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A fresh look at Yorke Peninsula in South Australia

BRAD Crouch takes a fresh look at a favourite place.

8 December 2008 - Each year thousands flock to Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. And each year thousands fail to see the giant kangaroo dominating the skyline; or recognise a jail with a grim history; or spot a fish trap that is blindingly obvious from another angle.

To see such things you need to see through another's eyes. You have to walk in the footsteps of the ancestors of locals, footsteps that have trodden the land for thousands of years.

Quenten Agius is one such local. An Adjahdura man, he now runs Aboriginal Cultural Tours -- Adjahdura Lands.

Climbing aboard his bus in Port Wakefield, we head for a familiar turn-off to a ridge I've seen dozens of times on family holidays.

Mr Agius gives a welcome country greeting in his traditional language and explains how four different tribal groups lived on the peninsula.

He then explains the Dreaming story of the ridge line, of the fight between a snake and a lizard, and how the rise is a kangaroo lying down.

When you see it through his eyes, you can clearly see the roo.

You can follow the Dreaming story formations and the songlines south to Innes National Park and farther afield.

Mr Agius's tours range from half-day to five-day camps. Stories are told around campfires and on beach and bush hikes. He acknowledges some of the culture is gone, but is thankful his mother and aunt passed on their stories to him.

We pass an old stone building that I'd always thought was a farm ruin.

But he explained it was a prison, built to house criminals brought in to clear the land.

When Aborigines armed with spears objected to the clearing, they, too, were put in the prison and some were shot.

Mr Agius tells the story without bitterness, simply keen it's not forgotten.

Farther south, in Ardrossan, the ochre colours of the cliffs are explained in the Owl Dreaming story.

Just a little farther south, on a clifftop, the coastal views are spectacular. But look with his eyes and you see more. A line of rocks under the water has a break in it, leading to a submerged stone circle. He explains this was a fish trap, used to catch fish with nets on tidal flows.

A trip to Yorke Peninsula will never be the same again.

GETTING THERE: Aboriginal Cultural Tours rendezvous in Port Wakefield, an hour north of Adelaide.

www.adjahdura.com.au

Source: Perth Now

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