Last year, one question took us on a 4,500km journey along the east coast of Australia. We knew the journey of Captain James Cook, but we wanted to ask what stories First Nations people tell about the coming of Captain Cook.

So from the tall forests of Gunai-Kurnai country in Gippsland to the now developed shores of Dharawal land around southern Sydney and to the bright calm blue waters of the Kaurareg in the Torres Strait, we listened to the stories of how Cook had misread the land and how he had stepped ashore without the proper protocols. How he had stolen resources and tools. How he had often given inappropriate names to landscapes that already had names and deep stories relating to them.

We heard how different people thought the HMS Endeavour a giant pelican, or a cloud, and the Europeans on board were perhaps the spirts of ancestors returning.

We travelled the same journey that the signal fires and message sticks travelled, all along the east coast, warning different peoples that this strange vessel was approaching their land and sea – and we listened.

Many communities told us: “Yes, we have stories about the British explorer, but what we really want to talk about is truth telling.”

Having a blackfella (Darren) and whitefella (Craig) doing this trip together had its strengths in different ways – being told stories only another blackfella would be told, but having things explained in simple terms that a whitefella could understand. This huge road trip, including encounters with crocodiles and dingy motels, formed the spine of a book, but the book itself is not our story. It is the stories of the 70 or so people who shared their lives, history and perspectives with us.

Sometimes, we found First Nations stories about Cook – or indeed later explorers – did not always agree with what had been written in the journals. But this demonstrated to us how complex multiple interpretations of the past can be. This is particularly so for figures such as Cook, who also exists as a metaphor for colonisation and so features in stories of his harmful visits in many parts of the country that he never visited in written history.

We were smoked and painted or given ceremony with salt water and told how the spirit ancestors would then protect us on the country of the Kabi Kabi of the Glasshouse Mountains, the Butchulla of K’gari, and the Kaurareg. We were shown the shapes of ancestors and creation beings in the rocks and trees and even in the birds that came to watch over us on Yuin country on the south coast of NSW. And we understood how vital Country is to First Nations people by walking it with them. Watching and listening and feeling.

We have been asked a few times: “How did you get so many people to share these stories with you?”

The simple answer is, we just asked them.

But of course it was a bit more complex than that. Whenever we came into a new community, or met with a family, we were often asked which university or government department we worked for. And when we explained we were largely doing this project on our own, were not funded by public money and did not want to take any ownership of the stories told to us, and that whoever shared their stories would get the final say on how they were told in the book – doors opened.

There were so many stories that people wanted more Australians to know; stories that have not often been included in our histories.

Of course, not everybody wanted to talk to us and some bluntly told us to fuck off.

There is a lot of anger in some places, and there is a lot of tolerance and forgiveness in others. No one story from one individual in one community can represent another person’s experience.

Our journey and the book we wrote only scratches the surface of the possible stories that could be told, but we hope it opens the door for more such stories to be shared more widely. In the classroom. In the media. In communities.

We wish it were possible for more Australians to make journeys such as this, experiencing First Nations lives and culture in a deep way that not only helps them better understand this vast and magnificent country they live in, but also better understand First Nations people. To know the stories that have for too long been missing from our official history. One of the purposes of our journey was to fill in those blanks in our own minds – but we were perhaps unprepared for the emotive depth of personal stories that filled those blanks.

It is an understatement to say that the journey was life changing – and we hope the book enables readers to share a little of what we experienced.

The final words of the book were given to us by Kaurareg cultural historian and a rightful owner, Waubin Richard Aken, in the Torres Strait. When asked what he felt whitefellas in Australia most needed to know, he said, “The truth. Coming from our people. Tell them the truth, that they don’t be afraid of the truth … Once the country recognises the truth, it will heal you wherever you are.”

Warra Warra Wai: How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook, and what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People by Darren Rix and Craig Cormick is published by Simon & Schuster.