Wurkwurrwuy stone adventures

Uncover the rich history of the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory, just outside Nhulunbuy, where ancient stone arrangements reveal the story of early cross-cultural exchanges between Yolnu people and Makassan traders. From these relics to the quiet beauty of Bremer Island, the region offers a compelling look at Australia's past and present.

- Words by Catherine Lawson Photography by David Bristow

The walking trail is deserted in the last cool hour of the morning as we tread a path of crumbling bauxite on the edge of a turquoise sea. Fragrant pandanus fruit scents the air, and the soft chatter of birdsong is subdued by an intensifying heat as we wander down sand dunes to the water's edge.

At Garanhan, on the grounds of a centuries-old Sulawesi fishing camp, we guzzle water in the shade of tamarind trees, then step back out onto a sunny trail that weaves through an extraordinary seaside canvas of Indigenous stone art.

The Wurrwurrwuy stone arrangements, located in Nhulunbuy on the tip of the NT's Gove Peninsula, reveal a little-known slice of Australia's precolonial history that dates back hundreds of years, perhaps to as early as 1640.

Back then, local Lamamirri (Yolngu) people shared harmonious times with visiting Makassan seafarers who sailed December's northwesterly winds seeking the prized sea cucumbers they called trepang.

In return for permission to fish local waters, they gifted the Yolngu people dugout canoes and stone knives, axes and fish hooks. All of it changed the way the Lamamirri hunted and fished, and their successful catches filled coastal shell middens with dugong and turtle bones, too.

Laden down with their harvested and preserved sea cucumbers and the shells of turtles and pearl to sell to Chinese merchants, the Makassan fishing fleet, which at times numbered 60 small boats, returned to Indonesia with the same change of winds that carries Australian sailors today. Sometimes, intrepid Yolngu men shared the 1600km journey and, over time, inextricably linked family trees on both sides of the Arafura Sea.