Step into Nature's Pharmacy on an Aboriginal Tour

by Natasha Dragun

Being amid nature makes you feel good – we’ve known it for centuries, and today science proves it. But for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, it heals in more ways in one, with many native Australian plants packed with medicinal qualities that will cure what ails you.

Royal Botanic Garden Melbourne, Victoria © Tourism Australia

There’s no denying the convenience of visiting a local pharmacy to pick up cough syrup, anti-inflammatories, toothpaste or soap. But for millennia, Aboriginal communities have used natural health and medicinal alternatives, found in the Australian bush.

“All this, everything around us, has a purpose,” says Wiradjuri man Mark Saddler on his Bundyi Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge tours around Wagga Wagga, in the Riverina region of New South Wales. “If you know where to look, you’ll discover that the bush is like nature’s pharmacy.”

Indeed, you don’t have to look far to find wild old man saltbush – it’s tasty when consumed raw or cooked, and it can also be crushed and applied as a salve to cuts and stings. Along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River, Mark plucks river mint, which, when infused in boiling water, provides relief for coughs and colds.

Bundyi Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales © Tourism Australia

Kuku Yalanji guides at the Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre are well versed in plants that can heal you – and help save your life. The heart-leafed stinging bush gympie-gympie has fine hairs that can sting the skin for months; the root juice from the same plant relieves it. This, the Wet Tropics of Queensland, is one of the most biodiverse pockets of Australia, home to thousands of plants that have endless medicinal properties. Certain clays can be eaten to strengthen bones, pandanus fruit sap may relieve cuts and bites, and cheese fruit can soothe an upset stomach.

Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre, Mossman, Queensland © Tourism Australia

In Western Australia’s Kimberley region, Kingfisher Tours’ head guide Bec Sampi knows the Purnululu countryside intimately. On her tours you get the chance to sample bush medicines, then can take some home in the form of soap – Bec hand-makes bars under the label Garingbaar Native Bush Botanicals, each packed with skin-nourishing coconut oil and native lavender.

The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne grow a wealth of native plants, and both offer Aboriginal-guided tours that decode how they might be used for healing purposes. Tea tree as an antiseptic; kangaroo apple in a poultice for joint pain; sticky hop-bush leaves to relieve toothaches and stings; calcium-rich lemon myrtle to strengthen bones; hop goodenia to stave off diabetes and help you sleep. Tried and tested for 65,000 years, it’s knowledge that may well come in useful one day.