Goongoongup

Goon'goong'up / Gungungup

Description & Location

The name for present-day Claisebrook Cove and the surrounding area, encompassing an ephemeral fresh water stream that once flowed from the Perth swamps into the Swan River. The course of the stream drained east down Wellington Street and was joined by another tributary along present-day Royal Street. 

Highly significant to Noongar people, Goongoongup was not only a source of fresh water but a place to gather a variety of edible plants and aquatic life such as bulrushes and gilgies (freshwater crayfish). There is also evidence of fresh springs in this area. 

The area remained an important camping place and food source for Noongar people right until the area’s redevelopment in the 1990s. It continues to be of great significance to Noongar people as a site that once linked freshwater springs, lakes and swamps (and their associated rich ecologies) to the bilya (Swan River). 

Following the gradual resumption of land over time and the draining of the swamps by Europeans, water now flows into the Cove from a system of drains beneath the city. In 1995, the State Government adopted the name Goongoongup for the railway bridge constructed between the east river frontage and Burswood.

References

Bates, D. Manuscript 365/4/174, Notebook 20, p. 57.

Bates, D. Manuscript 365/4/178, Notebook 20, p. 57a.

Bates, D. Manuscript 365/4/179, Notebook 20, p. 63.

Bates, D. (1909, December 25). Oldest Perth. Western Mail, p. 16. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37401699.

Government of Western Australia (24 July 1995). Media Statement by Richard Court. Retrieved from https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/Court/1995/07/Official-opening-of-Goongoonup-Bridge.aspx.

Hughes-Hallett, D. (2011). Indigenous History of the Swan and Canning Rivers. Perth, WA: Swan River Trust.

Jebb, M. (2011). It was just like a reserve in the city: Aboriginal oral histories of East Perth around the power station, p.38-62. In Layman, L. (Ed) Perth: A history of the East Perth power station. Perth: Black Swan.

Western Australian Museum. (2014). Reimaging Perth’s lost wetlands, Claisebrook: The lost river of Perth. Retrieved from http://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/wetlands/city-development/claisbrook.

Maps

Battye Library. 1D 20 Chains- City of Perth, Map Cabinet 56, Drawer 1.