by Carla Caruso

There have been many opponents of the government’s proposed rezoning of the Park Lands’ riverbank for development. 

Among them are elders from the Kaurna community like Jeffrey Newchurch.

Last month, he told the Adelaide City Council’s reconciliation committee that Aboriginal burial grounds are among the sites at risk in the government’s push.

The area’s long been significant to the Kaurna people. Part of a statement prepared by members of its community in 1998 reads: “The Park Lands have many culturally significant places. These places should be preserved from further encroachment. We, as Kaurna people, must walk on these places to maintain our cultural strength.”

With this in mind, it seemed a good time to revisit the Adelaide Kaurna Walking Trail and dive deeper into the city’s rich Kaurna heritage. (Download a trail map here.)

The trail was a collaboration between the Graham F. Smith Peace Foundation and the Kaurna (pronounced ‘Gar-na’) people, the traditional owners and custodians of the Adelaide plains. A grant from the Adelaide City Council helped the cause. 

Seventeen sites – incorporating artworks and culturally significant sites – make up the 9.7km walk, which takes two to three hours to do.

Leonie Ebert set up the Graham F. Smith Peace Foundation after the loss of her husband, a renowned Adelaide activist and educator, to cancer. 

As Leonie told us: “The foundation was established over 30 years ago, and it was set up to communicate about peace through the arts. The arts are really important in the areas of human rights, environmental sustainability, and social justice.”

Leonie adds: “We’ve always believed that it’s really important to communicate with people, and sometimes if you can communicate with their hearts, maybe their heads will change. So, it’s a connection between the heart, the head, and the spirit really. Artists, I think, have a really strong place in being able to get messages over that are really important to us.”

She says the Kaurna Reconciliation Sculptures, associated with the walk, are “very close to my heart”. 

Originally located at the start of the trail, they’ve been put into storage during the Festival Plaza redevelopment. But Leonie says: “Now there’s a new place for them there and we’re hoping to rededicate them to the Kaurna people next February. We’re working on it at the moment.”

Walkers can either do the Peace Foundation’s trail solo or book a guided group tour with a Kaurna elder by emailing contact@artspeacefoundation.org.

Here are a few highlights along the way from the Peace Foundation’s trail map:

·      You are Standing on Kaurna Land tiled mural – King William Road bridge underpass

Many elements and themes are combined, and draw on the environmental history of this location, and remind us that this was a place for Kaurna to hunt and gather their daily food. 

Depicted on the tiles are European fish such as carp, which have supplanted most of the now-vanished endemic fish species. Also depicted are other animals and creatures that once lived around this part of the Torrens before it was dammed.

Kaurna remember Gudgeon fish, for example, that are no longer in the river but were a staple of their diet. 

·     Pingku (Pinky Flat) – northern riverbank, east of Morphett Street Bridge

Pinky Flat, appearing to be grassy islands on the northern bank of the Torrens Lake, has a connection with pingku, also known as the bilby, which is similar in size to a rabbit. 

It was a traditional Aboriginal food and also eaten by early European settlers when there was a shortage of sheep and cattle meat.

There would once have been about 200 indigenous plant species within 10 minutes’ walk of this area. The Pinky Flat and Adelaide Oval areas were the locations of Aboriginal camps until the early 1900s. 

·      Kudlyu (black swan), Karra (red gum), and Karrawirra Pari (River Torrens) – a river, lake or series of ponds? – southern riverbank, west of Morphett Street Bridge 

The kudlyu (black swan) was introduced to the area in the 1880s when the lake was made. Swans lay their eggs amongst the reeds and bulrushes.

Note the Eucalyptus tree with a huge scar to the north of the path. The thickening of the outer bark shows how trees repair themselves when bark is cut away to make shields, bowls, or canoes. 

Bulrushes have long, flat leaves (suitable for weaving) and brown seed heads whereas reeds are hollow, less flexible (not suitable for weaving) and have pale, wispy seed heads. In some areas, reeds were tied in bundles for making rafts. 

The weir, which formed the River Torrens into a series of lakes and ponds, was built in 1881, before which the river would have flooded after heavy rain, and at other times, would have dried to a series of ponds.

Kaurna youths met to swim here in the 1960s and ‘70s. 

·      Kainka Wirra – lake in Botanic Gardens and Botanic Park, off North Terrace 

Kaurna elder Ityamai-itpina (named King Rodney by Europeans in the 1830s) was a significant contributor to reconciliation in colonial times and had a special affinity with the waterhole, which is now the main lake in the Botanic Gardens. 

His daughter, Ivaritji (Iparrityi), provided valuable information about Kaurna history. 

Botanic Park and Gardens were previously open parkland and the site of large Aboriginal camps from the time that Pirltawardli (the native location) was closed in 1845 until the early 1870s when the Botanic Gardens and Botanic Park were established.