On a rural block just off a remote road linking two tiny Far North Queensland towns sits Aunty Cherry Turpin’s bush camp.

It was established after the 560-hectare parcel of land on her grandmother’s country, Mbabaram, was handed back to the family through native title.

She laments what’s been lost over generations of disconnection from ancestral lands.    

“My grandmother was taken away from this country and she probably missed out on a lot of stuff from this country,” Ms Turpin says.

But it’s the future of this land, and what she and her brother Gerry Turpin are growing together, which has her excited. 

“The idea is to build our own rainforest and arid food industry on country,” she says.

Aunty Cherry was inspired to grow bush foods by her father, who hails from Yidinji rainforest country.

“We looked at how they lived way back in the early days, they didn’t have fertilisers or anything like that,” she says.

“They put their seeds straight back in the ground where they sat and ate and that’s how the country’s grown with all this food – that’s the same idea as we want to do.”

Old ways in the modern world  

The bush block is a myriad of makeshift structures.

There are irrigated experimental plots of native fruits, vegetables and herbs growing in greenhouses, and garden beds interspersed with caravans.

There is also a camp kitchen and yarning circle, where family members come together for meals and a cuppa after a hard day’s work.

So far, modest yields of native finger limes, tamarinds and cassavas have been produced.

Uncle Gerry Turpin is an ethnobotanist who’s using his academic and cultural experience to bridge the gap between traditional knowledge and modern life.

He’s hoping the model can be up-scaled and replicated in other communities.

“This project is about helping communities,” he says.

“So, this project is about helping the communities to at least to be able to start and then get going.”

Forage, knowledge and sharing culture through cooking

Uncle Gerry’s knowledge of Australia’s northern savanna lands is apparent as he takes a small party on a hunt for bush tucker.

They’re collecting a haul of bush cherries, edible grasses and leaves when Gerry spots a hibiscus-like flower, a bright speck in the otherwise brown, harsh scrub.

He reaches for his digging tool and after a few lusty blows, removes the tuber of the musk mallow.

“We’ll take it back to camp, wash it and roast it on the coals – we’ll think of ways we can use it in the modern sense as well,” Uncle Gerry says.

And that’s where chef and teacher Cat Clarke comes into the project.

She’s been working with the Turpins and other traditional owner groups to develop recipes, with the aim of producing an Indigenous cookbook blending ancient ingredients with contemporary cuisine.

“The conversations that happen and how stories are carried down through generations … it’s a beautiful journey,” she says. 

Uncle Gerry says it’s helping to keep Indigenous culture alive and constantly evolving.

“We live in a modern world and there’s no reason why we can’t continue our culture while living in the modern world,” he says.

“We don’t have to get into a lap-lap and get painted up and carry spears and boomerangs — we can use modern technology as well as the ancient knowledge … it’s a living knowledge, not dead.”

Learning and healing on country

Mbabaram man Alan Anderson has worked as a ranger and tour guide for more than 15 years, but is the first to admit he’s still learning.  

“I’ve only just come back to my home country and I know all these plants and trees from other areas, but I don’t know about any of the stuff from my own country,” he says.

During the foraging trip, Alan records Uncle Gerry’s every word and step with a plan to produce videos, handbooks and other resources for posterity.

“You’re not always going to have access to an elder, so to have something recorded, it’s going to be really important,” Alan says.

Aunty Cherry believes helping younger generations reconnect with country will deliver endless physical, mental and spiritual health benefits.

“Today, we have too much of the high blood pressure, heart disease, and even cancer,” she says. 

“This is what we were put on this earth for, to look after country and to look after our self.”