2024-10-16 16:02:00
It’s raining heavily on the hut with the domed wooden roof. There is almost no more room inside than for a mattress with a kangaroo skin on top. Thanks to the pad, the hot water bottle and the long underwear, he is cozy and warm, even if the thermometer outside reads just ten degrees Celsius. In the distance, the powerful ocean waves of the Tasman Sea crash onto the granite boulder-dotted beach.
The song of robins and rose-breasted flycatchers is silenced. The singers hide under the leaves of the eucalyptus trees to avoid the rain of water. The possum, which was still hanging around the camp fire in the early evening, also crawled into its den. Will it continue to rain tomorrow and the day after? Will our little group of hikers sink into the brown mud of the Tasmanian rainforest, will the long leaves of the ancient grass trees grasp us like wet tentacles, and will the bristly silver trees rain droplets? Will we have to trudge many kilometers across the coastal sand with a backpack on our shoulders, soaked to the bone, to the lighthouse, our destination?
Keeping the culture alive
Things are different. “The ancestors are with you,” camp director Mel says the next morning, pointing to the clear, blue sky. The sun shines through the leaves of the fig trees and makes the light yellow flowers of the acacias shine like little golden cones. A kookaburra bird emits its loud cackle as if laughing after the rain. A campfire flickers in front of Krakani Lumi Camp’s outdoor lounge area and sends up a column of smoke. The toast for breakfast is already there, along with the scrambled eggs and coffee. A European-style start to the morning, different from lunch and dinner. Kangaroo burgers, wallaby goulash and possums are served, while oysters are served with great regularity as a starter.
Uncle Hank is coming soon, we’re told. The open-hearted man in his 50s in a woolen cardigan is part of the Palawa indigenous community, doing everything in its power to keep Tasmania’s 65,000-year-old Aboriginal culture alive. It’s not easy. With the beginning of British colonization at the beginning of the 19th century, the indigenous population lost all rights. People have been killed, displaced, women and girls have been abducted, and many have died from imported diseases. It is estimated that there were once 5,000 to 10,000 Tasmanians living on the island, in 1830 there were only around 300. Those who today call themselves Aboriginal have not only indigenous, but also European ancestors in their family tree. The Tasmanian language became extinct with its last speaker, Fanny Cochrane Smith, dying in 1905. Descendants use a newly constructed language, Palawa Kani.
Uncle Hank Horton also speaks Palawa Kani. He is an icon for the local Aboriginal community. His parents were one of the few families who still lived indigenous traditions. “My mother was Aboriginal, my father was white. He was killed by his own people because of his native wife. He remained true to the family and encouraged us children to be proud of our culture. “And so Uncle Hank learned to dive for abalone, to weave sedge baskets, to make ceremonial sticks from various woods, and to hunt and smoke shearwaters. He didn’t know the boomerang. In Tasmania, a heavy club called a “waddy” it was instead used as a hunting tool and weapon, as a throwing stick is useless in the dense undergrowth of the Tasmanian rainforest. At school, Hank learned that all Aboriginal people were extinct. This still outrages him today an Aboriginal. It’s not the color of our skin that defines us, it’s the culture we feel connected to.”
The idea for the Wukalina Walk was born out of a desire to keep their culture alive. It chronicles the thousands of years of existence of Tasmanians and shows the magnificent nature that was their home. Guests spend four days and three nights traveling with Aboriginal guides in the north-east of the island. The 35 kilometer long route leads from Mount William in the national park of the same name to Eddystone Point with a historic lighthouse. First we take a forest path up to 216 meter high Mount William, which the Aboriginal people call Wukalina. Indigenous guide Nathan Pitchford shows ants that can jump up to ten centimeters in the air, mushrooms with hallucinogenic effects and crawls into the undergrowth because he suspects a Tasmanian devil is there. The first two nights you will sleep in the Krakani Lumi Camp, the third night you will sleep in the comfortable outbuildings of the Eddystone Point lighthouse, which the Aboriginal people call Larapuna.
Das Krakani Lumi CampJutta LemckeHikers need to have a bit of a sense of adventure. The baggage is carried in your backpack. The huts for the first two nights are tiny, have no electricity and cannot be heated. But the structure of the camp and its managers quickly make us forget the aridity. Kangaroo skins are distributed against the cold, myrtle tea is prepared and chips made from salt leaves are served as a snack. In the evening you hear Uncle Hank’s old stories and are invited to a healing ceremony. Nathan lights pepper bushes, in whose smoke everyone becomes dark figures. “This place has already seen much suffering,” were his thoughtfully whispered words, “but the power of creation is infinite, so that all may convey their pain to the earth.”
The second day of the Wukalina walk is pleasant. We go to the beach, which stretches for kilometers in perfect shape, white as snow. Kangaroos, wombats and black swans met here early in the morning. Their tracks decorate the sand with delicate patterns. But the show becomes even more beautiful. We go to a “living site”, a sacred place of the Aboriginal people, which thousands of years ago they used for ceremonies and clan meetings. The mystical place in the dunes is framed by a carpet of glittering shells that no one can touch.
A show that you can only take home with you in your heart, because photography is also prohibited. This would take away the soul of the place, explains Nathan. The Palawa also don’t want the place to be found by outsiders. And here, in this quiet place with the sound of the waves as music, he invites you once again to a healing ritual with high-pitched chants and the rhythmic clicking of ritual wooden sticks.
After another night at Krakani Lumi Camp, set off on a 15-kilometer hike along the beach to Eddystone Point. The sight of the mysterious Tasman Sea, sparkling in all shades of turquoise and blue, with its white, foamy wave caps, makes you forget about fatigue. As a reward, a romantic and very comfortable accommodation awaits you in the afternoon, right next to a pink granite lighthouse. The property is also managed by the Palawa people. They obtained a 40-year lease on the headland because the lighthouse had been built on one of their sacred sites. Here you are at the northern end of the “Bay of Fires”, famous for its scenic beauty. “Bay of Fire” – a British sailor gave it this name because he saw countless Aboriginal fires burning on the beach as he passed it in 1773.
Under the lighthouse it’s time to say goodbye to Nathan and Uncle Hank. They are happy with the enthusiasm with which their hiking guests thank them for the last four days. For them, the Wukalina Walk is much more than a tourist offer. It gives them work, hope and identity. The fact that they do a good job is demonstrated by a series of awards for an exceptional tourism offer. Recently the American magazine “Time” also became aware of the Wukalina Walk and included it in the list of the “World’s Greatest Places”.
Information: From Germany you fly with a stopover in Melbourne or Sydney. From there take a domestic flight to Launceston in Tasmania. Guests will be picked up from their hotel and then driven to the starting point of the three-hour Mount William hike. The excursion is offered from September to April. Four days, including meals and transfers from Launceston, cost from €1,975. Further details at www.wukalinawalk.com.au.
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