During the Pleistocene epoch Australia and New Guinea have been land-linked and separated by water a number of times. During the ice ages with their low sea levels, Cape York Peninsula was a low-lying land bridge. Another link existed between Arnhem Land and New Guinea, at times making a big freshwater lake, Lake Carpentaria, in the centre of what is now the Gulf of Carpentaria. In this way, Australia and New Guinea were joined until the shallow Torres Strait was last flooded around 8,000 years ago.