Rottnest Island: Black prison to white playground

''Glen Stasiuk, a lecturer and Indigenous researcher at Murdoch University, was just a teenager when he first went camping with his mates on Rottnest Island — Wadjemup — in the 1980s.

He went skin diving, became inexplicably sick and had to be airlifted back to the mainland. He went back a year later and again became very sick. His mum told him it was probably about time he went and spoke to his Noongar nana.

"It's worra," she said. "It's worra, it's menditj. It's a sick place."

Stasiuk had camped at Tentland. For years and years, Tentland was the camping area on Rottnest; the place where families and teenagers pitched their tents, had a few drinks, and threw some sausages on the barbeque...''

by Kirsti Melville for Earshot