Beowa National Park, Nature reserve in Bega Valley Shire Council, Australia.
Beowa National Park consists of two sections on either side of Twofold Bay and the town of Eden. The smaller northern section is bounded by the Princes Highway and contains the Pinnacles, a multicoloured erosion gully of white sand over rusty red clay. The southern section has a metamorphic Devonian coastline with heavily folded rocks at Red Point, near the unfinished sandstone Boyd Tower.
Established in 1971 as Ben Boyd National Park, it was renamed Beowa in September 2022 after consultations with over 60 Aboriginal and South Sea Islander representatives. The former name honoured Benjamin Boyd, a pastoralist who in 1847 brought 65 Melanesian labourers to Boyd Town, the first blackbirding in Australia. Elders held a ceremony in November 2023 to mark the change.
The name Beowa is the Thaua word for orca. Thaua tradition holds that their ancestors are orcas and that people are reincarnated as orcas when they die. In November 2023, Thaua and South Sea Islander elders held a ceremony together to mark the park's renaming.
The park has two sections on either side of Twofold Bay and Eden. The northern section is bounded on the west by the Princes Highway; the southern section's coastline runs from Red Point near Boyd's Tower. The terrain is fairly flat, the highest point being Haycock Hill at 252 m, and the area is windy, dry and cold.
The park's name Beowa is the Thaua word for orca: the Thaua hold that their ancestors are orcas and that when one of them dies they are reborn as an orca. The name replaced Ben Boyd in September 2022, and on 11 November 2023 Thaua and South Sea Islander elders held a ceremony together to mark the change.
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