Take a mangrove foraging tour with Broome’s Aboriginal custodians in Australia

The little octopus didn’t expect to be a spectacle this morning. It was minding its own business — relaxing in an abandoned crab hole, moisturised in a slick layer of dark mud — when out of the blue came a wandering finger.

“The octopus just squirted me!” shouts Bart Pigram, pulling his hand back and laughing at the little jet of water intended to shoo him away. Bart had expected to find some tastier tucker — a mud crab — but was just as surprised as the mollusc he’d disturbed. Taking the octopus’s message, Bart picks up his long metal crab hook and leaves it be, instead leading us further out into the vast mudflats just south of Broome, known to the Yawuru people as Rubibi.

It’s 8am and the tide has retreated so far the Indian Ocean is a barely visible glitter on the horizon. In its wake it’s left hundreds of metres of exposed crab holes and tangled mangrove roots. They emit an aroma a little like rotten eggs, which mingles with the briny air. To my untrained eye, it seems a barren place, but for Bart it’s like a supermarket.

In 1990, Broome’s Roebuck Bay in northwestern Australia was designated a Ramsar wetland — an honour recognising the marine park’s unique ecosystem and the vast web of life that depends on it. In the warmer months, Bart is joined by nearly 100,000 shorebirds who descend to nest and feast on worms, crabs and molluscs, joining chattering flying foxes roosting in the mangrove trees, snubfin dolphins foraging in the shallows and shy octopuses hiding in the sludge.

“Growing up, my family would come out here sometimes three times a day to eat,” says Bart as he guides us out to the intertidal flats, the path starting as a track between crowded mangroves before opening up to a vast muddy expanse. As a Yawuru man born in Broome, Bart belongs to a long line of custodians (Aboriginal people with responsibility for caring for their land) going back at least 30,000 years. For generations, the Yawuru have lived along the coast, hunting in the mangroves and foraging in the woodlands.

Lasting two hours, the walk with Bart, who owns Narlijia Experiences Broome, is barely enough time to scratch the surface of his knowledge. Charmingly down to earth, Bart tells me how toxic grey mangrove fruit can be eaten after fermenting it in mud for a week, and how his ancestors would light fires at night along the banks to attract unsuspecting mullet and then boomerang them in the dark.

“Some of the old ways aren’t done anymore because there are other ways that are more convenient, like a fishing rod,” explains Bart as we approach an isolated rocky outcrop jutting out of the flats. He pauses, then plunges his hook deep into the mud and pulls. It’s not clear what he’s done at first, but after a few seconds a large-clawed crab appears in the muck and tumbles belly-side-up onto the mud. Its claws scrabble furiously at the blue sky. “Alright mate, you’re bloody lucky,” says Bart, turning to me with a grin on his face. “It’s mud crab for morning tea.”

Moving with an added pep in his step and a resigned-looking mud crab dangling beside him, Bart explains how a small air bubble was all it took to betray the crab’s location. We take a wide loop through the mangroves, back to where we started. While the purpose of Bart’s tours is to explore the coast and learn about the area’s unique natural and cultural history, every experience is different depending on the season and what he finds. It just so happens this tour is ending in a cook-up.

Bart paces along the banks salvaging dry branches and coconut husks to use as kindling, then starts to build a small fire. The carapace chars and foams, the smoke sweetening the air with the promise of juicy crab meat. He expertly prepares our mid-morning snack and hands me a claw. We eat sitting cross-legged on ochre soil in the shade of a baobab tree, keeping one eye on the turquoise tide as it slowly sweeps back into the mangroves and submerges the flats once more.