Walking Melbourne with the Kulin Nation in mind

When you walk through Melbourne — past cafés, trams, the skyline and its green parks — it’s easy to forget that this place was home to people for tens of thousands of years before a single building stood here. But if you pay attention, you can feel it: beneath the city lies a deeper story. A story of land, community and connection.

This is the land of the Kulin Nation.

Five nations, one land full of meaning

The region we now call Melbourne is the traditional Country of five Aboriginal peoples who together form the Kulin Nation. In and around the city, two groups are especially present:

• Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung
• Boon Wurrung Bunurong

They have lived here for more than 40,000 years — a span of time almost impossible to grasp. While Europe moved through wars and revolutions, knowledge here was passed from generation to generation through stories, rituals and songlines.

Land as family, not possession

What I find most beautiful about the culture of the Kulin Nation is their relationship with land. They do not see themselves as owners, but as caretakers. Land, water, animals, trees — all are part of a network of relationships. Humans are simply one part of that network, not rulers of it.

That way of seeing gives Melbourne an entirely new dimension. Every hill, river and wind direction holds meaning.

Birrarung — the river that connects

The Yarra River — known in English as the Yarra but traditionally called Birrarung — was the life source of the Wurundjeri. Its banks were meeting places, ceremonial grounds, places of trade and storytelling.

When you walk there today, among joggers and people carrying coffees, you can sometimes still feel that soft whisper of history.

The language of the land

Many names in and around Melbourne come directly from the languages of the Kulin Nation:

• Birrarung — “river of mist”
• Dandenong — often interpreted as “high place” or “top of the land”
• Yarra — actually a misinterpretation of yirrar, “flowing water”
• Merri Creek, Maribyrnong, Moorabbin — all derived from local words

It shows how deeply the presence of the First Peoples is woven into modern Victoria.

Ceremony, art and connection today

The culture of the Kulin Nation is not gone — it is alive. You see it in:

• Welcome to Country ceremonies
• Smoking ceremonies
• Public art
• Educational projects
• The work of the Wurundjeri Council

Melbourne increasingly acknowledges that the city is built on land that was never ceded.

A traveller moving between two times

When I walk solo through Melbourne, it often feels as if I’m moving through multiple layers of time. Modern buildings, busy streets — and beneath them, the land. The land of the Kulin Nation, who were here long before the city, and who remain connected to it still.

And that might be the greatest insight Australia offers: travel isn’t only about seeing places, but about learning where those places come from.