Coastal Links by Sarah Pirrie

COASTAL LINKS: 1

DARWIN COASTAL COMPANION GUIDE Sarah Pirrie

Wrack line items are 2 assembled onto the Darwin beaches by tide and wind. Certain items typical of Darwin’s wrack lines are identified in this key below

STEP 1

Walking the wrack line decide whether the debris composition is anthropogenic or natural; is the item a recognisable form originating from the coastal environment or does the item show evidence of a manufactured process.

STEP 2

Using the guide below decide which kind of object you have found.

COASTAL LINKS: DARWIN COASTAL COMPANION GUIDE Sarah Pirrie

Foam and Feet Casuarina Beach, 2017 Sarah Pirrie

FORM AND FEET IMAGE

FOREWORD

Coastal Links: Darwin Coastal Companion Guide

If, in reading the title your thoughts jumped immediately to 'Charles Darwin the Naturalist', then you were only reflecting an effect of history – that which intertwines so that some elements are smothered while others are uncovered. And sometimes, in surprising shifts of what we thought we knew, radically new, previously unthought futures are generated. Darwin Harbour was named after Charles Darwin, the naturalist known for his studies of geology and natural history (including barnacles and coral), as well as his evolutionary theory. Darwin’s coastline contains many such examples of geological time and the history of the city itself is of course not without its fair share of evolution. However, this companion guide seeks to look at what falls between and intertwines categorical histories – it seeks the in-between spaces of our coastal intertidal zones, collecting nonlinear, multi-disciplinary information, in a way that reflects the tangible and layered presence of history in our lives.

As the inaugural ‘Creative in Residence’ at the Northern Territory Library, I have been in a privileged position to access some of the treasures held by this invaluable resource. I have created a reference page at the end of this guide to share some of the documents I used and enjoyed. This companion guide invites readers to (re)search the Darwin coastline using what you see, think and feel as your guide. It challenges you to introduce a learning trajectory that engenders your participation on the coast, and offers a handle on collective and individual experiments. This is not a fixed entity – rather it is about a repeatable or reusable condition that invites changing viewpoints and expansive ways of thinking about our world. It is a resource for ‘new’ images of thought about our precious coast, our coastal region, and global waters. 1. De Landa, M. (1998). A thousand years of nonlinear history (J. Crary, Kwinter, Sanford and Mau, Bruce Ed. Second ed.). New York: Zone Books. p. 14 2. Ibid., p. 14

Sarah Pirrie Creative in Residence, Northern Territory Library, 2017

Goose Barnacles on thong Fannie Bay, 2017 Sarah Pirrie

Following Manuel De Landa’s philosophical thesis, by which all structures that surround us and form our reality are products of specific historical processes, I have sought to combine certain events and processes1 that occur within the intertidal zones of Darwin. Drawing on evidence found on the beach, and within novels, books, maps and government reports, this guide is more artist book than Baedeker. It addresses coexistence from a personal perspective and accounts of both anthropogenic and natural phenomena. Here, coexisting is like the Darwin Harbour’s tideline, a fluctuation of highest highs and lowest lows. De Landa confirms, “As the belief in a fixed criterion of optimality disappears from biology, real historical processes come to reassert themselves once more.”2

Rocksitting Place-mat Digital print of East Point lateritic rocks on cotton hemp with Venetian trimming, 2017 Book on top is Darwin by Tess Lea, 2014.

Modern Day Midden East Point Mangrove Walk, 2013 All that was left of a lovely lunch were the shells, mingling with flower and fruit, under the Beach Gardenia (Guttarda speciose)

Figure 1 Sweet, S. W., 1825-1886. (1871). Landing the sub-marine telegraph cable (pp. Landing the sub-marine telegraph cable from the Hibernia, coming from Java to Port Darwin. The cable was landed near Goyder’s Camp, Lameroo (Cable Beach) clear of mangroves.). Peter Spillett Collection, PictureNT: Northern Territory Library.

KEEPING COMPANY written after encountering Tracey Moffatt: My Horizon, featuring 2017 filmic video The White Ghosts Sailed In1

I realise you were a poor sailor and indeed not even present on the Beagle when your English navigator compatriots named the coastal harbour at the top of Australia – Port Darwin. As a late claimed and surveyed site, relative to the Endeavour voyage of 1770 made by Captain Cook, you have been honoured as namesake of the first Australian capital city to have photographic records of its colonial (as)(des)cent.2

This honour is pertinent to the historic recording recently heard in the Australian Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale as artist Tracey Moffatt projected in her filmic video footage of The White Ghosts Sailed In. In recognition of the ready ‘capture and shoot’ function of cameras and film, the möbius, reel-to-reel loop of The White Ghosts Sailed In evaluates the alternative history a camera in the hands of Aboriginal Australians might have provided. It is a tantalising proposition and one which was more than possible for Port Darwin. Are there (actual) recordings made by those ‘other’? A lived perspective that is not white? I am not alone in posing this question. In Alan Powell’s Northern Voyagers: Australia’s monsoon coast in maritime history, “Larrakia and Englishmen gazed in mutual incomprehension as Mermaid ghosted away under light winds.”3 This occurred in 1819 when an 84-ton teak-built cutter, a 56-foot long ship named the Mermaid cruised off Casuarina Beach. Captain Phillip Parker King wrote of “deep red-coloured cliffs” and the presence of “sixteen or twenty” Aborigines on the beach, “engaged in fishing, or perhaps in watching our movements.”4 Fifty years later, three white ghosts did indeed sail in. The Moonta barque captained by South Australia’s Surveyor General, George Goyder, followed by the Gulnare schooner under the command of Captain Samuel Sweet and a nine-metre steam launch Midge – no relation to the midges that will forevermore be associated with the Darwin name. Sweet was a seafaring photographer and enthusiastically recorded, to positive effect, the progress of white settlement and production: effectively wielding the camera as a powerful colonisation tool, visualising modernity.5 Tracey Moffatt’s The White Ghosts Sailed In features howling cries and hails of Varesian percussion (ala 20th Century Fox) as the simulated cellulose bubbles and boils before

1. Tracey Moffatt’s The White Ghosts Sailed In is a new 2-minute filmic video currently on view at the Venice Biennale, Australian Pavilion as part of her solo exhibition My Horizon 2. Powell, A. (2010). Northern Voyagers: Australia’s monsoon coast in maritime history. North Melbourne, Vic: Australian Scholarly Publishing, p 125. 3. Ibid., p. 67. Powell’s reference to this event is based on Philip Parker King (1827) Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and Western coasts of Australia, Vol. 1, p. 270. The Northern Territory Library has a facsimile edition King, P., & Libraries Board of South Australia. (1969). Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 (Australiana facsimile editions, no. 30). Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia. 4. Ibid., p. 67 5. Ibid p 125. Also, see Magee, Karen (2015). Captain Sweet’s colonial imagination: the ideals of modernity in South Australian views photography 1866-1886. (Doctor of Philosophy in Art History), University of Adelaide, South Australia.

returning to the refrain of the film. For Tracey Moffatt and Captain Sweet, the single yet continuous event of ‘first contact’ establishes the contingencies of colonisation.6 Port Darwin’s settlement was inspired by Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s directive to “establish settlements on the waste land of the new country”.7 Previous attempts at settlement of the Northern Territory proved fruitless and foolhardy. With each attempt, the First Nations peoples discovered a little more about the personalities and peoples who arrived by sailing boat only to soon exit the same way, or be buried in long forgotten bush graves. The communication of these new arrivals inevitably spread swiftly along trade routes long established by the Indigenous people of their lands. Long before the telegraph line was laid down (Figure 1), word about these white ghosts would have travelled through the Tiwi Islands, onto the Djerimanga people and then to the Larrakia.8

7. Mills, R. C. (1974). The colonization of Australia (1829-42): the Wakefield experiment in empire building (Facsim. ed.). Sydney: Sydney University Press. p. 92 8. Powell, op. cit. 9. Mills, R. (1974). The colonization of Australia (1829-42) : The Wakefield experiment in empire building (Facsim. ed. Sydney: Sydney University Press. 10. Coppinger, R. W., (1884). Report on the zoological collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean during the voyage of H.M.S. ‘Alert’, 1881-2. London : Trustees of the British Museum. 11. Sweet, S. W., 1825-1886. (1870). Fort Hill (Fort Hill Camp with Gulnare at anchor. The advance party for the Overland Telegraph construction. The campsite used by the contractor is the site developed by George Goyder in 1869 when he surveyed Darwin). Peter Spillett Collection: Northern Territory Library. 12. ‘ Wrack line’ is defined by beachapedia as items washed onto the beach from the open sea which includes plastic, glass and metal marine debris. The 'wrack line' refers to accumulated debris and usually marks the high tide line. Wrack. (2015, 8/6/2015). Retrieved from http://www.beachapedia.org/

And what of Sweet’s photos? The one I return to the most is an image captured by him in 1870 of the Fort Hill Camp, with the Gulnare at anchor (Figure 2).11 In this photo the wrack line is clearly visible, suggestive of a monsoonal high tide laden with mangrove debris, coral, sponges, algae, seeds, shells and other natural forms indicative of a Darwin shoreline. This boundary line skirting land and sea reveals the force of nature which dominates Darwin to this day. This same tide continues to display the myriad of human history – from shipwrecks to cyclones, WWII detritus to the ghostly modern day forms of discarded fish nets. Darwin’s tidelines are not excluded from photographic history and remain a continuous presence today. One hundred and fortyseven years later Larrakia Rangers continue to care for land and sea. The land-sea borderline is beginning to be understood as a site of mutability and transformation. A place acknowledged for its ecology and recognised as the home to the first people of Darwin, the Larrakia.

Figure 2 Sweet, S. W., 1825-1886. (1870). Fort Hill (Fort Hill Camp with Gulnare at anchor. The advance party for the Overland Telegraph construction. The campsite used by the contractor is the site developed by George Goyder in 1869 when he surveyed Darwin). Peter Spillett Collection, PictureNT: Northern Territory Library.

6. My Horizon: Tracey Moffatt. (2017). (N. King ed.). The White Ghosts Sailed In, A sublime passage by Judy Annear, Australia: Australian Council for the Arts and Thames & Hadson.

In 1869 Wakefield’s system of colonisation9 was stitched tight with certainty, untroubled by a single doubt as to method. The South Australian government, who six years earlier had been given control of the Northern Territory by imperial Britain, was so confident in this philosophical determinism that it had invited the speculative purchase of land. Charles, were you one of the speculators who purchased sight unseen the parcel of land that would later become Darwin? If you had lived to see illustrations from the zoological collection made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean during the voyage of H.M.S. Alert in 1881 and 188210, I believe you may have. Your love of natural histories, of the biology of barnacles and coral would have demanded you debate the political economics of your time. Surely you would at least have corrected the pejorative term “waste land”.

Macrotidal Quadrat Series (Details from No.1 & 2)

3. Northern Land Council, Sea Country Rights in NT. Retrieved from https:// www.nlc.org.au/articles/cat/seacountry-rights/ 4. Nott, J. F. (2003). The urban geology of Darwin, Australia. Quaternary International, 103(1), 83-84. 5. Smit, N., Billyard, R. W., Ferns, L. W., Northern Territory, P., & Wildlife, C. (2000). Beagle Gulf benthic survey: characterisation of soft substrates. Palmerston, N.T: Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory. 6. I used the NT Tide Times and BOM apps to assist with this grand tour, as the tides are complex and strong. Any good walk around part of this coastline requires both sun and croc smarts: hat, sunscreen, plenty of water and a croc-wise approach are essential. 7. Drewry, J., Fortune, J., Majid, M., Schult, J., Lamche, G., Townsend, S., Cusack, S. (2011). Darwin Harbour Region Report Cards 2011 (17/2011D), p. 8 8. Williams, L., Williams, Judith., Ogden, Maureen., Risk, Keith., Risk, Anne., Woodward, Emma. (2012). Gulumoerrgin Seasons (calendar): Larrakia, Darwin - Northern Territory. Also visit https://www.csiro.au/ en/Research/Environment/Landmanagement/Indigenous/Indigenouscalendars/Gulumoerrgin 9. Casuarina Coastal Reserve Management Plan. (2016). Retrieved from Alice Springs (N.T.): www.parksandwildlife. nt.gov.au/manage 10. Information sheet: Access to Tidal Waters on Aboriginal Land NLC waives requirement for a permit until 31 December 2017. (2017). In N. L. Council (Ed.). Sea Country Rights in NT: Northern Land Council.https://www.nlc. org.au/files/various/NLC_Information_ Sheet_-_Fishing_Access_June_2017.pdf 11. Brennan, S. (2008). Wet or Dry, It's Aboriginal Land: The Blue Mud Bay Decision on the Intertidal Zone. Indigenous Law Bulletin, 7(7), 6-9.

The coastline of Darwin resides on the western shores of a large harbour, which interconnects with the North Marine Region of Australia and the Kenbi Sea Country of the Cox Peninsula. The Commonwealth-managed North Marine Region, covers waters from the Northern Territory/Western Australia border in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf and Timor Sea, to the western side of Cape York.1 Around 6,050km of this comparatively pristine marine environment2 is owned by Aboriginal Traditional Owner groups.3 Darwin Harbour is a macro-tidal drowned river valley on the coast of the Northern Territory. This coastal location is bound by sea cliffs up to 30m in height and long beaches, some 10km in length.4 Darwin’s sandy beaches and shore platforms are interspersed with the mangrove-lined estuaries of Ludmilla, Rapid, Sandy and Buffalo Creeks. During low tide, large expanses of sand and mudflats are exposed with a macro-tidal range of 7.8m and mean neap range of 1.9 m.5 Circumnavigating this harbour is best achieved by boat. However on foot, when weather and tides align, a unique intertidal walk, with alternating zones of rock, squelching mud and firming sand, can be explored.6 The traditional owners of Darwin Harbour are the Gulumoerrgin (Larrakia people). As saltwater people, Larrakia country consists of both land (gwalwa) and sea (gunumitjanda), recognising the importance of tidal and estuarine waterways.7 The Larrakia people, like many Indigenous traditional owners, have, over thousands of years, developed a complex calendar of seasonal divisions; a timeline for hunting, collection and caring for country.8 All aspects of life are filtered through this system including spiritual identity and the relational connections of plants, animals, fish, birds and water. Darwin’s coastline contains several sacred and significant sites, including Darriba Nungalinya (Old Man Rock) and Lee Point Lookout.9 In December 2017, these recognised sites will be joined by many others across the waters of Darwin Harbour. The Kenbi Land Claim settlement provides Aboriginal land owners of the Cox Peninsula an acknowledgement of sacred sites and categorised control of the intertidal zone.10 This landmark ruling follows the 2008 High Court Blue Mud Bay decision which determined that Aboriginal land extends to the low tide mark.11 This is a contemporary reply, written in law but recognised by all, as to the cultural, environmental and economic significance of our beaches and intertidal zones.

Conglomerate rock, Fannie Bay, 2017 Sarah Pirrie

2. Przeslawski, op. cit., p. 2

Barnacle Brick, Fannie Bay, 2017 Sarah Pirrie

1. Przeslawski, R., Alvarez de Glasby, B., Smit, N., Evans-Illidge, L., Dethmers, K. (2013). Benthic Biota of Northern Australia: SS2012t07 Post-survey Report.

INTERTIDAL TIDELINES OF DARWIN’S COAST

Top to bottom

Walking the coastal ontology

Beach walks are familiar to all Australians as we cling to our coastlines and build sought-after homes within walking distance from the tide. Darwin in many ways is no different, despite the crocs, jellyfish and surge zones. We too look toward the sun-setting horizon and spend a large proportion of our time on or near the coast. If nature feels a little more prescient here, then it is perhaps due to our location as a subtropical city, driven by a monsoonal climate. We are innately led by the wet and dry seasonal weather pattern. This duality is condensed by the time and space relationship we have with our tidal coastline. In Darwin, this relationship is complex and varied. The beaches and coastal reserves are situated along waters shared by many cultures, and consist of multiple layers of placemaking and traditions. Cultural overlays such as environmental management, sacred sites and recreational zones (allocated sporting and fishing sites, dog walking and nudist beach), provide a multiplicity of containments. All these seemingly compartmentalised undertakings belie the slippage that occurs between each and the fundamental ecological phenomena present within.

12. Northern Territory, Parks & Wildlife Commission, (2002). Casuarina Coastal Reserve draft management plan, April 2002. [Palmerston, N.T.]: Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory.

Conglomerate rock, Fannie Bay, 2017 Sarah Pirrie

Watch post ruins, East Point, 2017 Sarah Pirrie

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Sand bubbles and gun powder, 2017 Sarah Pirrie

Darwin’s land-sea borderline articulates the dichotomy between nature and culture while staging a complex interchange between use and identity. Natural events such as the colonies of sand bubbler crabs (Scopimera spp.), scratching and eating to the pulse of the tide, are matched with the “pulse” disturbance of community events and attitudes. Present-day waste management, scientific monitoring, fishing and hunting trips, defence force exercises and public firework displays follow historic activities such as sand mining at Casuarina Beach12 artificial reefs13 and the construction of WWII boom nets14 and star picket blockades.15 Evidence of past and present natural and cultural events are interwoven all along our coastline. Layers of use are laminated into rock surfaces or, through weathering, are released by their manufactured perturbation.16 Time and saltwater interact with the atmosphere and all structural solids. This meeting point between solid, liquid and gas is the point of tidal interaction. After the tide has receded, the wrack line of distribution appears.

13. Hooper, J. N. A., Ramm, D. C., Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences, Northern Territory. Department of Primary Industry & Fisheries. (1989). Preliminary report on artificial reefs in the vicinity of Darwin Harbour, and recommendations for the design and establishment of further reef structures. [Darwin, N.T.]: [N.T. Museum of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Primary Industry and Fisheries]. 14. Dermoudy, P., & National Trust of Australia (1985). East Point military heritage site management plan. [Darwin]: [Peter Dermoudy]. 15. Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory (1991). Casuarina Coastal Reserve management plan. [Palmerston, N.T.]: Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory. 16. The concrete watch posts dotted around our coastline are made from sand, sandstone and reinforcing steel. The structural break up of these sites manifests as conglomerate formations found on the adjacent beach. The comparison between natural and anthropogenic geological timescales seems indistinguishable.

Walking the wrack line Tidelines of dispersal form a highly creative zone of fleeting naturalisation and in-between spaces of belonging. On the 9th of February 1982, Dr John Hooper, marine biologist and international authority on Porifera (sponges)17, collected a specimen while walking along East Point beach, opposite Lake Alexander, which would later be identified in 2006 as Ianthella basta.18 Just over a hundred years earlier, in 1881, another specimen of the same Ianthellidae family was collected as part of the H.M.S. Alert zoological expedition of the Indo-Pacific Oceans for the British Museum of Natural History.19 This survey assimilated the fauna of Darwin Harbour through direct sampling and illustration. Early descriptions, made by Stuart O. Ridley, attempted to classify new species of sponge from Darwin Harbour. Future masters of this craft, such as Dr Hooper, would encourage the Northern Territory Government to establish artificial reefs in Darwin Harbour20; converting shipwrecks, illegal fishing vessels and asylum seeker boats such as the Song Saigon to terraforming reefs. The identification of new sponge types continues to this day with approximately 250 sponge species currently determined throughout the harbour and at least 60 of these found in the intertidal areas.21 Hidden in the subtidal and intertidal zones off East Point are communities of sponges which can resist high temperatures and UV exposure.22 Partially revealed during king low tides, this secret world of nearshore fringing coral reef ecosystems contributes to Darwin’s annual wet season wrack line, intermingling with drift wood and other entanglements.

17. Dr John Hooper is currently the Head of Biodiversity & Geosciences Program at Queensland Museum and co-author of Systema Prorifera: Guide to the Classification of Sponges [Eds J. N. A. Hooper and R. W. M. Van Soest] 18. Faunal Collections Information Group. (2017). Occurrence record: Porifera: Z489. Search Specimens. Retrieved 15/10/2017, from https:// ozcam.ala.org.au/occurrences/ e2d3c000-0c7c-428d-a890cf8c00d9c22e. 19. Coppinger, R. W., (1884). Report on the zoological collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean during the voyage of H.M.S. 'Alert', 1881-2. London: Trustees of the British Museum. 20. Hooper, op. cit., p.23 21. Drewry, J., Dostine, P. L., Fortune, J., Northern Territory. Department of Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sport, & Darwin Harbour Advisory Committee. (2010). Darwin Harbour Region: other projects and monitoring. Darwin: Dept. Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sport. 22. ibid. 23. Harman, G. (2014). Materialism is Not the Solution: On Matter, Form, and Mimesis. The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 47(2014), 94-110.

This is how I first experienced the many and varied sponge examples found within our coastal waters. Strange and wonderful shapes recognisable as sponges from their fibrous skeletons, intermingling with plant matter and other more mysterious objects. Assembled on the wrack line by wet season wave force, these sponges could be viewed as a series of comparative traits or a fusion of independent units. The translation of this infrastructure into forms, marks, colours, natural systems and human systems drove a mimetic vision of a new whole. Along the beach, tidal lines of coastal debris were arranging tiers of organic and inorganic forms; real and sensual objects interacting with real and sensual qualities.23 For the average beachcomber, walking the wrack line provides a mechanism by which to explore the qualities of substances and regimes of attraction. Through entanglement and placement, arranged in a hierarchy of order determined by the tidal pull, storm progression, coastal topology, the very ecology of things, detritis form connections between the natural and the anthropogenic. The allure of this arrangement is one which enables insight into human occupation alongside natural cycles and systems. The scale and colour of crackling-ball fireworks caught between mangrove leaves and casuarina needles tells us that the Territory Day fireworks are a past event and that mangrove species are shedding their salt-stored leaves to survive their saline environment. A deeply encrusted metal star picket talks of the residual artefacts of WWII and speaks of the nature of colonisation within the marine environment.

Coral Song Saigon – Show me the way to Australia (see pg 51 Artwork Notes)

Geological tideline. The geological structure of Darwin’s coastline reflects sea level rises and the flooding of a marine transgression which produced the distinctly coloured sedimentary rocks and cliffs. This Cretaceous stratum is impacted by deep weathering as the high tide carves into the cliffs, destabilising trees and creating caves such as those found at Dripstone and Fannie Bay. Dominating the Cretaceous Darwin Member are various lateritic profiles synonymous with tropical monsoonal climates.24 Laterite is a rock type rich in iron and aluminium. At East Point the cliff platform is a deep rusty red colour indicative of high iron oxide content. This in situ bedrock is one of four types of deeply-weathered profiles found along our coast. Over time, weathering, cyclones and the Darwin Rocksitters Club flagpole25 have seen the gradual reshaping of this lookout. Over time, the sedimentary clast will join alluvial sands, silts and clays; skeletal remains from intertidal and subtidal reefs, and mangrove detritus mingling within the tideline; renewing the cycle of recursion, time and purpose.26 As we sit on our allegorical place-mat,27 contemplating the history, people and ecology of our coastline, we could do no better than to refer to this primary resource as our teacher and companion guide.

24. Nott, op. cit., p. 83-90. Nott used the World War II dumping site off the coast of Nightcliff to gauge the amount and rate of cliff erosion since 1945. He evaluated that the cliff has receded approximately 6-8m at 30-40 cm per year. It is perhaps not surprising that sections of Nightcliff foreshore have been reinforced. 25. Th e Darwin Rocksitters Club began in the 1974 as a rollicking drinking game and has mellowed to a countdown of the sunset for the final evening salute. Originally based around an outcrop of East Point cliff which was submerged during high tide. In 1986 the club flagpole was struck by lightning which in turn destroyed the rock. Rocksitters. (2009). Darwin Rocksitters Club: Milestones. Retrieved from http:// www.rocksitters.com.au/milestones/ 26. Andrews, M., Eliot, M. and BMT WBM Pty Ltd (2013). City of Darwin Coastal Erosion Management Plan. Darwin, City of Darwin: 145.p 2-3 27. See Rocksitting Place-mats

KEY REFERENCES USED

Barter, L. F. and T. Historical Society of the Northern Territory (1994). From wartime camp to garden suburb: a short history of Nightcliff and Rapid Creek. Darwin, Historical Society of the Northern Territory. 994.295 BART

Parks and Wildlife Commission Northern Territory. (2002). Casuarina coastal reserve draft management plan, April 2002. Palmerston, N.T.: Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory. NTC 577.51 CASU

Berzins, B. (2007). Australia’s Northern Secret: Tourism in the Northern Territory, 1920 to 1980s. Sydney. NTC 338.47919 BERZ

Coppinger, R. W. (1884). Report on the zoological collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean during the voyage of H.M.S. 'Alert', 1881-2. London, Trustees of the British Museum. NTC SP COLL 591.92 REP

Bauman, T., et al. (2006). Aboriginal Darwin: a guide to exploring important sites of the past & present. Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press. NTC 305.89915 BAUM Bourke, P. M. (2005). Darwin Archaeology: Aboriginal, Asian and European Heritage of Australia’s Top End. Darwin, CDU Press. 930.1 DARW Lea, T. (2014). Darwin. Sydney, New South Publishing. NTC 994.295 LEA Len. Carter, T. L., Australia. Royal Australian Navy., Muller, Sasha. (199?). Wrecks in Darwin waters. Darwin: 1 map; 71 x 95 cm. NT Collection Draw 73 Map 28-05 Brennan, S. (2008). "Wet or Dry, It's Aboriginal Land: The Blue Mud Bay Decision on the Intertidal Zone." Indigenous Law Bulletin 7(7): 6-9 available online Australian Public Affairs Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory. (1991). Casuarina Coastal Reserve management plan. [Palmerston, N.T.], Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory NTC 577.51 CASU

Dermoudy, P. (1986). A proposal for a Northern Territory War Memorial at East Point Darwin. Darwin: Peter Dermoudy. NTC 940.5465 DERM Dermoudy, P. and A. National Trust of (1985). East Point military heritage site management plan. [Darwin]: Peter Dermoudy. NT 069.9355 DERM Drewry, J., Fortune, J., Majid, M., Schult, J., Lamche, G., Townsend, S., Cusack, S. (2011). Darwin Harbour Region Report Cards 2011, Department of Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sport: 1-44. http://hdl.handle. net/10070/226288 Drewry, J., et al. (2010). Darwin Harbour Region: other projects and monitoring. Darwin: Dept. Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sport. 333.956 DREW

Hooper, J. N. A., et al. (1989). Preliminary report on artificial reefs in the vicinity of Darwin Harbour, and recommendations for the design and establishement of further reef structures. [Darwin, N.T.], N.T. Museum of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Primary Industry and Fisheries. NTC 639.22028 HOO Ivanovici, A. M., et al. (1984). Inventory of declared marine and estuarine protected areas in Australian waters. [Canberra], Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. NTC 333.9164 INVE King, P. P. (1969). Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, performed between the years 1818 and 1822. [Adelaide], Libraries Board of South Australia. 910.9 KING

Northern Territory. Department of, L. and Housing (1989). Casuarina/Lee Point Peninsula development options study. [Darwin], [Dept. of Lands and Housing]. NTC 711.40994295 CASU Northern Territory. Department of Lands, P. and Environment (2000). Managing Darwin Harbour and its catchment: a summary of NT Government activities, 2000 update. [Darwin, N.T.], Dept. Lands, Planning and Environment. 333.9117 MANA Powell, A. (2010). Northern Voyagers: Australia's monsoon coast in maritime history. North Melbourne, Vic., Australian Scholarly Publishing. NTC 919.4 POWE

Lewis, T. (1992). Wrecks in Darwin waters. Wahroonga, NSW, Turton & Armstrong. NT 910.450994 LEW

Short, A. (2006). Beaches of the Northern Australian Coast: The Kimberley, Northern Territory & Cape York; A guide to their nature, characteristics, surf and safety. Sydney, Sydney University Press. NTC 551.457 SHOR

Mills, R. C. (1974). The colonization of Australia (1829-42) : the Wakefield experiment in empire building. Sydney, Sydney University Press. 994.02 MIL

Smit, N., et al. (2000). Beagle Gulf benthic survey; characterisation of soft substrates. Palmerston, N.T., Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory. NTC 333.9164 SMIT

Natt, C. (2007). Hook, line and Sunk Her!, Northern Territory Govenment: 1. http://hdl.handle.net/10070/83862

Sweet, S. W., 1825-1886 (1871). Landing the sub-marine telegraph cable. Peter Spillett Collection, Northern Territory Library. Photo No PH0238/0407, http://hdl.handle.net/10070/10127

Northern Territory, P. and C. Wildlife (2002). Casuarina Coastal Reserve draft management plan, April 2002. [Palmerston, N.T.], Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory. NTC 577.51 CASU

Sweet, S. W., 1825-1886 (1870). Fort Hill. Peter Spillett Collection, PictureNT, Northern Territory Library. Photo No. PH0238/0022, http://hdl.handle. net/10070/12660

Workshop on Traditional Knowledge of the Marine Environment in Northern Australia Townsville, A., et al. (1988). Traditional knowledge of the marine environment in Northern Australia: proceedings of a workshop held in Townsville, Australia, 29 and 30 July 1985. Townsville Australia, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. NTC 574.52636 WOR

(1983). NT Geoscience maps: Darwin Sheet 5073, NT 1:250 000 MAPSHEETS. DIP009. Government e-Publications, Territory Stories, Northern Territory Geological Survey: Published by the Department of Mines and Energy, Darwin. Issued under the authority of the Honourable J. M. Robertson, M.L.A. Minister for Mines and Energy. http://hdl.handle.net/10070/266865

Wells, S. (2003). Negotiating place in colonial Darwin: interactions between Aborigines and whites, 1869-1911. PhD thesis Univeristy of Technology Sydney. 994.2903 WELL

(1959). Boom net. Lois & Geoff Helyar Collection, PictureNT, Northern Territory Library, Photo No. PH0092/0160, http://hdl.handle. net/10070/5503

Workshop on, R., et al. (1988). Proceedings of the Workshop on Research and Management in Darwin Harbour. Darwin, Northern Territory Branch of the Australian Marine Sciences Association and the North Australia Research Unit of the Australian National University. NTC 331.91 WOR

(1951). Casuarina Beach. Boerner Collection, Northern Territory Library, Photo No. PH0764/0387, http://hdl. handle.net/10070/213739

(2016). Casuarina Coastal Reserve Management Plan. Alice Springs (N.T.), Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory. http://hdl.handle.net/10070/261282 (1989). Nameplate. Tom Lewis Collection, PictureNT, Northern Territory Library: Place Frances Bay, Darwin. Photo No. PH0366/000, http://hdl.handle.net/10070/55274

(1943). Ship. Bruce Seamons Collection, Northern Territory Library: RAN Boom Defence yard. Photo No. PH0521/0008, http://hdl.handle. net/10070/39533 (1942). Darwin Harbour. Ron Urquhart Collection, Northern Territory Library, Photo No. PH0311/0013, http://hdl. handle.net/10070/32095

Key Exhibited Works Macrotidal Quadrat Series Watercolour, dyes on arches paper Series of four each 1140 x 1140cm Revisiting the sponge community in situ was a key component of this creative residency. The Macrotidal Quadrat Series references an imagined square of the East Point coastline supporting a tropical tidal reef and captured at low tide. Rocksitting Place-mats Digital print on organic cotton/hemp Edition of 10 with various coloured Venetian trimming each 1430 x 1430mm

Photographic Images from Northern Territory Library 1. Casuarina Beach. (1951). The cliffs at Casuarina Beach at low tide. A car can be seen in the background behind the trees. Boerner Collection: Northern Territory Library. Star pickets in distance at end of cliff and glass bottle are in the foreground. 2. Pandanus wrack line 3. Mangrove wrack line. Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) with mangroves (Rhizophora stylosa) wrack line 4. Casuarina seed on Casuarina Beach

Artwork Notes Coral Song Saigon – Show me the way to Australia Referencing a photograph1 from the Tom Lewis Collection and drawing further from his research2, the Song Saigon arrived in Darwin harbour as a Vietnamese refugee boat in 1979 carrying 34 people. Painted on her roof were the words, “Show me the way to Australia” 1. (1989). Nameplate. Tom Lewis Collection, PictureNT, Northern Territory Library: Place: Frances Bay, Darwin. Nameplate from the Vietnamese refugee vessel Song Saigon which was removed from her before she was sunk as an artificial reef in Darwin Harbour (4/11/82). It became the sign for the 'Song Saigon Bar' at the Dinah Beach Cruising Yacht Club, and was in place in 1994.

Thong wrack line, 2017 Sarah Pirrie

2. Lewis, T. (1992). Wrecks in Darwin waters. Wahroonga, NSW, Turton & Armstrong.Pg78

5. Sand Bubbles with crackling-ball gun powder and fireworks 6 Ship. (1943). RAN Boom Defence yard. A section (trott) of anti-submarine netting being towed out to sea by a boom working vessel. A similar vessel waits in the background. Fort Hill, Darwin. Bruce Seamons Collection: Northern Territory Library. 7. Star Picket. Casuarina Beach 8. Boom net. (1959). Submarine Boom net, Darwin Harbour, taken from West Point at sunrise. Pylons were erected during 1943/1944 over the shallows. The net hung from wire rope between the pylons.). Lois & Geoff Helyar Collection: Northern Territory Library. 9. Crackling-ball fireworks wrack line 10. Boom Reef, East Point 11. Darwin Harbour. (1942). Distant view of billowing smoke from RAAF Base taken from the boom net which extended from East Point to West Point. Mooring buoys in the foreground. Ron Urquhart Collection: Northern Territory Library. Cover Image Adapted from Northern Territory Coastal Resources Atlas, Coastal Features, produced by Department of Lands Planning and Environment, Environment Protection Division, July 1997

Acknowledgements Coastal Links: Darwin Coastal Companion Guide comprises a letter, an essay and artworks produced during my time as the 2017 Northern Territory Library, Creative in Residence. I thank all the staff at the Northern Territory Library (NTL) who generously provided time and knowledge. I would like to thank Patrick Gregory, Director of Northern Territory Library and Emma Darby, Assistant Director, for their enthusiasm and encouragement through the year. Brian Hubber, Collection Development Manager, for unlocking the Heritage Rooms and his wonderful engagement with my project. I am grateful to Samantha Wells, NT Heritage Coordinator for her accomplished research and passion for Larrakia history, Margret Curry, Beverley Lee and Kaye Henderson for their resource expertise. Heather Holt for her support with the Coastal Links Public Program and Anneke Barnes for exhibition support. Special thanks go to Cathy Hilder, Manager of Collection Projects, who has been my guide, adviser and confidant throughout this project. I would also like to thank participants to the public program events especially Dr Gemma Blackwood, Craig Bellamy and Bronwyn Dann. For their editorial assistance, I thank Natasha Anderson and Dr Amy Jackett and for additional specialist knowledge I would like to thank Amanda Lilleyman, Dr Richard Willan and Baz Ledwidge. Inspiration thanks to Jan Carter and her artist book based on East Point reef. Also to all the Library visitors who shared their knowledge about our coastline throughout my residency and to all my CDU Visual Arts students particularly Denise Quall for engaging in discussion about my favourite subject. I acknowledge and am profoundly mindful of the Larrakia people, traditional owners of Darwin where I live and practice. The beaches and coastal reserves I discuss in this publication are situated along coastal waters which are generously shared and cared for by Larrakia people past and present and into the future. Coastal Links was undertaken as part of my 2017 Creative in Residence with the Northern Territory Library with funding support from Northern Territory Government, Department of Tourism and Culture, Charles Darwin University, School of Creative Arts and Humanities and Northern Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA).

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Coastal Links: Darwin Coastal Companion Guide By Sarah Pirrie 2017 Northern Territory Library Creative in Residence Supported by Northern Territory Government, Department of Tourism and Culture Text and images related to artworks © 2017 This artist book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means without the prior permission of the publisher ISBN-13: 978-0-646-97941-0 Design by 5678 Design Printed by Bambra Press, Melbourne Northern Territory Library Parliament House Darwin, Northern Territory Sarah Pirrie Email: sarah.pirrie@cdu.edu.au www.sarahpirrie.com.au