Australia is a fascinating country, large as a continent and rich in ancestral culture. The continent has been occupied since the beginning of times, far longer than the arrival of Europeans, 400 years ago. Indigenous Australians have lived in Australia for almost 40.000 years (and it is suggested that it could even be 60.000) and thanks to them the continent has preserved much of its biological richness.

So, visiting Australia means paying respect to its ancestral inhabitants, owners of a beautiful culture embodied in the Dreaming. The Dreaming is the name given by Indigenous Australians to their creation stories. Actually, the communities of Indigenous Australians posses their own bit of creation story that complements the rest of the stories of other groups, forming an enormous mosaic of oral stories. These stories are more than mere myth: crucial knowledge for survival and social customs and rites are transmitted through these oral stories.

The Dreaming tells the stories of the ancestor spirits who created the world. The story tells that at the beginning, there was nothing on earth. Everything was neither dead nor alive, there was no life. Even the sun, the moon and the stars slept beneath the earth. Ancestor spirits were sleeping there too until they woke up in the Dreamtime and began to wander the earth giving shape to the world.

Indigenous knowledge is a treasure of wisdom about culture and the environment which must be preserved for future generations to enjoy and learn. Each oral tradition is like a library of knoweldge about plants, animals and geography.