The islands of Bathurst and Melville are created at the beginning of time during the dreaming, or Parlingarri.
Before this, there was only darkness and the Earth was flat.
Originally called Yuwurrara Ratuwati (two islands), they are situated very close to each other off the coast of what will become the Northern Territory.
Murtangkala, an old blind woman, rises out of the Earth at Murupianga in the south-east of Melville Island.
She crawls on her knees travelling slowly north, carrying her three children on her back.
As she travels around the land, she makes the tideways of the Clarence and Dundas Straits, dividing land from the mainland.
She was not fond of the size of it, so she made the Aspley Strait, which divided the landmass and created the two islands.
Murtangkala was creating a home for her children.
After she formed the islands, she noticed they were bare, so she decreed they be covered with vegetation and animals to inhabit them.
Her three children now had all the food and shelter they needed.
After completing her work, Murtangkala disappeared.