Blue Mountains Walkabout Tour 

Interview with Evan Yanna Muru 

‘Quai da ngalaringi nangami’ – Welcome to our Dreamtime

I am a non-Indigenous ally from Wurundjeri Country, and I’ve currently been wandering through Dharug land. I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians upon the land in which I’m writing on, the land of the Dharag people. I pay my respects to the Traditional Owners, their ancestors and Elders – past, present, and emerging. I pay my respects to mother earth, I witness her, I listen to her, the sacred trees, animals and the spiritual waters.

This week, I had the pleasure of experiencing a walkabout tour and being guided by Dharag man, Evan Yanna Muru. The tour began at Faulconbridge station, as Evan encourages his visitors to take public transport on the day. We bushwalked through the rainforest, visited a sacred site and listened to dreamtime stories and wisdom from Evan passed down from the Dharug people. We made ochre, learnt traditional Aboriginal symbols, visited a waterfall in Sassafras Gully, and had time to sit and connect to the land which we were on. At the end of the tour, we were gifted with a document to take home with us of Evan’s teachings, to further learn more about culture and Aboriginal traditions of healing. Our only rules of the day were to feel, to walk lightly, to touch all the living things, to connect, to breathe, to feel the cool air, to feel the sun, to take your shoes off and ground into the earth whenever possible. It was a truly culturally immersive and spiritual day. I hope that you get to experience this when you are next in the Blue Mountains (Dharug Country). 

Evan is an Aboriginal man, born on Dharug land. He is the Aboriginal Site Officer and member of the Dharug Custodian Aboriginal Clan. Evan is a fully accredited wilderness guide, and owns, operates and guides the Blue Mountains Walkabout. Through his life experience, he is able to share with visitors, a local and intimate understanding of the land and its culture, sacred sites, dreamtime stories of his land, and his spiritual connection to Earth Mother.  

I had the honour to yarn with Evan and learn more about his business, how he started it, the passion behind it and what it means to be an Aboriginal owned business. You can find the full video of the interview here. 

Amy: Tell me a little bit about yourself:

Evan: I’m an Aboriginal man. Obviously, a man but if you leave the Aboriginal part out of it, it’s not as obvious because a lot of our people have lighter skin now. But you know, being a culture primarily based on spirit, that’s what we lean on in our culture and that is the most important part of it. I was born and bred in this area of the Blue Mountains, and my aboriginal bloodline comes from my father and before from his grandmother. He was actually born in Darug land. According to dad, she travelled from the in Ngarigoin the Snowy Mountains – so I got those connections to Darag and to Ngarigo. And that’s about me, born and bred here. I just grew up with my dad as a park ranger here, and he shared with me a lot of sacred sites, and this is where I got a lot of my passion for the culture, from visiting the sites. I’ll spend the rest of my life doing that – because unless we record the sites, they have the potential of being lost forever and that knowledge can be lost forever too. The Spirit doctors carved and painted the culture in caves and put stone arrangements to preserve that knowledge for the future. And I think now more than ever, modern people really need to learn that knowledge, as deeply as they can and start applying themselves for for reconciliation. That’s why I started this walkabout, to teach this knowledge.

“We were designed to be earthed.” – Evan

Amy: Would you like to tell me anymore about your business, how you began it, and the passion behind it?

Evan: It was an evolution from my life’s learnings of all these things, and when I started teaching it, I decided I was going to practise what I taught, and that gave me a much deeper understanding of culture by doing all these things that ancestors did on a daily basis but also it gave me an extraordinary health and healing, which is one of the very important aspects of today’s learning. I give everyone a sheet to take home and that outlines all the most important health and healing protocols that people can actually start practising and reap the rewards in their modern day lives. Don’t have to suffer, don’t have to have all those horrible chronic diseases. If you got them, it is possible to heal from them, with some ancient know how, and a bit of hard work to begin with to make those changes. But the rewards are too good to miss out on in my opinion.

Amy: What is the difference between an Aboriginal tour and a western tour in your perspective?

Evan: An Aboriginal tour will always prioritise the spirit over the physical, and that’s the main difference. The modern western tour will talk a lot more about, you know, tangible items. The Aboriginal experience endeavours to give you more ways to connect with the dreaming and start to experience what that kind of way life is about, which is, a very peaceful, very contented, very healthy and a very creative way of life. 

Amy: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the Our Songlines community? 

Evan: Keep up the good work is what I would say. In this day and age, our great earth mother needs all hands on deck, to get her spiritual message across and when we effectively do that, all this needless suffering of mind, body and spirit, will slowly but surely disappear. I’m all for getting the word out there in all sorts of forms. I think it’s all about everyone just doing their little bit, and really that’s all it’s going to take, everyone doing their little bit.

Amy: How can others book a tour when they’re in the Blue Mountains?

Evan: It’s very simple to do the Aboriginal Blue Mountains walkabout. Just remember the name, www.bluemountainswalkabout.com and you’ll find my number, email, or you can book online.

Then It’s just a matter of rocking up on the day, with your bushwalking gear and your water and a little bit of lunch, and enjoying the process of experiencing the culture from the ancestors, from some of their sacred places, and through dreaming stories that have been passed on, and through the various rituals that I can talk people through that allow you to connect on a deeper level to the dreaming which is what the culture is all about.

Didgerigore – Thank You

Our tour group April 2021 (Elaine, Amy, Evan, Will, Raman)

BOOK A TOUR:

You can book a tour with Evan and Blue Mountains Walkabout here.
Find Blue Mountains Walkabout on Facebook here.
You can contact Evan here via phone: 0408 443 822 or email: walkaboutguide@yahoo.com

Images credits: taken by Amy and Elaine on April 2021

DHARAG COUNTRY:

(Note: Dharag can also be written as Darug).

The Dharug clans are spread out over the entire Cumberland (from Inner West Sydney to the Blue Mountains). The region of the Blue Mountains is Dharug land. The Dharug mob have strong ties to the Hawkesbury River which runs as a natural border between the Dharug people and neighbouring nations. 

Language Translations:

Quai da ngalaringi nangami – Welcome to our dreamtime

Didgerigore – Thank you 

Yanna nyinnunggai nangami muru – Walk your spirit pathway 

Darug – Yam Eaters 

Bijiwang – Water Dragon