Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in Western Victoria is certainly one of Australia’s most vital heritage landscapes. Travel author Kerry van der Jagt discovers the importance of this unbelievable web site.
This weblog was delivered to you in partnership with Welcome to Country, a not-for-profit market for Australian Indigenous experiences.
Long earlier than the Egyptians diverted the Nile or the Romans constructed aqueducts, the Gunditjmara individuals of south-western Victoria created a complicated hydrological engineering system designed to lure, retailer and harvest kooyang (short-finned eel).
Dating again 6600 years, the flowery collection of modified water channels, weirs and ponds is taken into account one of many world’s oldest and most in depth aquaculture techniques.
“Farming eels and trading the excess with other nations enabled my people to develop a large, settled community,” says Braydon Saunders, an area information and Gunditjmara man who has been instrumental within the push to open Budj Bim to guests. “Our eel and fish traps have re-written the history books, proving that our mob were more than just hunter-gatherers leading a nomadic lifestyle.”
Today the stones are silent, but it surely takes little creativeness to conjure a scene of males working the eel traps, adjusting stonework according to the seasonal floods, whereas ladies wove elaborate fish nets and baskets.
In recognition of the extremely productive system, which offered an financial and social base for Gunditjmara society for six millennia, the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape was inscribed as a World Heritage web site in 2019, the primary Australian panorama to be included purely for its Indigenous cultural values.
Since inscription, a variety of work by the Gunditjmara group has gone into growing the First Nations owned-and-operated Budj Bim Cultural Landscape Tourism expertise. Opened in July 2022, guests can be part of quite a lot of excursions led by Gunditjmara guides taking within the eel traps and channels, stays of round stone dwellings and smoking timber, the place the eels had been ready for consumption or commerce.
The new cultural tourism expertise is positioned in and round Budj Bim National Park and Tae Rak (Lake Condah), past Victoria’s picturesque Great Ocean Road. “The infrastructure and raised boardwalks allow guests to get out amongst the fish trap systems, to stand over the top of them,” says Saunders. The web site additionally consists of the Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre, bush tucker café, retail house and show tank.
Visitors on a good timeframe can take pleasure in a two-hour guided cultural stroll of the Tae Rak aquaculture websites and wetlands, whereas these with a bit extra time can take the half-day Tungatt Mirring (stone nation) tour. The full-day Kooyang Yana tour consists of the Kurtonitj Indigenous Protected Area, Lake Gorrie drystone partitions and a guided stroll of the Tae Rak wetlands.
“Or you can just come and have a coffee or a cake, or a barramundi or smoked eel platter for lunch. Our chefs do a great job of creating a story with the food,” Saunders says. The Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre is open Wednesday to Sunday for excursions and meals.
Whichever tour you select, this new tourism enterprise will take the whole lot you thought you knew about Indigenous tradition and blow it out of the (eel-filled) water.
“Each time you come out you will learn a bit more, build on your experiences. Every visit will be different, as different things happen during different seasons. The menu at the café will also change, depending on what is seasonal,” he explains.
Gunditjmara nation is a hauntingly lovely place, created by fireplace and brimstone some 37,000 years in the past when the volcano Budj Bim (which means ‘high head’) erupted, leading to lava flows and the formation of lakes and waterways.
“Budj Bim had seen our people struggling to live a sustainable life. They had been living too much for themselves, and not enough for one another” says Saunders. “So he revealed himself and transformed the landscape by spewing blood (lava) and teeth (stones), forcing them to change their ways. It’s a story as old as time, about looking out for each other and caring for one another.”
The trapping system was as revolutionary because it was easy, utilizing the pure springs and lakes created by the eruption to direct the eels into holding ponds. “It was then up to my people to create channels through the basalt, through which the eels could follow. It was designed so that they could come in, but not come out.”
“If you were to ask how we would do that, it’s a very complicated process. Basically we used fire, because this stone is very porous, and the fire would collapse the stone. So our mob used fire to create channels.”
Remains of eel traps might be seen in different areas throughout Australia and everywhere in the world, however the distinctive attribute of Budj Bim is that they had been carved and crafted into the panorama, which means the traps and ponds might be used and re-used for hundreds of years.
“It was about not making a massive change to the landscape,” says Saunders. “But about making a change small enough that it worked in our favour but did not have a negative impact on the environment.”
Taking care of Country and sharing tales with others lies on the coronary heart of the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape Tourism. “My country and my home – I’m getting emotional thinking about it now – means everything to me,” says Saunders. “It’s been a real whirlwind over the last six weeks leading up to the opening, but the overpowering emotion is one of complete pride in what we’ve been able to achieve, whether 6600 years ago, or three years ago with World Heritage listing. A lot of pride.”
Keen to go to Budj Bim? Welcome to Country has all the data you want.
The author is a descendant of the Awabakal individuals of the mid-north coast of New South Wales.