 Kepa Kurl Eco Cultural Discovery Tours is a locally owned and
operated enterprise. Kepa kurl is one of the leading Indigenous
Tour Operators in the south of Western Australia, built on a reputation
of informative, educative and quality personalized service.
The Indigenous Operators of Kepa Kurl tell us why they engaged in
tourism. Doc Reynolds, Director; says: “I think that working
and with the knowledge I have gained over the years, I have always
enjoyed meeting and talking to people. Of course you just get a basic
understanding of where they come from and even when I go camping,
just my wife and kids and I, we talk to people out there with some
kind of European base and the world comes to your doorstep. So when
I actually sat down and had a think about doing cultural tourism,
it was just something that I had to do. I had plenty of options to
do a lot of stuff, and I thought well what is my mission in life?
And I thought well, a lot of people over my years of employment did
not have a great understanding of Aboriginal culture and here in
Esperance, there was no Aboriginal outlet, no… there wasn’t
a lot of things talked about from the Aboriginal perspective, so
I decided to go into tourism. There was a clearly identified gap
and I decided to sever all my ties to the community things that I
was doing, and then to go into corporate business because if things
for the Aboriginal people are going to improve, then we have to start
looking at corporate growth over government and funding.
By doing that and being the example, we can make a difference. We
started from scratch. We had nothing when we started up, we didn’t
have a clue then, we got a package but how to market it and how to
get it out and do it and everything. You know, it became a steep
learning curve. And a thoroughly enjoyable one at that. Because you
know if you want to do something, you have got to be committed to
do it. It is not 100% commitment, it is 120% because you always have
to do that little bit more and, most importantly, I am getting paid
for what I love doing. Just talking - what I used to share with my
family which I don’t mind doing for nothing, I am telling white
people the sorts of things that I share with my own family while
I get paid to do it. We don’t go into a lot of the intricate
stuff obviously, but just giving the visitor a basic understanding
of our culture and environment. The European people in particularly,
they just love looking at the plants and natural bush-scapes here.
Their bush and their forests are very different to ours, and, of
course, they don’t have a lot of the bush medicine, so yes
that’s one of the reasons why I am into it (tourism). The tours
offered by Kepa Kurl allow everyone to explore the unique and timeless
Aboriginal culture prior to colonisation and see how Aboriginal culture
has evolved today. "
CONTACT:
Doc and Robyn Reynolds
Esperance Museum Village, Cnr Dempster & Kemp Street
PO Boxes 1754 Esperance 6450 WA
Ph: +61 8 90721688
Fax: +61 8 90721699
Web: http://kepakurl.com.au/
Email: kepakurl@westnet.com.au
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