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TRAVEL Kakadu’s Hanging outbus with h and tuc ker isthe alwgiraffes feeding is ays super fre definitely a highlight sh
The beautiful waterways of Kakadu
ON THE BUSH-TUCKER TRAIL
in Kakadu
Tatyana Leonov tastes the best of the NT’s healthy fast food on a guided bush-tucker walk
T
he heat of the day has be crushed to make bread. reached its peak and “We’ve been making bread for a the first thing that long time,” Ben says. “Long grabs my attention as before the Europeans, probably I step into Kakadu’s before the Egyptians, too.” Warradjan Cultural Centre is the Ben has long been interested ice-cream stand. Our guide and in sharing his knowledge about local chef, Ben Tyler, notices bush tucker with the wider where I’m heading and community, and joined rushes over. “I’m Ben forces with fellow cook and I’ve prepared Kylie-Lee Bradford something else to launch “Waterlilies are for you,” he Kakadu Kitchen used in a variety of says smiling, in 2017. “Our ways. They can be veering us food is a good eaten fresh, roasted away from the way for visitors ice-cream and over a fire or cooked in to connect to into the great the area,” he the ground wrapped outdoors. explains. The in paperbark” A few pair have run minutes later, my bush-tucker tours husband and I are at A Taste of Kakadu sipping chilled waterlily tea, (an annual Indigenous food which Ben discloses is a first festival) for the past two years. attempt for him. “I boiled the After our refreshing waterlily flowers and then cooled it down. tea, we’re ready to walk and talk, This is my first time making it… and the amount of food we pass a world-first, maybe,” he laughs. is astounding. We see Kakadu In Kakadu Indigenous culture, plum trees, which Ben tells us waterlilies are used in a variety have the highest recorded levels of ways. They can be eaten fresh, of vitamin C of any fruit in the roasted over a fire or cooked world. There are also red ants, in the ground wrapped in which are great for digestive paperbark, and the seeds can health when made into a drink,
Crowds enjoy A Taste of Kakadu festival
lumps protruding from paperbark trees hiding water, and sand palms, which have fleshy hearts that can be eaten raw or roasted. As we near the Yellow Water wetlands, there’s more. “Our culture is in the water as well as on the land,” Ben explains. “We swim for file snakes that live among the cool mud, and there are plenty of fish here. We hunt for goose and duck, and the yams are coming up now, too.” After an hour, I’ve long forgotten about the ice-cream back at the cultural centre. “Come back next year and we might even have Kakadu bush-tucker ice-cream!” Ben says with a smile.
THE LOWDOWN WHEN TO GO Although the dry season (May to October) is the most popular time to visit, Kakadu is a year-round destination. A Taste of Kakadu is from May 10-19.
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GETTING THERE Qantas and Virgin fly to Darwin from all major Australian cities. From there, Kakadu National Park is just over an hour’s drive away.
Bush tucker meets brownies and check out the view!
COST: Entry to the Kakadu National Park costs $25 per person and lasts two weeks. A Taste of Kakadu events vary in price.
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Local Emilio holds a lotus lily flower – an Indigenous food staple
MORE INFO kakadutourism.com; parksaustralia.gov.au/ kakadu/taste