Natasha Bazika

“See this?” Carleeta says, clutching a handful of coastal wattle. “Watch.” She rubs it between her palms, adds a splash of water, and it starts to foam. Actual foam. Like, the kind you’d pay $50 for at Aēsop. It’s frothy and soft, clinging to her hands while the five of us just stare, slightly baffled that we now know how to wash our hands on a beach without sanitiser. “There’s a lot we learn from Country,” she says. I’m on day two of the four-day wukalina Walk along Tasmania’s north-east coast, guided by Carleeta Rose Helen Thomas, a proud pakana woman of North East lutruwita/Tasmania. In less than 48 hours, she’s already shown us how to pack a wound with ‘old man’s beard,’ a fluffy, stringy climbing plant, and brewed tea from one of her favourite native shrubs, kunzea. It’s anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial and a natural insect repellent.  Photograph: Natasha Bazika The walk begins with a three-hour drive from Launceston to Mt William National Park and a climb up wukalina Summit. It’s not Everest, thankfully, but enough uphill to make me regret eating the chocolate brownie in my packed lunch. Wukalina means ‘woman’s breast’. “It’s considered a place of nurturing,” Carleeta tells us when we reach the top. At the summit, we sip kunzea tea while the wind tries to steal our hats. She mentions that this spot was a smoke signalling site. “Our old fellas would light fires to communicate or warn the women when sealers were coming.” The women she’s talking about could hold their b