Who are the Wada Warrung people?
For thousands of years, the Bellarine Peninsula has been home to the local aboriginal people – in recent times the Wada Warrung (Wathaurong) people, part of the greater Kulin nation. When Western settlement began in the early 1830s it had a devastating effect on these Koorie folk. Sheep destroyed much of the root crops the Wada Warrung depended on and introduced diseases cut a swathe through their people. Birthrates and clan numbers quickly fell. In 1836 there were about 700 members of the clan. By 1853 this number had fallen to just 35. Today, the descendants of the Wada Warrung people still live in and around the area, and we at Cursions are proud to acknowledge them as the traditional landowners of the Bellarine Peninsula.
