How to explore Queensland in, on and beside the water – with Indigenous guides

Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Queensland feel a strong connection to the water. They relate to it in a holistic way, and it is a fundamental part of their identity. By taking an immersive, water-based tour led by an Indigenous guide, you’ll gain a greater understanding of these shared living cultures while developing a meaningful connection to the water that surrounds – and flows through – the state.

Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel, Great Barrier Reef, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Get swimming with Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel

In Queensland’s tropical north, Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel takes visitors from Cairns/Gimuy to the spectacular World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef. As you cruise to your destination on a catamaran, Indigenous cultural guides share the eye-opening Great Barrier Reef Creation story, deepening your cultural understating of this diverse ecosystem – one of the most ecologically important marine environments on the planet.

When you drop anchor at Moore Reef, 47 kilometres offshore, there’s the chance to flipper among some of the 1,625 species of fish that call the Coral Sea home. Drifting between bomboras and coral fans you’ll spot cardinal fish, moray eels, clownfish and turtles – back on board, your guides will regale you with tales about the importance of these species to Indigenous cultures.

Down Under Tours - Daintree Dreaming, Port Douglas, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Explore mangroves with Down Under Tours

Think of fishing and chances are you’ll picture a rod, line and hook. But spend some time with a Traditional Custodian and soon you’ll be seeing pronged spears gliding through the air to land with a crack in the carapace of a mud crab. Kuku Yalanji brothers Linc and Brandon Walker lead expeditions via Down Under Tours, and together you’ll navigate the coast around the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation.

Linc and Brandon will show you how to forage for pipis and crabs in the mangroves of Cooya Beach, discovering traditional hunting techniques while you explore – did you know toxins in some native plants can be used to stun fish in the water? If you’re lucky enough to spear something, the brothers will cook it up the traditional way, with the taste of sweet, pale meat lingering in your memory long after worries of getting your toes nipped have disappeared.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have harvested marine life for tens of thousands of years. The act is as cultural as it is sustaining, often guided by rules contained in Dreaming stories: when to fish, who can fish, what can be taken and how much can be harvested.

Saltwater Eco Tours, Sunshine Coast, Queensland © Saltwater Eco Tours

Cruise the Sunshine Coast with Saltwater Eco Tours

Seafood also plays a starring role on experiences hosted by Saltwater Eco Tours on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Join the Traditional Owner-led Saltwater Cultural Cruise or Bushtucker Cruise as you learn how the local Gubbi Gubbi/Kabi Kabi people have lived in harmony with these waterways for millennia. And then, as the sun sets, feast on skewered prawns served with a lemon myrtle and native chilli aioli, Mooloolaba oysters mornay made with macadamia cheese, as well as slow-cooked kangaroo served on tacos with a coleslaw and bush tomato relish from a local Indigenous business, My Dilly Bag.

Saltwater’s Indigenous co-owner Simon Thornalley is a former commercial diver, and he spent his childhood sailing around Tropical North Queensland with his family, including the Torres Strait, where his maternal grandmother is a respected Kaurareg Elder and his great-great-great grandfather owned a fleet of pearl-lugging boats. Today, your chariot is the beautifully restored, historic Spray of the Coral Coast, a 58-foot ketch (two-masted sailing boat).

Mandingalbay Authentic Indigenous Tours, Cairns, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Join Mandingalbay Indigenous Sea Rangers on an inlet cruise

Mandingalbay Authentic Indigenous Tours’ Djunbunji Land and Sea Rangers navigate boats along Trinity Inlet, a serene tropical waterway fringed by mangroves that, in recent years, was in environmental decline due to overworked land and the introduction of invasive species. On the Hands On Country Eco Tour departing from Cairns/Gimuy, you’ll explore Grey Peaks National Park and East Trinity Reserve – a vibrant, tidal wetland where kingfishers dive, egrets patrol and powerful stories unfold – to learn how the rangers have collaborated with scientists to not only catalogue this fragile ecosystem, but also bring it back to life.

As a result of the rangers’ protection efforts, the region is once again thriving, and your eagle-eyed guide will point out the birds, fish and saltwater crocs that you’d likely cruise right past without a Traditional Owner at your side. They know every nook and nuance of this special area, where the rainforest meets the sea, and saltwater meets fresh.

You’ll also have the chance to jump ashore to discover the healthful properties of the plants that call this part of Queensland home. Like the cocky apple, with anaesthetic properties appreciated by teething babies. And the red beech tree, which (when ingested) will get your heart started just as fast as a cup of coffee. You’ll also witness a pile of long-ago discarded shells, commonly known as a midden. This is one of the world’s earliest forms of conservation – shells left behind by Aboriginal ancestors showed future visitors what type of produce had recently been consumed, and what should be avoided to keep the local ecosystem in balance.

Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia - Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre, Mossman, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Feel the force of nature at Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre

The World Heritage-listed Wet Tropics of Queensland stretches for 450 kilometres along Australia’s northeast coast. It’s a place where rivers charge through gorges, waterfalls drop from vertiginous escarpments, and thousands of plant and animal species – many of them endemic – thrive in one of the country’s oldest wilderness areas. Home to the Daintree Rainforest, its global significance is undeniable, and this ecosystem holds a particularly important place in Aboriginal cultures and traditions, and has done for millennia.

Your guide on a tour at the Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre will gently remind you that you’re exploring the world’s oldest rainforest with an Aboriginal member of the oldest continuously living cultures on the planet. Then they’ll regale you with Indigenous Dreaming stories that reveal just how deeply significant the Daintree is to Kuku Yalanji culture. Along your route you’ll be cooled by waterfalls and spot hidden waterholes, where Ulysses butterflies like to show off their iridescent blue wings. This is also a chance to taste bush tucker, including the luminous lime-green ants clinging to leaves of a bush. Most people wouldn’t even notice them, but your guide might encourage you to give them a lick – they taste sour and lemony.