Starry nights: Aboriginal tours that offer overnight immersion

Daytime visits to Australia’s most culturally significant sites inspire when you’re in the company of an Aboriginal guide, but multi-day trips can take your experience to the next level. Here are just some of the standout overnight adventures from Discover Aboriginal Experiences.

Wilpena Pound, SA

It’s sunset over the Ikara-Flinders Ranges, and the entire South Australian landscape is cast in a fuzzy peach blush. All around, tall stands of grass bristle like an old man’s beard and I can hear a couple of grazing wallabies soaking up the day’s last rays.

This is my constant backdrop at Wilpena Pound Resort, a remote and ravishing pocket of Adnyamathanha land, 430 kilometres north of Adelaide in the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park; I’m surrounded by 90,000 hectares of red peaks, gorges and valleys tinged with the silvery glow of eucalypts. There’s one road, few settlements and even fewer people. But what the destination does offer, in glorious abundance, is a landscape that humbles – geologically and historically.

On my hike with an Aboriginal guide to Akarroo Adnya (a sacred rock-art site), I’m treated to a glimpse of the region’s mind-bending striated rock formations, which create an enormous natural amphitheatre (the Pound) that provides a window through 800 million years of the Earth’s history.

It’s eye-opening to view the landscape and biodiversity from an Indigenous perspective. Even more special is getting to sleep here, in one of the Ikara Safari Tents at Wilpena Pound Resort. This accommodation is surprisingly plush for its remote setting, replete with queen bed, air-con, ensuite bathroom, a patio I never want to leave and a firepit. I’m a short walk from the main hub of resort cabins, pool and restaurant. But, at sunset, I feel so very far from anywhere else.

Ikara Safari Camp at Wilpena Pound Resort, Flinders Ranges National Park. Credit: South Australian Tourism Commission

Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures, WA

The world fades to insignificance when you’re in the company of Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures guide Darren ‘Capes’ Capewell, exploring the Shark Bay/Gutharraguda region of Western Australia.

A wildlife refuge, this pocket of the state is all powdery white coves and gin-clear waters that naturally attract dolphins, whale sharks and (during migration) the world’s largest population of humpback whales; over 10,000 of them. You won’t want your time with Capes to end – which is why he launched overnight Francois Peron Camping Tours.

Dinner is whatever you catch while out exploring, whether that’s fish or briny oysters. And you cook it up over a beach campfire while Capes treats you to haunting tunes on his didge. Then it’s the Milky Way’s time to shine – with no light pollution for kilometres, the only thing between you and a bedazzlement of stars is your swag, spread out on pindan soil.

“It’s important to do the overnight trip because it’s a slower pace and you aren’t rushing around,” Capes says. “It’s not what you see; it’s what you feel.”

Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures. Credit: Tourism Australia

Ngaran Ngaran Culture Awareness, NSW

As vast and open as Australia is, pockets of the country are virtually inaccessible, because their sacred status requires that they be visited only in the company of an Aboriginal guide. This not only offers travel exclusivity, but gives you an opportunity to enjoy an immersive journey into Indigenous history and cultures.

Welcome to Mount Dromedary/Gulaga in southern New South Wales, the backyard of my Yuin guide, Dwayne ‘Naja’ Bannon-Harrison. A Traditional Landowner and the founder of Ngaran Ngaran Culture Awareness, Dwayne welcomes me to Country via song and a smoking ceremony.

Spending two days at Yuin Retreat gives me time to grow my connection to the land as I learn about ancient customs through traditional yarning circles, and hike to spiritual Gulaga Mountain via escarpments that appear to cleave off the edge of the Earth.

The land is wilder here, the colours brighter, the air clearer. It’s like someone has taken the glasses off my nose and cleaned them for the first time. Even darkness doesn’t temper the natural drama. I’m kilometres from the nearest town and, in the absence of neon and streetlights, it’s all about Southern Hemisphere stargazing – even from bed in my safari tent. 

Mystery Bay, Eurobodalla National Park. Credit: Tourism Australia

Kakadu Cultural Tours, NT

From Arnhem Land to Kakadu, Katherine to Uluru, the Northern Territory is one of the world’s last remaining wilderness frontiers. Waterfalls tumble into cool swimming holes, rainforest clings to precipitous gorges, and wetlands heave under the weight of mangroves.

This is your backdrop when you check in for a 3-Day Kakadu and Arnhem Land Cultural Adventure with Kakadu Cultural Tours, which takes you deep into the wilderness to Hawk Dreaming Wilderness Lodge at Cannon Hill.

The sandstone cliffs that surround this pocket of the state are coloured with rock art dating back millennia. And I have exclusive access with my guide Joey Nganjmirra from Injalak Arts Centre.

“It’s mind-blowing to think there are more than 50,000 rock-art sites in the region, dating back 20,000 to 30,000 years old,” Joey says.

Visiting Injalak is a powerful experience. Here, everything is raw. It’s all about being in the moment, Joey tells me. As I wander back to camp, I’m thankful I have this experience on repeat for the next two days.

The Milky Way, Kakadu National Park. Credit: Tourism Australia

Ngurrangga Tours, WA

Millstream-Chichester National Park never fails to take your breath away. On the outskirts of Karratha in the wilds of Western Australia, the expanse is like an oasis in the middle of the desert, a place that unites vast red plains with spinifex grass, native palms and enormous termite mounds, not to mention natural spring-fed pools to swim in.

It’s a spiritual place, and one that becomes even more poignant when you visit with an Aboriginal guide from Ngurrangga Tours. The company’s 4WD Tag-a-long Overnight Tour is an eye-opening experience that reveals how the Warlu (Serpent) created Millstream, the traditional home of the Yindjibarndi people. It also reveals native bush tucker and medicines, some of which you’ll get to sample as you wander the vast and varied wilderness.

When darkness falls, a bedazzlement of stars light up the night sky. ‘Pinch me’ moments are in plentiful supply when you spend the evening camping here, learning the stories associated with the constellations and feeling humbled by nature – in the best possible way.

Ngurrangga Tours, Karratha. Credit: Tourism Australia