Cobourg Peninsula

thumb|right|Image of Cobourg Peninsula<br />with [[Croker Island top right]]

thumb|[[Cape Don Light at the western end of Cobourg Peninsula]]

The Cobourg Peninsula is a peninsula located east of Darwin in the Northern Territory, Australia.

Geography

The peninsula is deeply indented with coves and bays, covers a land area of about , and is virtually uninhabited with a population ranging from about 20 to 30 in five family outstations, but without any notable settlement or village.

It is separated from Croker Island in the east by Bowen Strait, which is wide in the south and up to in the north, and long. In the west, it is separated from Melville Island by Dundas Strait. From Cape Don, the western point of the peninsula, to Soldier Point in the east of Melville Island, the distance is . In the north is the Arafura Sea, and in the south the Van Diemen Gulf. The highest elevation is Mount Roe in the south with an altitude of .

Name

The peninsula was named after Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, later known as Leopold I of Belgium, by Phillip Parker King. The French spelling of the name has been retained over the years.

History

Indigenous people

The Cobourg Peninsula has been the country of the Iwaidja and the associated Marrgu, Garig and Wurrugu Indigenous Australian people for at least 40,000 years.

Foreign exploration

European interest in the region began in the 1636 when the Dutch explorer Pieter Pieterszoon sailed along the peninsula's coastline, while Abel Tasman also surveyed the area in 1644. Dutch interest lapsed until 1705 when the Dutch East India Company ordered Captain Maarten van Delft to prepare a fleet of three vessels to make a closer inspection of the region. He remained for three months at the Tiwi Islands before surveying part of the peninsula. He named Maarten Van Delft Bay after himself, which is now known as Port Essington.

For the remainder of the 1700s, foreign interest in the region came from the Makassans, who visited the bay annually from Sulawesi to harvest trepang, shark fin, wax and turtle shell. There was hostility between the Indigenous people and the Makassans with some being made to work on their boats and a number being taken to Makassar. The Indigenous people, however, acquired new technologies from the Macassans such as iron tools.

British military outposts

In the 1820s, the British Colonial Office became interested in establishing a settlement on Australia's northern coastline in the hope of both facilitating trade with Asia and discouraging the colonial aspirations of the French and the Dutch in the region.

Melville Island was initially chosen as the site in 1824 and the short-lived military colony of Fort Dundas was founded there. This was subsequently abandoned in 1828 in favour of Fort Wellington at Raffles Bay on the Cobourg Peninsula. However, this too was abandoned in 1829.

Buffalo shooters

Robinson employed Joe Cooper as his main buffalo shooter. Cooper was a tough frontiersman, and together with Robinson and other shooters such as Rodney Spencer, they enforced a brutal reign over the local Indigenous population. In 1905, Robinson and Cooper invaded the Tiwi Islands with a force of twenty Garig-Iwaidja men to expand the range of their buffalo shooting business. They were called the "Rajahs of Melville" and maintained a cruel control over the Tiwi people until the government forced them to leave in 1916.

Wildlife and Aboriginal reserves

Apart from the small area around the Cape Don Lighthouse (which was constructed in 1915), much of the Cobourg Peninsula was declared a wildlife reserve by the Australian government in 1924. In 1940 some of the eastern part of the peninsula was declared a reserve for Aboriginal people. A Methodist Aboriginal mission was established at Croker Island in 1940. So called "half-caste" children from the Darwin region were sent there as part of the stolen generations policy until it closed in 1968.

In 1974, the Cobourg Peninsula was declared the first wetland of international significance by the Ramsar Convention, and in 2000 the region became a protected area known as the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, which also encompasses a few nearshore islands. Mostly a tourist attraction, it is known for its pristine wilderness. It is home to a large variety of sea life and the world's largest herd of pure-strain banteng (wild cattle). It is also renowned for its Aboriginal culture. The ruins of the Victoria Settlement at Port Essington are still accessible today.

Localities

There are no notable settlements or villages on Cobourg Peninsula, just a few national park ranger stations and Aboriginal family outstations, as well as other establishments along or close to the north coast, from west to east:

Cape Don Light (lighthouse)
Cape Don Airport (ICAO Code YCPD) (grass airfield 1800 m, opened 8 Nov 1989)
Araru Point (Araru) (family outstation)
Ardbinae (Adbanae, Trepang Bay) (family outstation)
Port Essington (Victoria Settlement) (former European settlement)
Gumuragi (Gumeragi, Reef Point) (family outstation)
Algarlalgari (Black Point) (ranger station)
Ngardimardi (Smith Point) (camping area)
Gul Gul (Danger Point) (abandoned family outstation, ruins)
Meriah (Mariah, Raffles Bay) (family outstation)
Irgul (Irgul Point) (family outstation)
Seven Spirit Bay (high-end wilderness lodge hotel)

The closest village is Minjilang on Croker Island.