7-457: Milikapiti is a village on the northern coast of Melville Island , Northern Territory , Australia . At the 2011 census , Milikapiti had a population of 447. It is 105 kilometres (65 mi) by air from Darwin . Fly Tiwi airlines fly twice daily to and from Darwin servicing Milikapiti. The flight takes approximately 25 minutes. The day-to-day management of the Milikapiti community is
14-478: A tropical climate . The largest settlement on the island is Milikapiti , with a population of 559. The second largest is Pirlangimpi (Pularumpi, formerly Garden Point), with a population of 440, located 27 km (17 mi) west of Milikapiti, on the west coast of Melville Island. About 30 more people live in five family outstations . As part of the Tiwi Islands , Melville is under the jurisdiction of
21-610: Is an island in the eastern Timor Sea , off the coast of the Northern Territory , Australia . Along with Bathurst Island and nine smaller uninhabited islands, it forms part of the group known as the Tiwi Islands , which are under the jurisdiction of the Northern Territory in association with the Tiwi Land Council as the regional authority. Indigenous people have occupied the area that became
28-492: The British made the first attempt to settle Australia's north coast, at the short-lived Fort Dundas on Melville Island. The settlement lasted from 1824 to 1828. There was a Catholic mission on the island, on which Nova Peris ' mother was raised after being taken from her mother. During World War II the small Snake Bay Patrol manned by local Tiwi people was established as part of the military forces deployed to protect
35-621: The Tiwi Islands for at least 40,000 years. It is said that the first European to sight the island was Abel Tasman in 1644. Explorer Phillip Parker King (son of governor of New South Wales Philip Gidley King ) named it for Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville , first Lord of the Admiralty , who is also commemorated by the much larger Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago . Shortly after this,
42-682: The island against any Japanese landings. The island lies in the eastern Timor Sea, approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Darwin and west of the Cobourg Peninsula in Arnhem Land , in the Northern Territory. At 5,786 square kilometres (2,234 sq mi), it is just outside the 100 largest islands in the world , but is the second biggest island of Australia , after Tasmania . Irrititu Island, 1.60 square kilometres (0.62 sq mi), lies 55 metres (180 ft) south of Melville Island's southern tip. The islands have
49-680: The responsibility of the Tiwi Islands Regional Council. Milikapiti was founded in the 1941 as the Snake Bay government aboriginal settlement. In 1942, aboriginals from Snake Bay captured Australia's first Japanese prisoner of war , Sergeant Hajime Toyoshima , who crash-landed on Melville Island after his plane was damaged while bombing Darwin . The Snake Bay Patrol was also formed from local Indigenous Australians during World War II. Melville Island (Northern Territory) Melville Island ( Tiwi : Yermalner )
#72927