I love how Aboriginal people use the word 'country'. Hence “Where your country?"
To me the amazing bushland that surrounds Sydney was my childhood, that magical sandstone country, the estuaries and headlands of Broken Bay, holidays at a beachhouse with a dangerous shore break when the swell was up, the house would shake as the waves landed, the beach and lagoon backed onto sandstone bushland with brilliant spring wildflower displays, occasionally we glimpsed the giant red flowers of the Waratah, secluded waterfalls, and shapely old Redgums (Angophora costata) leaning out over little creeks. There was this coastal wonderland but also the mountain country to Sydney’s west - the Blue Mountains were to become significant to me with overnight hikes down to the Bluegum forest of the Grose Valley and reach the Kowmung River from Kanangra Walls. This again is Sandstone Country.
That Sydney sandstone country I explored on cool rainy days when no one was about, I gazed in wonder at Aboriginal engravings - fish, seals, penguins, emus, spirit beings and people. And people! I fell in love with that country, and it dawned upon me that people lived and loved there long before my family, long before 1788.
One Aboriginal site documents a whale feast! Showing great joy and ceremony, figures engraved by artists across a magical tapestry of sandstone. All around Australia’s coastline prior to 1788 a beached whale presented an opportunity for a large gathering of people, a giant feast. In the very early days of the British colonial project Governor Phillip very nearly lost his life when he approached three men at a beached whale near today’s Manly in Sydney Harbour – that’s a story, a colonial frontier story at the very core of Australia’s foundation, the main man - Governor Arthur Phillip with a spear firmly lodged in his chest!
To me the amazing bushland that surrounds Sydney was my childhood, that magical sandstone country, the estuaries and headlands of Broken Bay, holidays at a beachhouse with a dangerous shore break when the swell was up, the house would shake as the waves landed, the beach and lagoon backed onto sandstone bushland with brilliant spring wildflower displays, occasionally we glimpsed the giant red flowers of the Waratah, secluded waterfalls, and shapely old Redgums (Angophora costata) leaning out over little creeks. There was this coastal wonderland but also the mountain country to Sydney’s west - the Blue Mountains were to become significant to me with overnight hikes down to the Bluegum forest of the Grose Valley and reach the Kowmung River from Kanangra Walls. This again is Sandstone Country.
That Sydney sandstone country I explored on cool rainy days when no one was about, I gazed in wonder at Aboriginal engravings - fish, seals, penguins, emus, spirit beings and people. And people! I fell in love with that country, and it dawned upon me that people lived and loved there long before my family, long before 1788.
One Aboriginal site documents a whale feast! Showing great joy and ceremony, figures engraved by artists across a magical tapestry of sandstone. All around Australia’s coastline prior to 1788 a beached whale presented an opportunity for a large gathering of people, a giant feast. In the very early days of the British colonial project Governor Phillip very nearly lost his life when he approached three men at a beached whale near today’s Manly in Sydney Harbour – that’s a story, a colonial frontier story at the very core of Australia’s foundation, the main man - Governor Arthur Phillip with a spear firmly lodged in his chest!