Discover Mandingalbay

​​​​​​​​Discover Mandingalbay​
​​(MAN-DIN-GUL-PIE)

​​​ANCIENT INDIGENOUS TOURS

​​​Join ancient hands on Country for an unforgettable experience – as you explore, discover and connect with Mandingalbay Yidinji People Country and Culture.

Straddling the Wet Tropics and Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Areas in Far North Queensland, Mandingalbay Yidinji country lies just east of Gimuy (Cairns) across Trinity Inlet and includes a great diversity of environments. Mandingalbay Ancient Indigenous Tours is 100 per cent owned and operated by the Mandingalbay Yidinji people. Launched in 2015, their tours and events are focused on Mandingalbay Yidinji people, culture and country and sharing their rich traditional history with local, domestic ​and international visitors.

Descendants of fierce warriors continue to protect this country.
Wait-a-while is one of the first plants unsuspecting visitors learn to identify on a cultural Indigenous tour in Tropical North Queensland. If you brush up against the long spiky tendrils of lawyer cane it grabs your clothes and prevents you from walking further through the world’s oldest rainforest.

The Indigenous ranger tour guides at Mandingalbay Ancient Indigenous Tours show you how to ‘wait a while’ and safely unhook yourself from the rainforest plant, while telling you how the black lawyer cane, known in language as Jabulum, was used to make shelters, baskets, fish and crab traps. ​

​​Hands on Country Tour

​Skipper in vessel

​Their ancestor Jabulum Mandingalpai was strong like the black lawyer cane and as the lead warrior of his fearsome warrior people he lived by the rule of his hand, not his words. The second part of his name, Mandingalpai, means ‘of the hand’ and his descendants are today known as the Mandingalbay Yidinji people.

The Mandingalbay Yidinji people have lived continuously on their land, just a 10-minute boat ride from the Cairns CBD, for tens of thousands of years and today their 100% Indigenous owned and operated tours showcase their culture and country with walking tours, camping and Deadly Dinners. 

The Rangers who guide visitors through the waterways, mangroves and rainforest of their traditional country are direct descendants of Jabulum. The warrior was born around 1858, before contact, and saw the first white men come to his neighbour’s country to establish the port of Cairns. 

The Djunbunji Rangers look after the landscape and its cultural values including the sacred sites, Dreaming tracks, and totemic animal and plant species, sharing their knowledge by supporting Mandingalbay Ancient Indigenous Tours to host visitors wanting to know more about the oldest living culture on earth.

Visit mandingalbay.com.au​ to discover more about tours from Cairns.

Take the train​​

Travel to and from Cairns aboard the Spirit of Queensland for a relaxing and scenic rail journey. Book online now​.


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