M&G embarks on RAP adventure

M&G fearlessly hoping onto the Mari Nawi.
Image courtesy of Andrew Brettell.

A two hour cruise including a course on living on only natural resources might sound like a pilot for a cross-over Survivor/Gilligan’s Island television show. It was instead how M&G NSW staff began their Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) adventure. 

Bravery and faith were required but more of the kind needed to face the unpredictable weather havoc of our la nina summer. With water, water everywhere, thanks to last Thursday’s extreme downpour, our fate was in the hands of the experienced Aboriginal mariners of the Tribal Warrior Association. 

Tribal Warrior is the not-for-profit, Redfern-based organization run by Aboriginal Elders. Since starting up in 1998, it has trained more than 700 Aboriginal mariners, many of them from remote and extremely disadvantaged backgrounds. 

The weather meant some last-minute changes to our program. Walking through the Royal Botanic Gardens and its Cadi Jam Ora: First Encounters interpretive display to our docking point was no longer on the agenda. The mob at Tribal Warrior however, held firm that the cruise would go ahead. Sure enough, by the time we disembarked at Clark Island, the sun had come out to welcome us.

Les Daniels gave us the island tour which is easy as it is less than a hectare in size. The fascinating part was in the detail, the commonplace features of the landscape that revealed so much about truly living from the land. We saw the natural rockpools and how they had been adapted as fishtraps: high tide comes in bringing the abundance of the harbor with it and then drains to leave a fish platter. We also inspected the natural aquafier on the island and learnt of the multiple uses of different native plant species found even on this small patch. 

Terry Olsen and M&G demonstrating the emu stance.
Image courtesy of Lorna Munro. 

Terry Olsen then demonstrated some of the many Aboriginal dances of eastern Australia before getting the team up to learn the emu dance. It was great fun and no one was hurt, not even a peck.

Back on board the Mari Nawi, Corey Grech who established bush foods eatery Purple Goanna in Redfern with sister Suzanne, was busy barbecuing up some tasty morsels of kangaroo and seafood with salad for our trip back. Corey is branching out with Kool Purple Kookas, teaching young people to cook healthy bush tucker in a fun way. There were many interesting conversations on the return trip including with Lorna Munro who earlier in the day had given us a presentation on the Aboriginal connections to the Woolloomooloo area and beyond. As living culture, some of these connections are still practiced today but probably invisible to the non-Aboriginal population. The natural landscape, the escarpments and the bays, also reveal land use patterns, including men’s business and women’s business, places where tools were ground and others where ceremonies took place. As an educator, Aboriginal history and politics are natural to Lorna whose bloodlines on both sides mean that such conversations were an everyday occurrence for her growing up. 

 M&G's Steve Miller, Corey Grech and Terry Olsen on the harbour.
Image courtesy of Andrew Brettell. 

The M&G NSW team were enthusiastic about this introduction to Aboriginal culture here in the centre of Sydney. Sydney Harbour after all is one of the most significant outdoor galleries in the world for rock art. As I’ve seen before, it helps to understand the layers and interactions of widely different cultures that have contributed to an area’s development. It adds meaning to a sense of place as something more than where you work or live.
Information on how to develop a RAP can be found on the Reconciliation Australia website.