Where does our name, Waubs Harbour, come from?

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this page contains images and names of deceased people.

Waubs Harbour is the former name of our town, now known as Bicheno. But the story goes much deeper..

The town name, Waubs Harbour, originally honoured local Tasmanian Aboriginal woman, Wauba Debar.

Wauba was stolen as a teenager and became a sealer’s slave. She is said to have rescued two men from a sinking boat in a wild storm after swimming 1km offshore and dragging them one by one. Known as ‘heroine of the sea’, the town was named after her.

Wauba died in the early 1800s with the only known gravestone erected to a Tasmanian Aboriginal person during the 19th century and the only Palawa woman known to have been buried and commemorated by non-Indigenous locals.

While the town name was changed to Bicheno, Wauba’s name and story live on through local street names, the beach, the bay and now our distillery, all named after her.

You can still visit Wauba’s gravestone today, only a few hundred metres from our distillery.

Read more on our story here.