This article was produced by National Geographic Traveler (UK).
The little octopus didn’t expect this morning to be a spectacle. He was minding his own business – relaxing in an abandoned crab hole, hydrated in a slick layer of dark mud – when out of nowhere came an errant finger.
“The octopus just squirted me!” Bart Pigram shouts, withdrawing his hand and laughing at the small jet of water meant to scare him away. Bart had expected to find a tastier tucker – a mud crab – but was just as surprised as the mollusk he had disturbed. Bart takes the message from the octopus, takes his long metal crab hook and leaves it behind. Instead he leads us on to the vast mudflats just south of Broome, known to the Yawuru people as Rubibi.
It’s 8 a.m. and the tide has receded so far that the Indian Ocean is a barely visible glitter on the horizon. In its wake it has left hundreds of meters of exposed crab burrows and tangled mangrove roots. They give off an odor that resembles rotten eggs and mixes with the salty air. To my untrained eye it looks like a barren place, but to Bart it looks like a supermarket.
In 1990, Broome’s Roebuck Bay in northwestern Australia was designated a Ramsar Wetland – an honor in recognition of the marine park’s unique ecosystem and the vast web of life that depends on it. In the warmer months, Bart is joined by nearly 100,000 shorebirds who descend to nest and feast on worms, crabs and mollusks, joining chattering flying foxes roosting in the mangrove trees, snubfin dolphins foraging in the shallows and shy octopuses hide in the sludge.
“When I was growing up, my family would come here to eat sometimes three times a day,” says Bart as he guides us to the tidal flats. The trail starts as a path through densely populated mangroves before emerging onto a vast muddy plain. As a Yawuru man born in Broome, Bart belongs to a long line of custodians (Aboriginals with responsibility for the care of their land) dating back at least 30,000 years. For generations, the Yawuru have lived along the coast, hunting in the mangroves and foraging in the forests.
The two-hour walk with Bart, owner of Narlijia Experiences Broome, is hardly enough to uncover his knowledge. Charmingly matter-of-factly, Bart tells me how poisonous gray mangrove fruit can be eaten after fermenting in the mud for a week, and how his ancestors lit fires along the banks at night to attract unsuspecting mullet and then boomerang them in the dark. to use.
“Some old ways are outdated because there are other ways that are more convenient, such as a fishing rod,” Bart explains as we approach an isolated rocky outcrop protruding from the mudflats. He pauses for a moment, then sinks his hook deep into the mud and pulls. It is not clear at first what he has done, but after a few seconds a crab with large claws appears in the mud and falls belly up into the mud. Its claws claw furiously at the blue sky. “Okay buddy, you’re damn lucky,” Bart says, turning towards me with a grin on his face. “It’s mud crab for morning tea.”
With an extra pep in his step and a resigned-looking mud crab dangling next to him, Bart explains how a small bubble was enough to give away the crab’s location. We make a wide loop through the mangroves, back to where we started. While the purpose of Bart’s tours is to explore the coast and learn about the area’s unique natural and cultural history, every experience is different depending on the season and what he finds. Coincidentally, this tour ends in a cooking competition.
Bart walks along the banks to collect dry branches and coconut husks to use as kindling, then starts a small fire. The carapace chars and foams, the smoke sweetening the air with the promise of succulent crab meat. He expertly prepares our morning snack and hands me a claw. We eat cross-legged on ocher ground in the shade of a baobab tree, keeping one eye on the turquoise tide as it slowly flows back into the mangroves and floods the plains again.
Published in the November 2024 issue National Geographic Traveler (UK).
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