About Us
Est. 2014
Karrke is the Aboriginal name, in the Aranda language, for the western Bowerbird. This bird can be found in this area of Watarrka (Kings Canyon National Park) and Central Australia. The male bird with its pink plume on the top of his head decorates its bower with berries, flowers and shiny things to attract a female bird. By choosing this bird for our business we thought about how it can fly away with our visitors to share their experiences with their friends to attract them to the area of WATARRKA.
Karrke is owned and operated by Christine Breaden and Peter Abbott who live on their ancestor’s land a small Aboriginal Community called Wanmarra. Wanmarra is a small community with a population of just 10. We established Karrke to preserve and maintain our Luritja and Pertame (Southern Aranda) language, cultural knowledge and heritage for the future of our younger generations to never forget their culture.
Our 1 hour Aboriginal Cultural tour is available 01 February to 31 October from Wednesday to Sunday. Offering our visitors 4 tour times daily starting from 9am, 10:30am and 2:00pm, 4:00pm.
Peter Abbott
Peter is a Western Aranda/Pertame (Southern Aranda) man from Central Australia region. Peter is your host and experienced cultural tour guide who loves to share his cultural knowledge in general to all guests and visitors who visit, live and work in this area of Watarrka National Park.
Prior to starting the business with my partner Christine the only source of income for us was receiving a government benefit (i.e. Centrelink payment), we face many challenges of living remotely on country, we thought on how we can better our lives and our families by staying on country and earning an income from it. We both then thought of doing a cultural tourism business. With a lot of planning and talking with industry and government bodies we began putting aside some monies to make up enough for the registration of a business.
Peter, says its great to share my culture in general, the more knowledge and the information of this amazing area that we live in I want to share it and that can be empowering to all visitors as well as my family they can see the awesomeness in it. We have the tour now but many more experiences is yet to come from Karrke.”
Christine Breaden
Christine Breaden is a Luritja women and traditional owner of the Wanmarra Community. Christine is also your host and experienced cultural tour guide who is passionate about sharing her culture to everyone who visits her traditional lands in the Watarrka (Kings Canyon National Park) area. Christine is also a multi talented artist in dot painting art form, wooden artefact making and traditional branding techniques which she shares on the tour experiences. Christine says, “Peter and I have our own business, we operating it, its good for us and my community I want to teach our young ones the tourism business to empower them so they can take it on in the future. That’s why Peter and I doing this business.”
Natasha Abbott
Natasha is a Western Aranda/Pertame (Southern Aranda) women from Central Australia region. Natasha is Karrke’s Operations Manager but in her spare time she is your host and experienced cultural tour guide who loves to share her cultural knowledge in general to visitors who visit, live and work in this area of Watarrka National Park just like her brother Peter and sister in law Christine.
I’ve travelled and been away from my country, family and culture for many years working for both private and public sectors, not for profit organisations and Land Councils. “I love that I get to give back to my family and community all the things I’ve learnt through life and work experiences to help support the sustainability of Karrke, vision and drive for what we want to see for the future of our people in remote Central Australia.