tickets usually go on sale three months before the event and can be purchased via the Quinkan & Regional Cultural Centre (tel: 4060 3457) or at the gate. As Gaia puts it: 'It's a fair dinkum look at Aboriginal culture.'

3. See the Tiwi Grand Final - Tiwi Islands Northern Territory

The Tiwi Grand Final is held at the end of March on Bathurst Island and showcases the Tiwis' skills and passion for football. Thousands come from Darwin for the day, which coincides with the Tiwi Art Sale. If you want to see more of the area, consider taking a Tiwi Tour (tel: 1300 721 365; 08 8922 2777). These fly-in tours are conducted by Tiwi guides who'll talk and walk you through the Patakijiyali Museum, a dance performance, a pukumani burial site, a church with an inimitable Tiwi-decorated altar and the Nguiu arts centre, known as Tiwi Design. For more adventure, try an overnight tour where you'll get to camp, eat bush tucker and take in the island's coast and wilderness.

4. Weaving Magic - The Coorong, South Australia

The Coorong, a complex series of sand dunes and saltpans separated from the sea by the Younghusband Peninsula, provides the perfect habitat for the freshwater rushes used in basket weaving. The Boandik of the southeastern coast and the Ngarrindjeri of the Coorong are among the most celebrated weavers in Aboriginal Australia, renowned for their distinctive spiral designs and 'sister baskets' (named because the two halves are identical, like 'sisters'). Traditionally, weaving was used to make baskets, mats, fish traps and other items, and you can learn the ancient skill from the Ngarrindjeri women at Camp Coorong. You can also join a field trip with Ngarrindjeri Elders at the wonderful cultural centre, see stone fish traps and visit the Raukkan Aboriginal Community at Point McLeay, home of the church printed on the Australian $50 note.

5. As Remote As It Gets - Cape Leveque, WA

If you want to get away from it all, head for Cape Leveque, a ridiculously scenic spot at the tip of the Dampier Peninsula (220km north of Broome) that is all wide beaches, clear water, stunning red cliffs and Kodak sunsets.

Bardi people from the nearby communities of One Arm Point and Djarindjin have established the award-winning Kooljaman wilderness camp, built around the lighthouse at Cape Leveque. It's become the poster child for sensitive, low-impact, indigenous-owned tourism in Western Australia; a spacious, unhurried place with accommodation ranging from safari tents on elevated decks with panoramic views of the ocean to modest bush cabins and a handful of basic-as-can-be palm-frond beach shelters right on the water's edge.