Aboriginal Cultural Tours of Innes National Park with Ron Kandelaars in the Yorke Peninsula region of South Australia
Fly over Innes National Park and you can see why it's one of the most visited Parks in South Australia. Head out by boat from Marion Bay and the epic sweep of the Innes coastline stretches before you.
Head further south and you encounter the islands that feature so prominently from the public lookouts scattered along the park known as the ‘the tip of the toe’.
When Matthew Flinders charted the coastline in 1802 he the giant leg-shaped landmass that extends into the Southern Ocean ‘Yorke Peninsula’ after his minister of Marine back in England.
But long before the Investigator cruised these waters this was Narrunga land and one of its most prominent landmarks had a very different name.
“It's Murrajew and Murrajew - he’s a bat,” explained our guide, Quenten Agius. “That’s his nose and his ears. We've got a dreaming story connected to him.”
Today, it's known as Rhino's Head but the original inhabitants of what Quenten calls Adjahdura Land saw the horn-like nose of the bat - an ancestral being who'd been locked in a life and death struggle with another key figure in the story of this country.
“There's him and the Moorawatty - the sleepy lizard and how they had a fight here. It's about one person coming into someone's country without permission.”
The Dreaming stories told by Quenten and passed onto his nephew Chris and fellow Narrunga man, Conrad Newchurch, have been handed down over generations. They established and explained the customs of the various clans who wandered up and down what we now call Yorke Peninsula long before salt and gypsum mines were established near the port of Stenhouse Bay.
They also help explain the look of the country - where, on one side of Innes National Park the beaches are gleaming white - while at the other end white fellas came up with their own name, Brown's Beach, to explain the discolouration of the sand.
“As you come down the coast you notice all the sand hills are white. But here they're brown. This is where the fight took place… it’s blood stained.”
Today it's a well-known salmon-fishing beach. In the Narrunga Dreaming it's the site of another colossal battle between two Ancestral beings. Narna was the protector of the Illawarra people or little people who inhabited this country.
When you listen to Quenten you realise the Narrunga people had their own "land of the giants" and "Lilliputians" long before Jonathon Swift ever put pen to paper. The signs of their presence, like Wedge Island are obvious from the vantage points at Innes National Park.
“The big peak that you see is the woman. And the two small islands that you see out from the big island's belly - that’s the two knees sticking out of the water. The rest of the body is all submerged and you can just see a bit of her head.”
You can tag-along in your own vehicle on one of Quenten's Aboriginal Cultural Tours and he’ll take you to a spot you'd never find without him. It combines two elements that are pivotal to the lives of the Narrunga people - an ancestral story and water.
“That’s one of the Little People’s waterholes. This is where they would wash themselves. And they'd share it with the animals.”
It's not until you join one of Quenten's tours that you realise just how rich this place is in terms of aboriginal history. Sure there's plenty of white fella history here with the wreck of the Ethel and the Ferret down on Ethel Wreck Beach and out in the distance, Althorpe Island and it's amazing lighthouse. But literally just a few metres from here is a limestone plateau so pivotal to the story of those who have had a connection to this country for thousands of years.
The shells dotted along the spectacular plateau are proof of seafood feasts complete with million dollar views.
Aboriginal Cultural Tours offer a range of different one-day and camping packages. For details contact Quenten on 0429 367 121 or the Wayward Bus Touring Company.
Innes National Park Aboriginal Cultural Tours
Yorke Peninsula
Contact Quenten Agius on 0429 367 121 or Wayward Bus Touring Company on 1300 653 510
