Daguragu sits on a tributary of the Victoria River, about 551 kilometers south of Darwin and 460 kilometers southwest of Katherine. The Gurindji people know it as Wattie Creek, and the settlement that grew here was built on ground that carries deep spiritual and historical significance. It was to this place that 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants, and their families walked in 1966 after leaving Wave Hill Station, a vast cattle property run by the British-owned Vestey Group. What started as a strike against appalling working conditions became a seven-year campaign for land rights that reshaped Australian law. The community that formed at Daguragu during those years of defiance became permanent, and in 1975 it became the site where the Australian government formally recognized Aboriginal land ownership for the first time. The boundaries of the locality were officially gazetted on 4 April 2007, covering an area of 44.1 square kilometers.

The walk-off route from Wave Hill Station to Daguragu was listed on the Northern Territory Heritage Register on 23 August 2006, and on the Australian National Heritage List on 9 August 2007. Seven additional associated sites are also registered, with five in the nearby Kalkarindji area and two within Daguragu itself. These designations recognize something more than historical curiosity. The walk-off was a catalyst for the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976, the first legislation in Australia allowing Indigenous people to claim freehold title over traditional lands. In 2020, a native title claim lodged four years earlier was successfully settled, granting native title rights to the Gurindji people over 5,000 square kilometers of Wave Hill Station. Each year, more than 1,000 people travel from across Australia to recreate the route that Lingiari and his people walked, tracing the path from the old station to the handover site at a small park near the center of the Daguragu community.

Daguragu's geography is defined by water, both its presence and its sudden, devastating excess. Wattie Creek, the tributary that gives the settlement its older name, feeds into the Victoria River, and the community sits squarely on its floodplain. In February 2001, ex-tropical cyclones Winsome and Wylva sent floodwaters surging through the region, cutting the road between Daguragu and neighboring Kalkarindji and leaving residents completely isolated for weeks. The pattern repeated with devastating force in early 2023, when heavy rains caused the upper Victoria River to exceed major flood levels. Evacuations were ordered for Daguragu, Kalkarindji, Pigeon Hole, and Palumpa. Australian Defence Force aircraft carried evacuees from Kalkarindji to Katherine, then buses transported them to Darwin. Around 700 people were displaced, and it was estimated that residents might not return for a month or longer. In a detail that captured the chaos of the evacuation, 80 to 100 dogs were left behind. Contractors later flew in food to keep the animals alive.

Today Daguragu sits within the Victoria Daly Region, having been amalgamated from its own community government council on 1 July 2008. It is located within the federal Division of Lingiari, named for the man who led the walk-off, and the territorial electoral division of Stuart. The community remains small and remote, situated on Aboriginal land held under perpetual title. Neighboring Kalkarindji, formerly known as Wave Hill Welfare Settlement, serves as the larger service center. The relationship between the two communities is close but distinct. Kalkarindji grew because of government funding and services; Daguragu grew because the Gurindji chose it. That distinction carries weight in a place where the right to choose where you live on your own country was once denied. The Freedom Day Festival, held each August at Kalkarindji to commemorate the walk-off, draws visitors from across the nation and keeps the story of what happened here alive for each new generation.