Return Of The Native

At Wogganmagule in the shade of trees beside honeycombed grey rock, where a man now gobbles his picnic on a bench, women once fished with shell hooks and vines. Tucked into those cool grey nooks, lulled by the squawk of parrots and kookaburra cackle, their babies lay swaddled in paperbark. Beyond this cove curved the harbour's jungly shore, like the bronchiole of a lung . Middens of oyster shells lay metres high but the best vantage point was Tarri, or rocky hill, from where one gazed east towards the Pacific.

At Wogganmagule in the shade of trees beside honeycombed grey rock, where a man now gobbles his picnic on a bench, women once fished with shell hooks and vines. Tucked into those cool grey nooks, lulled by the squawk of parrots and kookaburra cackle, their babies lay swaddled in paperbark. Beyond this cove curved the harbour's jungly shore, like the bronchiole of a lung . Middens of oyster shells lay metres high but the best vantage point was Tarri, or rocky hill, from where one gazed east towards the Pacific.

My reverie snapped, it's back to the man, his lunch, that bench. I'm standing on the edge of Sydney Harbour at Farm Cove. From Tarri, now called Dawes Point, the giant girders of the Harbour Bridge arc to the North Shore. Most of the old Aboriginal names are forgotten, buried in shame, concrete, and civilisation. Katti Katti, which roughly corresponds to central waterside Sydney, would have been shaped and moulded by the Dreaming, the Aboriginal concept of creation. Now its pristine innocence seems a mere dream and its cultural trajectory a nightmare.

Ten or 15 years ago, Aboriginal Sydney might have drawn barbed comments on "no-hopers", of a tough, derelict, inner-city suburb called Redfern whose alcoholic residents trashed their houses and lives. You'll still hear that now. Yet today there is also Reconciliation, a National Sorry Day, and official acknowledgement of the Stolen Generation – children removed to foster homes or missions where their Aboriginality was erased. Prime Minister Howard may have ducked a national apology, but in Australia there is now an unprecedented capacity to confront the past.

Sydney seems an unlikely place to unearth Aboriginal culture. Visitors – if they think of it at all – might imagine firelight dances at Uluru (Ayers Rock), or tramping through interminable bush at Kakadu. But New South Wales has the highest Aboriginal population, and greater Sydney its largest concentration. And just as Katti Katti was a cruel laboratory of a people's downfall, so it has become the engine room of revival.

"I can show you more here than out at Uluru," said a passionate David Wright, Aboriginal ranger at the Botany Bay Discovery Centre at Kurnell. It was no idle boast, merely a reflection of this pivotal spot. In April 1770, Captain Cook sailed into the placid bay on the Endeavour. His eight-day anchorage with brief forays into the thick bush marked the first tentative contact between whitefellas and blackfellas (perfectly acceptable historical terms here).

There's a tablet on a slippery, sea-salty rock to the first Englishman ashore, another to the first to die ashore, and a prominent obelisk to Captain Cook. Apart from the Norfolk pines, trimmed grass and neat Monument Track, much of this sliver of Kurnell looks as it did back in 1770.

Down on the beach where Cook's men filtered fresh water, there's a plaque to Joseph Banks, Endeavour's scientist, who, upon seeing blackfellas with spears, suggested warning shots. David pointed to a wooded rise: here had stood those Aborigines, regarding these pale marine ghosts with curiosity. They fled with the shots, and Cook collected spears and shields abandoned in panic. He left beads and nails at their campsite, but of the Aborigines nothing more was seen or heard. It was, one supposes, a well-meaning act of arrogance typical of the age.

Seventeen years later the First Fleet under Captain Phillip returned but found Botany Bay deficient in water and vegetation. Ten miles north lay Port Jackson, noted but unexplored by Cook. Phillip sailed through its heads into an exceptional harbour. He spied a watered cove and named it Sydney. White, penal colony Australia had begun.

It very nearly ended soon after. The convicts and sailors had meagre supplies and few skills, and the seasons were "wrong". Starvation nearly finished them. The vegetation blunted their spades and its roots almost broke their backs. "My lot had no technology," continued David, "but we really knew the bush." So as we strolled among what he fondly called an "Aboriginal supermarket" of gum trees and grass trees, we munched on salty Botany Bay spinach and chewed moisture out of bullrush. I learnt of wattle flour and how its mashed leaves could stun fish in billabongs. The cabbage tree had edible hearts, the geebung sweet berries, and the grass tree made fine fishing spears. "Bracken," pointed David, "poisonous but a vital food source. You bake the underground stem and scoop out the starch." Its young, squeezed shoots soothed insect bites, but for deadly snakes one made a poultice of bush cherry bark.

Around Sydney Harbour, where the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge now stand, the colony grew and the Aboriginals declined. The first farm lay at the head of Farm Cove, now part of the Royal Botanic Gardens. The gardens' "Cadi Jam Ora", or "I am in Cadi", tour – subtitled "First Encounters" – traces the site's indigenous heritage. A concise story board chaptered "Invasion", "Domination" and "Survival" pulls few punches.

"My father was a Dharawal man," said ranger John Lennis, touching the grass to pay respect, "and Sydney's three main Aboriginal groups were involved in this project." While greater Sydney comprised some 29 different tribes, the land on which we now stood had belonged to the Cadigal people. In 1788 there were about 80 Cadigal; within four years most had died from smallpox and starvation. "Before the farm," continued John, "this was a bora ground for initiation rites." For young male Cadigal, this meant the removal of their right incisor.

We paused before an "original remnant" red gum. "Real old," he confirmed. "A few hundred years BC." There were gasps. "That's Before Cook," he added glibly. Different scratch marks indicated various edible possums. The hollows drew birds – and cradled eggs. Bees gave honey, the sap medicine. He had us pulling mat rush (impossible to break) and sniffing crushed lemon myrtle (intensely aromatic). Flowering banksia made a kind of instant energy drink, while black beans needed days of careful preparation. The gardens also have a gunya, a crude bark shelter, typically open to the rousing eastern sun. It was all they needed but its simplicity belied the Aboriginals' sophisticated relationship with the land.

I strolled on past Farm Cove towards Circular Quay, and below the sails (or are they shells?) of the Opera House met Dallas, my guide on a "Sydney Cove Walkabout". "This was Jubgalee," he said of the huge shell midden which once lay beneath us. It was the clearest evidence of indigene occupation. "Warrane", he continued, indicating Circular Quay where Phillip planted his flag, "meant 'meeting place'." A stream once ran down present-day Pitt Street from Hyde Park and emptied here. It was a well-watered, practical spot, and so was taken by the colonists.

The colony used Jubgalee's shells to make lime for mortar. Cattle, too, were landed here, so it became first Cattle Point, then Bennelong Point. Bennelong was a Wangal Aborigine kidnapped by a desperate Phillip in 1789. An interpreter was needed to try to mediate between both sides, for each of whom the other might as well have come from Mars.

Bennelong learnt English, adopted Western dress, became friends with Phillip and even went to Britain. But eventually, to his own people, he talked and smelt different, and was disowned.

"Tribal law dictated a punishment called yunyaha," said Dallas, "so he was ignored." He died broken and alcoholic, and the point was named after Phillip built a tiny hut built for him there.

Today, these old Aboriginal place names seem haunting, the fact of a name somehow at odds with, to Western eyes, an elusive camouflaged culture. So fused was it to terra firma, its near invisibility proved fatal. It enabled colonists to conclude that Australia was terra nullius, unoccupied land, and so ripe for picking without negotiation or treaty. This conceit endured until a sensational High Court decision in 1992 and the birth of Native Title.

There is an Aboriginal Language Map of the country, a mosaic of nations and lands that hints at the complexity of Native Title. Blue Mountains National Park, 70km to the west of Sydney, encompasses traditional lands of the Dharug, Gundungarra and Wiraduji peoples, some of whose mutual boundaries were slightly contentious. At eerie Red Hands Cave, 70 ancient ochre handprints were rediscovered in 1913 and it remains uncertain whether this was a sacred site or a meeting place. Euroka's eucalypts bore pale ochre turtles engraved on their trunks. "Memorial trees," explained Elly Bate, a Dharug ranger, "usually carved where people are buried." The Parks Service didn't sanction burials here but memorials were fine.

Years ago, at this very tree, Elly's totem – a bush-tailed possum – had presented itself to her. Every Aboriginal person and clan has their own totem, a living creature that "binds you to the land". Even if starving, you never ate your totem. It was a way, someone else told me, of keeping a balance, of ensuring that everyone did not eat everything.

"Usually your parents knew your totem before birth," continued Elly. But she, among the last of the Stolen Generation, found hers only in later years. Sydney's Aboriginal population is its most urbanised. Some find aspects of their culture disturbing: ritual body painting, the spirit world, its law and lore.

Could they return to an old, "traditional" life? "Funnily enough," says ranger Chris Tobin, "I've heard of a couple here in the mountains." Gazing out at the Three Sisters, the thickly forested Jamison Valley and Mount Solitary, you think it may just be possible. But, more than anything, Aboriginal people just want to be equal.

The Facts

Getting there

Amar Grover visited Sydney courtesy of Singapore Airlines (0870 608 8886; www.singaporeair.com), which offers fares from £650, and the Australian Tourist Commission (0906 863 3235; www.australia.com), which offers a free Australia Travellers Guide.

Being there

Amar Grover stayed at the Sebel Pier One Hotel (00 61 2 8298 9999; www.mirvachotels.com.au), which charges A$265 (£98) for b&b in a double room.

Sydney Cove Walkabout is run by Aboriginal Discoveries (00 61 2 9599 1693; www.abtrade.com.au) and costs a fixed price of A$85.50 (£32) per group, upto 25 people.

The Royal Botanic Gardens' Cadi Jam Ora tour (00 61 2 9231 8134; www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au) is generally available for groups of five or more, although if the rangers are not too busy they can take smaller numbers. The price is A$16.50 (£6) per person. The Story Board is accessible during opening hours.

Botany Bay tours at Kurnell are run by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Discovery Programme (00 61 2 9542 0649; www.npws.nsw.gov.au) and cost A$8 (£3) per person.

Blue Mountains NPWS (00 61 2 4784 7301; email: bluemtns.discovery @npws.nsw .gov.au) runs two-hour tours for A$132 (£49) per group.

For guided walks of the rock carvings at the Royal National Park contact NPWS Discovery Programme (as above).

Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park also has rock carvings. Walking leaflets are available from visitor centres. Contact Chase Alive for guided walks (00 61 2 9457 9853).

The Botany Bay National Park at La Perouse offers walks looking at Aboriginal culture and local history. For details, contact NPWS Discovery Programme (as above).

Further information

Recommended reading: Aboriginal Australia & the Torres Strait Islands, Lonely Planet (£12.99); Aboriginal Sydney by Melinda Hinkson, Aboriginal Studies Press (A$33; for mail order, go to www.aiatsis.gov.au).

Lonely Planet lists 31 diverse sites covering Aboriginal culture. Try www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au /barani/default.html as your starting point.

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