Mriga Williams: A visit to The Gully

Going Places with Ernie Dingo – my current favourite TV series on SBS. Ernie Dingo explores Australia's iconic destinations from the Kakadu National Park to the Great Barrier Reef. He introduces the people who live there in a symbiotic relationship with nature. Ernie is a native Australian who is very attached to his country. He meets people who share his passion with the land. He visits natural treasures and has conservation with locals and explains the tradition of aboriginal people. It is very well done, never over the top, informative and beautiful. Ernie knows a lot of stuff, especially about wildlife, history and plants and he actually connects with people. It is a gentle programme and I thoroughly enjoy the views, conversations and learning about the Aboriginal People and their culture.

The Gully

View of the valley

A couple of week’s ago he was in the Blue Mountains and that was even better as some of the places are familiar. He went to a place called The Gully (to give it it’s Aboriginal name) and this was a place we had not visited. So next week inspired by that programme we found out exactly where it was and made tracks. It is just on the edge of Katoomba. It is called Catalina Park. The traditional owners of this area as the Gundungurra and Darug peoples and they used this area as summer place. It has a water source with wild life and plants for food and medicine – an ideal place to spend hot summers. After white settlement they were forced to settle permanently here. The history states even some white people settled here but it was hard life specially in winter. Houses were made of flattened tins and any thing else they could find. Winter time they used newspaper to keep warm. I have immense respect for them as I would never have survived such conditions.

The Gully Walk

Then, in 1957 some local business men decided to make a race course there to attract tourists and forcibly removed the people. The trauma caused to the land and to the community of people who were living in and around the Gully was profound and still reverberates. The construction of the race course which actually failed to generate the expected tourism devastated the area.

Lake

Duckling

Mother keeping an Eye

On 18 May 2002 it was declared an Aboriginal Place. Today the racecourse track still exists but nature is slowly claiming back the land. There is a lake in a big depression with a path around it and a creek flowing along one side. The creek area is also swampy and the vegetation is low and covers the water to keep it from evaporating in the heat. There is a grassy area with a few benches for sitting and enjoying the peace. A perfect place for a picnic. Now there are plaques in place along ‘The Gully Walk’ around this special place depicting the tragic story of life and times of the people who lived there both Aboriginal and the white. Some of those people and their descendants are still about locally. The traditional owners along with the local council are to look after this place and conserve the area.

Flowering Grass along the race track

Flowers on the grasses

Buds on the grasses

That was the background of the place. The visit was a surprise sprung by my husband. Instead of the usual Saturday morning shopping trip I was expecting he said let’s go see The Gully. We packed some ginger beer and water in the cool bag and stopped to buy sushi for the picnic lunch. We went around the back way, that is to say not by the motorway but via Old Windsor road to Windsor, then Richmond, Kurrajong, Bilpin up Mount Tomah and then Mount Victoria, Blackheath and Katoomba. On the way we stopped to buy some fruit from the shops around the orchards in Bilpin. Some lovely apples and pears were got as well as some local honey.

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We found The Gully pretty easily and parked. Seemed there were only one or two other people there as ours was the third car there. There was quiet and the silence only pleasantly disturbed by the birds chirping in the trees. The feeling was pretty peaceful but reading the plaques about the sad history was poignant. One can almost feel the emotions due to hardships faced by those long gone. And yet there seemed hope as those people were resilient. The walk was a fairly good path with bushed and trees. I saw many which were new to us, so of course photos were taken. The lake in the middle has a pair of ducks with 6 little ducklings floating about enjoying the warm air. After a walk we sat down on the bench beside the lake to have the sushi. But by the time we had eaten one we realised there were small clouds of tiny black flies everywhere and so we decided to move to the car so as not to get added protein in the meal.