Aboriginal life offered as tour

Press, 5 March 1987, Page 25

Aboriginal life offered as tour

By

RICHARD PULLIN

NZPA-AAP Darwin A travel company and an Aboriginal community have joined to provide a new experience for tourists to the Northern Territory — a chance to meet Aboriginal people and join in traditional activities. The tour offers a twoday or three-day trip to Melville Island, about 70 kilometres north of Darwin, where visitors can fish, gather food and talk to the people who have lived there for thousands of years. Under an agreement between Australian Kakadu Tours (A.K.T.) and the Pularumpi Community Council, groups of 20 people will visit the island at a time from May this year.

A.K.T. manager, Darrell

Tufty, said eight Aboriginals would be employed as guides to lead visitors on day trips in small groups. Activities will include foraging for traditional foods, gathering and preparing bush medicines, and fishing. “The Europeans will break up into groups of five and take off with a couple of Aboriginal people,” Mr Tutty said. "They will either go fishing in boats, gather turtle eggs along the beach, collect oysters, or go into the mangroves for mud crabs.

“It gives them a chance to be with the Aboriginal people.”

Mr Tutty said the new tour grew out of requests from tourists for a chance to meet and talk to Aboriginals.

“The average European

Australian has no idea about Aboriginal people,” he said.

“Most of the time when they see Aboriginals, they see them out of a coach window or on a conducted tour.

“This will be a great opportunity to just sit down and talk.”

Overseas companies have shown interest in the tour and Mr Tutty will give full details later this year at international travel fairs in Germany and England. The tourist camp, complete with carpeted tents, will be located about 20km from the town of Pularumpi, which has a population of about 500 people.

About 40 Aboriginals will be involved in the tour project, working in rotation.

Mr Tutty said the community would benefit from a royalty payment per visitor, the employment of guides and any proceeds from the sale of bark paintings and other artefacts.

A.K.T. also had offered to train several young people in how to run a tour service.

After three years, the community would be offered an opportunity to buy a 50 per cent share in the business.

Tourism is not always the favoured income of Aboriginal communities because of the dislocation caused by a constant stream of European visitors.

But the Pularumpi Community Council president Cyril Rioli said the community was happy with the A.K.T. plan.