Bittangabee Bay
History
Bittangabee Bay was significant for the indigenous people of the region, and early European settlement.
Bittangabee Bay was known as 'Pertangerbee' by the original occupants of the area, the Thaua/Thawa/Thauaira people of the Yuin (Murring) nation, who have lived there for over 6,000 years. Naa-chi (now Nadgee Nature Reserve), on the other side of Green Cape to Bittangabee Bay, is the resting-place of their Rainbow Serpent, the most important totem of most Aboriginal people.
Some stone ruins near the shore of the bay date from 1844. In 1977, in his book The Secret Discovery of Australia, Kenneth McIntyre suggested the ruins were of Portuguese origin, and that romantic notion quickly gained credence before it was proven incorrect by historian Michael Pearson.