Gunyangara - Ski Beach - Drimmie Head - Melville Bay
Gunyangara is a small community that has split from Yirrkala and predominantly serves the Yunupingu families. There is an adjacent crocodile farm, music centre, boat maintenance facility and excellent clinic with a fulltime doctor, Wendy Page, who has been with Miwatj Health for 20 years.
The community has its own airstrip and there are several Macassan sites on the island of Drimmie Head which was named by Matthew Flinders on 14th February 1803 as it reminded him of a promontory in Scotland. He anchored near the Half-tide Rock out from the current yacht club and circumnavigated the island. It was here that he encountered the Orange Footed Scrub Fowl {bush chook} and eulogised its culinary virtues.
During WWII the causeway was constructed to provide access to the Catalina flying boat base and significant silting has occurred such that the back of the island is barely navigable in the smallest craft.
The marine maintenance facility at the top of the old Catalina ramp.
Catalina ramp Melville Bay
The view is looking west, down the flying boat ramp onto Catalina Beach in Melville Bay on the Gove peninsular. This is now a commercial area for the maintenance & refitting of vessels. Out in the bay and around the point to the right are pyramid shaped mooring block for the Catalinas.
To the left are the concrete rail beds for launching & retrieval of the safety 'crash' boat with a fairly recently added portal frame above the boatshed. This site should be heritage listed and preserved. The state of preservation far exceeds that of the Darwin base which will soon be lost entirely to the development of maritime service facilities for the oil and gas industries.
To the left are the concrete rail beds for launching & retrieval of the safety 'crash' boat with a fairly recently added portal frame above the boatshed. This site should be heritage listed and preserved. The state of preservation far exceeds that of the Darwin base which will soon be lost entirely to the development of maritime service facilities for the oil and gas industries.
The ramp is in good condition is used on a regular basis for quite large boats.
Looking north towards a Macassan site and graves.
The 1978 school dig organised by teacher Mr Flint - fondly remembered by Kelly Clark, Tony Guntz, Hilda Ann, Mark March, Ian Whiteaker et al. Apparently the good work of excavation was rapidly undone by the rising tide - it is suggested that the winch was for beaching Catalinas. The frame looks boatshaped but the breather pipes are reminiscent of an emergency fuel dump tank buried in the dunes beside Gawa at the top of Elcho Island for re-supply of the patrol vessels, HMAS Larrakia and HMAS Kuru. Naturally the one at Gawa hasn't been excavated either. The images are from the NTL Gove Collection.
The images below are taken from Air Sea Rescue & tell the story of Bernie Bashford's wartime service on RAAF crash boats across the top, including his banishment to Melville Bay for back-chatting his C/O. Pdf below - images are not attributed but one is in colour in the Russell Collection. The Sampson posts & fuel riser suggest a scow (motorised barge) used by the RAAF see adjacent page of Catalina Base images.
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Quartz anchor
In 1884 the renowned Customs Inspector Alfred Searcy visited Melville Bay looking for Macassans to tax.
In his book ‘In Australian Tropics’ he recounts visiting a trepang processing site & smokehouse where he finds a piece of quarts containing a speck of gold........
“Where the tradition comes from I cannot say but it said that this portion of the coast was once visited by the Spanish in search of gold.
There was also a stack of Manganese, which commodity for some reason the Malays took to Macassar”.pp94 (Manganese is used in iron making to assist the slag to run off)
In his book ‘In Australian Tropics’ he recounts visiting a trepang processing site & smokehouse where he finds a piece of quarts containing a speck of gold........
“Where the tradition comes from I cannot say but it said that this portion of the coast was once visited by the Spanish in search of gold.
There was also a stack of Manganese, which commodity for some reason the Malays took to Macassar”.pp94 (Manganese is used in iron making to assist the slag to run off)
Manganese
This piece of manganese was collected on 16th Feb 1803 at Strath Island - off Drimmie Head in Melville Bay - by Matthew Flinders & Robert Brown (Brownian Motion). It survived the voyage back to England in the refurbished Investigator and resides at the Natural History Museum on the Cromwell Road in London - whose curators kindly took these evocative images.
Brown's identification of this mineral was remarkable - (Nature's Investigator, Vallance, Moore & Groves Intro & p. 368) - what is even more surprising is that Macassans should be able to recognise manganese dioxide and mine it for iron smelting either locally or after shipment back to Sulawesi or both.
Brown's identification of this mineral was remarkable - (Nature's Investigator, Vallance, Moore & Groves Intro & p. 368) - what is even more surprising is that Macassans should be able to recognise manganese dioxide and mine it for iron smelting either locally or after shipment back to Sulawesi or both.
The nails below were found on Drimmie Head and are undergoing analysis - it is hypothesised that they were used as reinforcing at the joints where bamboo frames sat on the stoneline to support the cauldrons. Similar 'nails' have been reported by Yirralka Rangers but none have ever been recorded on other trepang processing sites. Some senior Yolngu have said that they got these nails from the Macassans to make fish spears - so they could be a trade good.
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Macassan Site
This is a Macassan trepang processing site - there are at least three sets of double lines of stones which held the wok-like cauldrons - there is an ash trench and the depression of a smokehouse. This is a protected site which is deserving of rigorous archaeological analysis and preservation.