Storyteller
Walking on the lands of the palawa
WORDS KATE ROBERTSON
Storyteller
Walking on the lands of the palawa
WORDS KATE ROBERTSON
Stunning wukalina Walk in northeast Tasmania.
wukalina Walk is a four-day, three-night Aboriginal-owned and guided hiking and cultural experience along the white sand beaches of larapuna/Bay of Fires and wukalina/Mount William. Located in northeast nipaluna/Tasmania, the walk is on the lands of the Tasmania’s Traditional Custodians, the palawa.
palawa guide Carleeta Thomas loves seeing guests begin to develop an understanding of the strong connection Tasmania’s Traditional Owners have to Country over the course of the four-day wukalina hike. Often the biggest impact is made by the cultural living sites (also referred to as middens) where piles of discarded shells remain as evidence of seafood feasts from thousands of generations ago.
‘We actually sit in our living site and we go through what we call a Connection and grounding ceremony, where we sit in a circle, close our eyes and just breathe in and out, listening to the beautiful mena (Country). When we open up our eyes after five or 10 minutes of breathing and connecting, I think most of the guests are in a different type of state because they've actually felt the energy within that site,’ Carleeta says.
palawa guide Carleeta Thomas.
Walk along the beach towards larapuna/the Bay of Fires.
‘It's one of the most powerful moments, apart from the smoking ceremony, because you know that our old fellows have been here for thousands of generations, and you’ve seen the big piles of shells and know that every single shell within this living site has been touched and caught by one of our women out in that beautiful muka (the ocean).’
Sleep well in the culturally-inspired domed huts.
Mix with your fellow travellers at krakani lumi/sit and rest place.
The first two nights of the hike are spent at krakani lumi camp (sit and rest place) in culturally-inspired and architecturally-designed domed-ceiling huts. The last night is spent at the restored lightkeeper’s cottage at the most northern end of larapuna.
Being a guide on the wukalina Walk in northeast Tasmania was a role Carleeta had not considered as a shy 18-year-old living on truwana/Cape Barren Island, a 478-square-kilometre island off the coast. It was only when the walk’s founder, Uncle Clyde Mansell, spotted her potential, and asked her if she was interested in training to become a guide, that Carleeta moved into the career she now loves.
Six years on, Carleeta continues to be grateful for the unique opportunity to learn more about her culture whilst being able to share her powerful connection to Country with non-Indigenous people.
larapuna/the Bay of Fires.
The walk takes guests on a journey through wukalina/Mt William National Park to larapuna/the Bay of Fires, across the cultural homelands of the palawa. The palawa guides share their cultural knowledge, stories and activities during the 35-kilometre hike through bushland, coastal heathland and beaches.
‘Sometimes it is very hard to put into words. But if you think of a place where you go to let the stress and the worry go — whether it be a long day at work or something that might be going on in your family — and a place where you feel safe, connected, always looked over, that's how I think Aboriginal people feel all the time when they're out on Country.’
Eating bush tucka, and traditional foods like muttonbird and shellfish, is an important part of the cultural experience. ‘At the moment, heaps of our beautiful fruits are out, so it's really a good time of the year to have a good feed on some berries. When we come back to camp we have kangaroo burgers or kangaroo steaks, which we do out on the fire with our pepper berry pickle onions,' Carleeta says.
Look out for the area's rich wildlife.
Bush tucka and traditional foods, such as muttonbird, are on the menu.
Amid the beauty of the landscape is the darker tale of how larapuna became known as the Bay of Fires. In the early 1800s, sealers would sail the waters off the coast and kidnap Aboriginal women and children who they would then take to tayaritja/Furneaux Islands, which include Carleeta’s birthplace, Barron Island.
The walk includes diverse and changing landscapes.
palawa would light fires on wukalina as a warning to those near the shoreline.
‘There was only a handful or so of men and women left over on the coast of the northeast and the highest point was wukalina, and it was probably the easiest one to get up to, so they would go up to the top of the summit and light fires as soon as they saw the sealer ships coming up through larapuna to signal to the women and children down on the beaches to get away from them coastlines,’ Carleeta says.
Thankfully, the fires now have a much more joyful purpose. ‘During Christmas time we light what we call the Santa Claus fires from the very top down to the last little fire at the bottom of the hill and all of us kids had to be in bed before that fire goes out, otherwise Santa Claus wouldn't come to us,’ she smiles.
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