Kalbarri Skywalk cafe owner Tony Wilton shares spiritual connection to landscape where his ancestors lived

The owner-operator of a cafe at a popular tourism destination in Kalbarri has spoken about his family ties to the area, and his strong spiritual connection to country. Nanda man Tony Wilton and his partner, Anne, operate the Kalbarri Skywalk cafe and have expressed how impressed they are with the infrastructure at the tourism hotspot, located 37km from the Kalbarri town centre. “This place is just fantastic. I mean, what the government has done here, it’s probably one of the better things I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mr Wilton said. For Mr Wilton, what started out as a simple business opportunity became a journey of connecting deeper to country in a location where his ancestors guided him. “We ended up in the cafe and right beside the storyboards of my entire family, which was like a meant-to-be moment,” he said. “I personally feel the spiritual connection everyday and every time I look at the storyboards and see the faces from the past peering out at me.” His family’s history of working at Murchison House Station is honoured at the skywalk. He said incorporating stories of First Nations people’s past into a place was “something so special”. “It’s hard to actually get that across to other people how overwhelming that feels to us. Some of us cry coming back here. Yeah, it’s an amazing feeling,” he said. Mr Wilton is able to absorb his heritage and share stories of his ancestors to customers, including about his grandfather who worked at Murchison House Station in the 1960s. “In the distance past the other skywalk, you’ll see some white hills in the distance,” Mr Wilton said. “Those white chalk hills are very significant. That is a family cave, if I can put it that way, where our grandmother and my grandfather were all born.”