Taking a women-only cultural immersion tour in Kimberley, Australia
The tour is led by Rosanna Angus, who is Bardi on her grandfather's side and Jawi on her grandmother's and was named tour guide of the year in Australia's Top Tourism Town Awards 2023. Building on the success of her own company (Oolin Sunday Island Cultural Tours), Rosanna teamed up with Australian Geographic Travel last year to run this exclusive eight-person tour that reveals indigenous women's way of life.
Rosanna leads the tour with her sister, Bernadette, and Pat Torres, a woman of Djugan/Jabirr Jabirr descent who introduces visitors to the land on day one. We also learn from Rosanna's brother Bolo, because just as certain traditional knowledge is only shared by women, some is only shared by men.
Swimming opportunities abound as we're on the coast most of the time; 'Kimberley time', as Rosanna describes it, which means going with the flow. Often literally. Here, the world's largest tropical tides see the shoreline move hundreds of metres twice daily, and terra firma is inundated by rapidly rising water in a few minutes. This leads to a quick change of plan when we go crab hunting in a muddy mangrove, and determines when we're done harvesting oysters on a rocky shore.
An afternoon at sea provides another eye-opening display of immense tidal forces. From Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm's tourist village, where the tour's safari-style tent accommodation is located, we take a boat out into Bardi Jawi Gaarra Marine Park. It's a powerful, open vessel, so we easily and safely see the effects of water surging into King Sound Gulf: choppy waves, whirlpools and 'pancakes'. I recall the traditional raft displayed at the village; Jawi sailors of old must have had extraordinary skill and courage to navigate these treacherous waters on such rough wooden lattices.
We pass numerous islands, some no more than boulders, before approaching the largest, Sunday Island. Sharing bulging folders of black-and-white photos, Rosanna explains there was an Aboriginal mission here until the 1960s. It changed the islanders' lives, she says, but also gave them new practical skills such as boatbuilding and carpentry. Mindful of the devastating consequences for indigenous people when Britain claimed Australia, I'm surprised Rosanna speaks positively about the mission.
After pausing in a sheltered Sunday Island inlet for a picnic, another swim, more conversation and storytelling, we head for the mainland feeling pleased with our aquatic adventure. It gets better though, as a humpback whale takes an interest in our boat and does a lazy loop. Gliding in and out of the water, exhaling lustily and waving its tail, the whale thrills us with a vertical leap – and another, before disappearing into the wide blue yonder.
Our time away from the ocean also rewards, including Bolo's half-day Southern Cross Cultural Walk. He repeatedly sees things I would surely have missed. Circling black cockatoos and green algae in salty pools, darting with mudskippers, lead him to a freshwater stream, for example.
Bolo also spots little berries that prove tartly tasty and blisters of water under melaleuca trees' papery bark. He demonstrates how to pierce them with a stick and rub the resulting water into some curly foliage to produce an antiseptic lather. Later, at a seaside camp where just-caught fish and crabs are cooked over a fire for our lunch, he shows us traditional crafts. The most striking is riji: big, pearlescent oyster shells engraved with linear designs that are highlighted with ochre.
Each day enthrals, even when drawing to a close. Rosanna times these tours to coincide with full moons, so a storybook orb rises opposite the setting sun's orange blaze. One night, the moon is palest gold, casting a shimmering shawl across Cygnet Bay. On another, it's an astonishing, moody red. We wake early to witness the reverse: sun rising over water, moon sinking in the west, as beautiful shades of blue return to this epic wilderness.
DETAILS
WOMEN ONLY Exclusive Kimberley Cultural Immersion Tour operates monthly from June to August. Prices start at A$5290 ($5686) for a twin share.
australiangeographictravel.com.
Rosanna Angus' half-day Oolin Sunday Island tour operates Monday, Wednesday and Friday from A$350 ($376)
sundayislandtours.com.au
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