First up, so sorry this is only a nano cache out in the middle of nowhere. I realise it's a long way to go, but hopefully the living history lesson this location offers makes up for it.
Raukkan is a place out off the side of nowheresville, but is a site of great importance for the Ngarrindjeri people. Raukkan means 'meeting place' in the native toungue and was a place for local family tribes to meet as part of the Ngarrindjeri nation.
One piece of history that touches all Australians though is that this was the birthplace of David Unaipon, then named Point McLeay Mission in 1872. David Unaipon by the way is the man on our $50 bill standing in front of this church.
Unaipon was the fourth of nine children of James and Nymbulda Ngunaitponi. Unaipon began his education at the age of seven at the Point McLeay Mission School and soon became known for his intelligence, with the former secretary of the Aborigines' Friends' Association stating in 1887: "I only wish the majority of white boys were as bright, intelligent, well-instructed and well-mannered, as the little fellow I am now taking charge of."
Unaipon left school at 13 to work as a servant for C.B. Young in Adelaide where Young actively encouraged Unaipon's interest in literature, philosophy, science and music. In 1890, he returned to Point Mcleay where he apprenticed to a bootmaker and was appointed as the mission organist. In the late 1890s he travelled to Adelaide but found that his colour was a bar to employment in his trade and instead took a job as storeman for an Adelaide bootmaker before returning to work as book-keeper in the Point McLeay store.
On 4 January 1902 he married Katherine Carter (née Sumner), a Tangane woman. He was later employed by the Aborigines' Friends' Association as a deputationer, in which role he travelled and preached widely in seeking support for the Point McLeay Mission. Unaipon retired from preaching in 1959 but continued working on his inventions into the 1960s.
Unaipon returned to his birthplace in his old age, where he worked on inventions and attempted to reveal the secret of perpetual motion.
