 Gurugaya Wood, Bariye Wood, people of country, people of place. Welcome. This project tells the story of first contact between early Europeans and our local Aboriginal people, the darker junk here on the Central Coast. It takes us on a journey of history and cultural heritage in regards to how that has affected our people over 200 years ago of colonisation in Australia. So my name's Ryan Stewart and I was asked to be on this project in my capacity as a history teacher but also as a PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle and my research is on contact on the frontier of the Central Coast and what the settlers remembered and recorded about frontier contact on the Central Coast in New South Wales. We've taken this journey over four or five weeks now of this program and it led us to visiting some of those places of historical importance both to Aboriginal people and I guess with early Europeans here on the Central Coast. The aim of this project was to get a group of students and take them to sites of contact on the Central Coast to educate them and also to ensure that these stories aren't forgotten and that the next generation of Australians and of people on the Central Coast in particular have that knowledge about the nature of contact here on the Central Coast, how violent it was, how terrifying it was for the First Nations peoples and how drastic the impact of those contact experiences were for the Darkenung people here on the Central Coast. This is to basically I guess research and to share some of those stories and to I guess open them up to the wider community in regards to what really happened here in this place. There is a lot more to like the story than what we've all originally thought. There's so much history that is left untold. Well some of these stories were never told or never taught in education, in school, in universities. Stories that have been passed down through Aboriginal culture and history but stories about the struggle about the survival of our people and what colonisation really did do. So we took some students from my school from Pimbalades College where I teach history and from the University of Newcastle and we went to Pearl Beach to the site of first contact between Governor Philips Mann and the Darkenung people in that region of the Central Coast and we took them there and we looked at the fact that this site is commemorated but it's only commemorated from the settler perspective. It's only commemorated from the British perspective and we really need to think about the view from the shore. Pearl Beach was the first story place because five weeks after the first fleet landed in the Gadigal people's lands they visited Darkenjung people at Pearl Beach. Then at Pearl Beach along with Patonga Beach these were places that they had that first early physical contact which you know was peaceful actually which Phillip described at that time. Aboriginal people naturally had no idea who these people were they came from but as the students had stood in that place when we visited there it has a memorial there today and a memorial that really I guess doesn't really recognise the history of our people but the history of European arrival as such but we guided them to go much deeper into history and how that had so much massive effect in regard to the dismantling and I guess some disfragmentation of Aboriginal culture and from the very spot that we stood there at Pearl Beach and to where we are in 2019. And that's something we really tried to instill in the students the view from the shore. Imagine seeing these foreigners Governor Phillips men dirty from months at sea coming in in these strange boats and basically laying claim to the land would have been a truly terrifying experience and it happened here on the Central Coast over there at Pearl Beach so really important that we educate the next generation about where contact first contact took place on the Central Coast the nature of it and that's why we took the students there and we listened to Uncle Gavi from the First Nations perspective and I explained what some of the evidence reveals about contact from the British perspective there in 1788. I'd say definitely Pearl Beach because I've been there and I didn't notice anything and that's kind of where it all happened like you know the smallpox all that stuff that's kind of impacted it so that was a big area for me because it's such a nice area and there's no real evidence that that happened or you don't know that it's an area where people, Aboriginals used to live. The next place we visited was Muka Bay and which one of the early European explorers will actually settlers that built a house there. We moved to the site of the first settler, the first official settler, British settler colonist on the Central Coast and that was James Webb who was given a grant of land at Buka Bay just near the Rip Bridge and he was the first official settler of the region so he was the first person to come up to here and basically have ongoing contact with the Darkanung people around Wui Wui and Buka Bay, really important site. So being there at the site with the students again Uncle Gavi and I really wanted to impart knowledge about the nature of contact there in 1823. And he was a man of violence and a man who was basically a law until himself. He did mistreat the Darkanung people there, he did mistreat the women there, procreating children with the Darkanung people there in Buka Bay and Wui Wui and firing upon the Darkanung people when they came for food. Stories that we've heard through other people who have recorded some of his traits and what he did and how that affected local Aboriginal people and again an untold story The third place that we went to was Mount Pleasant which again was one of the biggest local Indigenous communities here on the Central Coast at a suburb now they call Saratoga. So the evidence there of the midden sites and the cave sites and the evidence of our people that have lived there for hundreds and hundreds of generations. We also took students to an amazing rock art site and in that site is an Indigenous charcoal drawing of a European ship and that is a real demonstration of First Nations perspective of contact to see these foreign vessels coming in and to be there in their in their amazing shelter and to decide to put an image of that in their shelter. What did they think of it? Why did they put that on the shelter? Was it an interruption to totem? Was it something to be earmarked as an enemy? Was it a peculiarity that needed to be recorded? Whatever it was it shows the impact that the British had on the local people here. The Central Coast holds a lot of history a lot of story we're only touching the very surface of it not just so much that have gone on here. The history of the Aboriginal people here on the Central Coast is beautiful and it's so alive and submerge yourself in it explore look see smell taste feel what the Central Coast has to offer feel what you know but at the same point in time it's really important that you enter these spaces and places with respect because it's so easy to miss or not see it to cover it up or to erase it. I think more exposure to like the history of what's actually happened and getting more hands on going to sacred sites and being in that environment in that country to you know to learn. I definitely think there should be more information and more cultural heritage and more I don't know like learning from teachers from students from the community about these places for students to understand like back in when I was in school I didn't know any about these places and I really would have loved to have learned stuff and I think knowing that information and knowing my like culture and all the history on the Central Coast will help benefit myself and I think others as well. As part of this project we also want to gather all the stories that Uncle Gavin and I told and that all the students learnt and manifest that into an artwork and over the last two years we have been working towards the fulfillment of that artwork which will encapsulate stories of contact stories of the dark and uncoastal people and stories of what really happened here on the Central Coast front here. What Aboriginal people have been here for thousands of generations and I think what we take from this or what the students get from this I hope we can bring something to the fore of remembrance of those things that have happened in the past but how do we come together to properly acknowledge those things that have happened in the past and what can we produce in a way from this you know this journey that we've been on what can we you know create as such to make this much more widely known about our history and that's something that you know that's going to continue I suppose after the project and long into the future history of Australia that we start to you know not to forget the things what have happened in the past but to start that journey appealing by remembering Aboriginal people in culture as it was in its purest and you know so that we can acknowledge but also educate up-and-coming non-Aboriginal people and Aboriginal people themselves and so that we never forget this history