JAMBA NYINAYI FESTIVAL IN CORAL BAY, A HUGE SUCCESS

BY TANGIORA HINAKI AND CASSIE ARIUU

Photo: Hazel Walgar Credit: Tangiora Hinaki

This year’s Jamba Nyinayi Festival was held on Baiyungu ngurra at a place called Gunjayindiya and is also known as Cardabia station.

“This is the second year the Jamba Nyinayi Festival has continued, Baiyungu elder, Hazel Walgar explained. The festival’s name, Jamba Nyinayi, translates to ‘Come sit with us,; inviting visitors to share in the spirit of community and storytelling.”

It’s a very important place. This place is for everyone to explore. It's a place that makes you feel welcome in here.

Gets into your soul and we know our visitors … they feel connected here, too.”

1998 was a massive celebration for Baiyungu people to come back to country.

“ We had all our elders with us then. My second elder sister came to me. She is no longer here. She came to me and she said ‘Cardabia’s on the market, we should try and buy it.’ So all those Elders, they went and done that. They done it through a loan with the Indigenous Land Corp, based in Canberra.

We here now, we here forever!”

So now for us traditional owners, we jointly manage Ningaloo by signing an ILUA with the state government.

The Department of Biodiversity and traditional owners are working together. We’ve got a joint management program and that has given us opportunities and opened up employment.

We are learning science and they are learning our culture. We’re proud and we’re happy and this will continue from generation a generation and when I'm gone.”

Established in 2023 to coincide with the Dark Sky Festival during a total solar eclipse, Jamba Nyinayi has become an annual tradition. But it’s more than just music, dance, and campfires—it’s a vision of self-sustaining cultural tourism. Hazel Walgar, as the festival’s cultural director, envisions a future where Jamba Nyinayi becomes a keystone event. She plans to launch Indigenous-led whale shark swims & cultural camping.

‘‘The festival is about people gathering and coming together, as you know. Stories passed down by our old people say that Nignaloo was always a gathering place, and still to this day, we see it as a gathering place.”

We know our old people, welcome people. It’s a special place. Ningaloo is a special place and we know that the people that visit here for the first time .. they’ll just keep coming back.”