Cape Byron Lighthouse is one of the Bay’s best known landmarks, but the land upon which it sits is significant for another reason.
Before European settlement, the land on which the lighthouse was built was the site of a ceremonial ring for her people, its surface packed hard from the countless bare feet that danced upon it to the beat of clapsticks.
“That lighthouse brings tears to our eyes,” Delta says.
In a bid to gain recognition of the Arakwal people’s long association with the region, Delta’s mum and her mum’s three sisters began the native title claim for areas of land and sea around Byron in 1994. As a result of their efforts, joint management committees were set up with the NSW National Parks Service to care for traditional land. Delta plays her part in raising awareness about Indigenous culture and the impact of colonisation with regular tours for the company she founded, Explore Byron Bay.
Delta Kay plays her part in raising awareness about Indigenous culture with regular tours for Explore Byron Bay. Picture: Angela Saurine.
The meeting point for our Cape Byron Tour is near a large sign that reads Palm Valley in the car park at The Pass, a pretty beach between Clarkes Beach and Wategos Beach traditionally known as Gurenbaa, which means “place of the freshwater gully”. Delta is easy to spot, with her black hair tied back in a slick plait, pandanus hoop earrings, and a red Archie Roach T-shirt with a yellow circle representing the sun with the silhouette of an eagle – the late singer’s totem animal – on top.
“He and Aunty Ruby (Roach’s wife) were buddies with my mum,” Delta says. “His father was a Bundjalung man, and his mother was a Gunditjmara woman, from southwestern Victoria.”
Delta leads our group of six onto the beach, where we form a circle for a Welcome to Country ceremony, in which she calls to the spirits of her ancestors to let them know we are there.
“A Welcome to Country is a bit like a knock on the door,” she explains. “When I come to your house, I wouldn’t just walk in, I’d wait to be invited.”
Wategos Beach is traditionally known as Gurenbaa, which means “place of the freshwater gully”.
It’s also a way of paying our respects to the land. “She’s like our mother – she feeds us and provides us with water,” Delta says.
Using her finger, Delta draws a map in the sand of the Bundjalung Nation, which stretches north to the Logan River in Brisbane, west to the Great Dividing Range and south to the Clarence River, which passes through Grafton. “Wherever Mum took us as kids, she’d let us know what country we were on,” she says.
We climb the stairs to the top of the rocky outcrop known as Fisherman’s Lookout. Delta immediately notices a pod of dolphins a few hundred metres away, swimming in different directions hunting baitfish. Delta’s grandmother used to walk out into the bay, tap the water and sing to indicate for the dolphins, known as wajung, to round up the fish and drive them to shallows.
“Wajung get an easy feed, and so do we,” she says.
Cape Byron is traditionally known as Walgun, “the shoulder”, because it provides 360-degree views of country.
Delta points out sites around us that were named by Captain James Cook as he sailed past. Cape Byron, named after vice-admiral John Byron, is traditionally known as Walgun, “the shoulder”, because it provides 360-degree views of country. Delta’s ancestor Bobby of Bumberin was a teenager sitting at a campsite on the sand dunes where Byron Bay Surf Club now stands when the first ships arrived.
“Imagine what they thought,” Delta contemplates.
A group of small islets we can see in the distance was named Julian Rocks, which is a popular dive site. It is also the resting place of the Bundjalung creator, Nguthungulli, who went to rest in an ocean cave there after finishing his work, and now known as the Julian Rocks Nguthungulli Nature Reserve.
Walking back along the boat launching ramp, Delta points out the chalky remains of an ancient midden, where Bundjalung people would gather to eat shellfish. “The mob would come here and check our refrigerator – collecting pipis in the sand – and have a cook-up,” she says. Walking through the littoral rainforest, we stop where a crowd is gathered under a gum tree taking photos of a koala.
“We call them burbi and, yes, the old people hunted them,” Delta says. “There were thousands of them.”
Delta goes on to show us plants used as traditional medicine and bush tucker. Picture: Angela Saurine.
Kay leads us to a sign about the Arakwal Bundjalung People, which features a photo of her mum and aunties with the story of them being presented the Fred M Packard award for distinguished achievements in wildlife preservation in 2003, in South Africa, where the surviving sisters stood on the stage alongside Nelson Mandela. “These four ladies are my heroes,” Delta says.
She goes on to show us plants used as traditional medicine and bush tucker. Dianella fruit tastes similar to blueberries, while nyuli (a type of karkalla, aka pig face) produces fruit that tastes like a salty strawberry. Finger limes are known as Bundjalung caviar. They have a sour taste and pop in your mouth. Once considered a refreshing snack, they are now used in jams, chutneys and even Brookie’s gin, made at nearby Cape Byron Distillery.
“We used to eat all this quietly because we were ashamed,” Delta says. “Now everyone wants to use it. Mum raised us on country and that’s probably where I got my passion from, following her around asking, ‘Can I eat this? Can I eat that?’. We want everyone to have that connection to our native foods. My history is your history.”
The writer was a guest of Explore Byron Bay.
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