Australia holidays: How to have an authentic Indigenous experience in Cairns

By Steve Madgwick

NZ Herald·

22 Jul, 2023 07:00 PM5 mins to read

Couple listening to an indigenous guide as part of a Mandingalbay Ancient Indigenous Tour. Photo / Tourism and Events Queensland

When was the last time you went to the supermarket and one wrong choice could kill you? Knowledge is power in the bountiful terrain of Tropical North Queensland, writes Steve Madgwick.

With the benefit of primordial local knowledge, the jungle surrounding Cairns makes your neighbourhood supermarket’s allegedly fresh fruit-and-veg section look like an eerie agricultural mausoleum. To the uninitiated, however, the flirting fruits and seductive seeds of tropical North Queensland can be bullets in the chamber of a deadly poisonous game of rainforest roulette.

“We have fruits, nuts and yams that can actually kill you if you don’t leach out toxins or use them in the proper way,” says Mandingalbay Yidinji elder Victor Bulmer. “You’ve got to learn all these plants and all this stuff as you’re growing up. You get tested by the Old People when get older [through sacred initiation ceremonies].”

Mandingalbay Yidinji elder Victor Bulmer. Photo / Steve Madgwick

The Mandingalbay (mun-din-gul-pie) Yidinji are traditional owners of densely forested “country” in the Wet Tropics World Heritage area on the cusp of the Great Barrier Reef, headquartered on the headland across Trinity Inlet from Cairns. The Mandingalbay are a “mob” (clan) of the Yidinji nation, whose collective ancestorial lands spread far and wide around the tourist hub.

Indigenous Ranger Victor guides the “Hands on Country Eco Tour”, a masterclass on the edible and medicinal plants used by countless generations of his forebears that ensured “there was never a day when you would miss out on a feed”. The forest here teems with solutions to cravings and ailments. Feeling listless? Simply pop a pandanus nut into your mouth; the Mandingalbay equivalent of a small cup of coffee.

On arrival, a Welcome to Country is performed in language, along with a traditional Smoking Ceremony, which has an incidental windfall. “Walk around the fire, get smoke on you,” says Victor. “It’s spiritual but hopefully there’s enough smoke to take away the mozzies, too.”

A Welcome to Country is performed in language, along with a traditional Smoking Ceremony. Photo / Tourism and Events Queensland

The esoteric knowledge at the heart of Mandingalbay’s virtual supermarket and pharmacy has been fostered by a culture with an inseparable spiritual bond with the land and sea, an unbroken millennia-long legacy that came under grave threat as Australia was colonised.

According to Victor, Mandingalbay Yidinji culture survived “against all odds” thanks to Jabulum Mandingalpai, “the boss of the nation who never moved from his sacred area … and fought guerilla warfare to stay”.

Photos show the “lead warrior” – born in the 1850s – wearing head feathers, a mussel shell on his forehead, a bone through his nose and his first son’s umbilical cord around his neck. Body coverage is sparse enough that “we would get in trouble for indecent exposure for wearing it these days”, jokes Victor.

He shares as much lore as outsiders are allowed to know, explaining how the ancient totems – including the scorpion, cockatoo and two species of turtle – connect the people to the land and sea through their “songline”. “Our landmarks represent our people and our landscape depicts what happened to our country,” says Victor.

Mandingalbay Ancient Indigenous Tour shares as much lore as outsiders are allowed to know. Photo / Tourism and Events Queensland

On the 10-minute boat ride across from Cairns, fellow Indigenous Ranger Vincent Mundraby interprets the landscape, pointing out Yulu [giant stingray] and the snout, eyes, front legs and tail of Crocodile Mountain. “Around the snout is sacred men’s [business] area,” says Vincent. “The ladies’ business is often up in the mountains, usually where the creeks are running.”

Take the 10-minute boat ride across from Cairns with Mandingalbay Ancient Indigenous Tour. Photo / Tourism and Events Queensland

The boat docks at a jetty over tidal mud flats at Hills Creek, near where saltwater and freshwater merge. The waterways have always been like a self-replenishing chilly bin of protein for the Mandingalbay Yidinji. They know when shellfish, crab, fish roe and sea urchin are most plentiful because the wattle – used as an “indicator tree” – is flowering.

The waterways have always been like a self-replenishing chilly bin of protein for the Mandingalbay Yidinji. Photo / Tourism and Events Queensland

For a decade the community has worked with scientists to revive these farming-affected wetlands. Reportedly, scrub fowls are returning in numbers, helped by the fact that the birds weren’t “getting easy chippies off the tourists during Covid,” says Vincent.

The metaphorical ancient supermarket doors slide open in earnest at Mayi Bugan Rainforest Trail, which loops from the ranger station in the “belly of the beast [crocodile]”. Sweet snacks hide in plain sight in undergrowth on either side of the interpretative track.

The jilara tree’s small black fruit is a mango-like, sweet-and-sour roller coaster. The orange flesh of native tamarind seed is like a minuscule barley sugar. Pineapple ginger and beach almond (in the wet season) are also worthy treats.

Mountain yams take care of fibre and potassium needs, perhaps seasoned with salt from the water and the bounty of the pepper tree. “Lemony” native olives are a fine side-dish. A traditional bush bread can be whipped up by soaking mayi badil nuts to remove toxins, and baking the dough in the fire, wrapped in dukal dukal leaves – the rainforest equivalent of aluminium foil.

Mandingalbay Ancient Indigenous Tour guide, Vincent Mundraby. Photo / Steve Madgwick

The nectar-laden flowers of the golden bouquet tree, dipped in fresh water – itself often sourced near the red beech indicator tree – provide a sweet, quenching cordial to wash it all down.

There are rainforest remedies aplenty in the Mandingalbay medicine chest, too. Leaves and fruits of the porritjal tree (or “cocky apple”, because cockatoos feast on its fruit) are used to treat toothaches and help catch fish in rockpools (literally stunning them). On a need-to-know basis, there are plants that can be used for everything from contraception to ringworm treatment.

Finally, the leaves of the “soapy soapy” tree, vigorously rubbed together with water into a cleansing lather, brings the rainforest supermarket shop to a close for another day. A day not too unlike thousands before it.