Salt-crusted dirt crunches under his boots as Anzac Frank treks across the mud flats stretching out towards the blue waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
The Indigenous ranger is headed towards a stream that's become a source of deep anxiety for the traditional owners in the western Cape York community of Kowanyama.
"It's turned into a river now, not a little creek," Mr Frank says.
"We used to just drive across here with a little two-wheel drive. In years to come I reckon this is going to turn into a big creek."
It's a worrying sign, which Mr Frank and other Indigenous rangers in this part of Cape York believe is evidence of climate change.
A crisis of food and culture
Former ranger John Clark, who has lived in Kowanyama most of his adult life, says the community has always relied on bush tucker and hunting for food.
"Come round about September [or] early October, we generally go out into the dried-up swamps and put a bait net in for all the yabbies," he says.
"But now we can't do that because every waterhole [is changing], since the climate's changing the weather pattern — the crocs are moving around."
While some watercourses are running full for longer, Mr Clark says others are drying up.
Sitting in a dried section of Magnificent Creek, which runs alongside the town, he explains this would have been under water in previous decades.
"I'd say in another 50 years' time this water is never going to be here," he says.
'Powerful' eyes on the land
The Gulf of Carpentaria has had some of the highest yearly sea-level rises in Australia at about 8 millimetres a year, according to a 2022 State of the Climate report from the Bureau of Meteorology.
Steve Turton, from Central Queensland University, says environmental and climate observations from rangers and elders on country provide vital information for researchers.
"That's more powerful actually than any kind of Western science can ever provide," Professor Turton says.
"If they're seeing changes that are detrimental to both nature and culture, then it's critically important that there is investment in both research and on country stewardship to make sure that these areas are able to survive climate change."
Professor Turton, and adjunct professor in environmental geography who has published numerous scientific reports and a textbook on climate change, says rising sea levels create a greater risk of inundation for coastal areas.
He says the western Cape York region has recorded above-average rainfall for the past 20 years, which has impacted on the seasonal flow of river systems.
"Normally, rivers that are ephemeral or seasonal will flow for a longer season and have a shorter season with no flow or low flow," he says.
"These kinds of events are going to become more common through this region, simply because there's going to be a higher stand of water.
"It can go inland further when the conditions are suitable.
"You'd expect areas that were freshwater systems to begin to transition to be brackish and eventually become saltwater systems."
Restricted access to burial site
Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Council Mayor Robbie Sands says climate change is "real and happening in Kowanyama".
He said other watercourses in the region, which people could once cross have now become so deep, or waterlogged, they're impossible to pass.
One creek near the town is rising perilously close to a sacred site, he says.
"Some of our old people are buried there from way back before white man came to Kowanyama," Cr Sands says.
"It's harder to access and protect those areas as well, so it is impacting our culture."
Cr Sands says the duration of seasons has also changed, affecting locals' day-to-day lives and diet.
"Wet season is starting now in January, as opposed to November … dry seasons are becoming drier, because the wet seasons are shorter," he says.
Cr Sands, a First Nations man originally from the east coast, says elders from the Kowanyama area have reported similar observations.
"They do say that the country is changing, the seasons are changing, and access to our bush tucker and hunting and gathering practices is changing as well," he says.
As locals watch the changes, elders like Priscilla Major are worried.
"This river here [Topsy Creek], we fish off it … although this river has lots of things which are Dreamtime totems too in the water there," she says.
Mr Frank says locals used to drive across the mud flats but rising water has made it difficult, and at times impossible, to access fishing spots and other cultural areas, including burial sites.
"It's going to damage the sacred sites … I don't know what's going to happen with them," Mr Frank says.
"It's a piece of culture that's gone then."
He says the whole community used to come down to the salt flats but that's not possible, even in the dry, anymore.
"It wasn't like this 10 years ago. I can see the changes here, now," Mr Frank says.
