Latitude Z. Travel acknowledges Australia’s First Nations People – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past, present, and emerging – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Australia:
The oldest continually inhabited continent in the world. With an area of more than 7.6 million square kilometres, Has more than 30 000 kilometres of coastline.
Approximately 60 000 years of culture from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the first inhabitants of this land, to the multiculturalism of this era.
The land of The Dreamtime - Period in which life was created according to Aboriginal culture.
The land of the kangaroos, koalas, platypus, dingoes, Tasmanian devils, emus, crocodiles and many, many others.
There are 20 World Heritage Sites in Australia
The original and most important objective of Latitude Z. Travel is to create a range of tours that include at least one of the World Heritage sites in each of our tours.
A full day Tour to the Greater Blue Mountains – inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2000
A full day Tour around Sydney including Sydney Opera House – inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2007
A half day Sydney Sightseeing Tour including panoramic Opera House and Hyde Park Barracks – inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2010
Our project is to cover as many tours of World Heritage Sites in Australia as our great travellers of the world want to visit.
Let us share with you the deep, wise, and simple way of life of our fellow Aboriginal Australians.
In the words of our 2021 Senior Australian of the year Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann AM:
"My people are not threatened by silence. They are completely at home in it. They have lived for thousands of years with Nature’s quietness. My people today recognise and experience in this quietness the great Life-Giving Spirit, the Father of us all. It is easy for me to experience God’s presence. When I am out hunting, when I am in the bush, among the trees, on a hill or by a billabong; these are the times when I can simply be in God’s presence. My people have been so aware of Nature. It is natural that we will feel close to the Creator.
Our Aboriginal culture has taught us to be still and to wait. We do not try to hurry things up. We let them follow their natural course – like the seasons. We watch the moon in each of its phases. We wait for the rain to fill our rivers and water the thirsty earth…
When twilight comes, we prepare for the night. At dawn we rise with the sun.
We watch the bush foods and wait for them to ripen before we gather them. We wait for our young people as they grow, stage by stage, through their initiation ceremonies. When a relation dies, we wait a long time with the sorrow. We own our grief and allow it to heal slowly.
We wait for the right time for our ceremonies and our meetings. The right people must be present. Everything must be done in the proper way. Careful preparations must be made. We don’t mind waiting, because we want things to be done with care.
We don’t like to hurry. There is nothing more important than what we are attending to. There is nothing more urgent that we must hurry away for.
We wait on God, too. His time is the right time. We wait for him to make his Word clear to us. We don’t worry. We know that in time and in the spirit of dadirri (that deep listening and quiet stillness) his way will be clear.
We are river people. We cannot hurry the river. We have to move with its current and understand its ways.
We hope that the people of Australia will wait. Not so much waiting for us – to catch up – but waiting with us, as we find our pace in this world.
If you stay closely united, you are like a tree, standing in the middle of a bushfire sweeping through the timber. The leaves are scorched and the tough bark is scarred and burnt; but inside the tree the sap is still flowing, and under the ground the roots are still strong. Like that tree, you have endured the flames, and you still have the power to be reborn.
Our culture is different. We are asking our fellow Australians to take time to know us; to be still and to listen to us."
~ Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann
(Aboriginal activist, educator, artist and 2021 Senior Australian of the year)
© Image by Tourism Australia
Comments