Experience a deep connection to ancient lands, Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, and traditions with Kooparoona niara Cultural Tours. Personally guided tours are available to culturally significant sites across Launceston and the kooparoona niara region.
OUR TOURS
Personally guided half-day tours are available to culturally significant sites across Launceston and the kooparoona niara region. Learn about traditions, taste native bush tucker and gain a deeper understanding of this rich culture as Greg brings the landscape to life through his stories and personal connection.
Proud Trawlwoolway man, Greg Murray grew up in the kooparoona niara region – a stone’s throw from the river and spent the summer afternoons of his youth in the Meander River, swimming and enjoying the freedom of childhood.
It’s no surprise that half a century later, Greg was the instigator of the cultural trail that begins below the bridge. Opened in 2015, it marks the traces of older, ancient pathways, those of the nine nations of Aboriginal people that lived on this part of the island.
After taking on a role with Colony 47, a change-making not-for-profit group working with young people in the community, Greg found himself on his old stomping ground once again. Spending an hour down at the river, he wondered how the infrastructure already present could entice visitors to linger there for longer. With a passion for bush tucker and bush medicine, it came to him that native plant beds along the river path, and a storyline to follow, might keep them engaged. What more natural place to tell the story of the seasonal journeys made by his ancestors, who made their homes in the mountains during summer and came down to the coastal regions for winter, passaging between the two on foot or in bark canoes, following the rivers between.
This was the inspiration for the Kooparoona niara Cultural Trail, its name meaning ‘mountains of the spirits’ in language, the Aboriginal term for the Great Western Tiers, which have long formed the cool, ancient blue backdrop to everyday life here.
After the trail officially opened, Greg opened up Kooparoona niara Tours and now dedicates his time to sharing stories of culture and country that he once heard as a boy. He is now able to retell them which has brought the unknown resonances of kooparaoona niara bubbling to the surface.
– Words by Fiona Stocker, author, extracted from her article On the Cultural Trail.
