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.

Wild strawberries

Wild Strawberries 

Flowers along the creek

Pretty blue flowers 

These look a lot like honeysuckle but of course they are not

Fern in the swamp

Finished lunch and had another little wander outside and looked at the tall trees. Then started our way back.

Beautiful Flowers

A closer look

Three shades of of green with yellow in between

Colours contrasting

Close up of flowers

Spring in My New Home

This winter I had to move houses and leave behind the slightly wild garden that I had.

Garden in the Old House

The joys of that winter garden can be viewed with pictures at ‘Winter in My Garden’. In that home the spring continued to have the nasturtiums, morning glory, roses, daffs and snowdrops but brought in new flowers too like the wisteria and jasmine. The perfume of those two is heady and pervades everywhere. One evening I had forgotten to shut the back door and left just the grill shut and the jasmine scent was in every room in the house. Here are some of the photos of my old garden in spring.

 

Wisteria in the back garden

 

Wisteria over the fence and neighbour's garage

 

Wisteria over the shed in the back garden

 

Jasmine in full bloom

 

Dog Rose Bush

 

Creeper Roses

 

 Old Roses with very sweet perfume

 

 

 

Hardy Thistle that grew strong every year

 

Peruvian Lilies

 

Lavender starts to bloom

 

Gardenias

 

Paperbark tree flowering

 

Flowering Palm

Garden in the New House

My new home has a better established garden and from what I gather was with one family for a few decades. Only recently has it been put out to rent and had one previous tenant besides us. It appears that they were not gardeners for most of the trees and bushes were not pruned. There is affront and back garden. The front garden has palm trees, a gum tree of sorts and an orange tree.

 

 

Front Garden

There is ornamental grass, bougainvillea with orange flowers, a small rose plant that appeared when some of the overgrown grass and weeds were pulled up and one or two other plants which have yet to be identified. I am sure as flowers come out I shall be able to search the net for its identity. These are all in front of veranda. 

Ornamental Grass

 

Orange Tree

 

Last 2 oranges of last year's harvest

 

 

 Orange Blossoms

The back garden is also large with well-established trees – variety of palms, banksia and ferns. Some of them I believe are old species – there seem to be a New Zealand Fern and a couple of Staghorn ferns.

 

Back Garden

 

 Fruiting Palms

 

 

From the neighbour's garden

 

 Banskia and Palms

 

Cones new (above) and old (below)

 

 

Banksia Flowers

 

Sweet perfum in this yet unidentified flower

 

Stand alone fern (need to find its identity)

 

Staghorn Fern on an old tree in the back garden

 

 

 Winter flowers stilll going strong

There is a well planted border running along the drive that proved even more interesting. It started with some flowers coming over from the neighbour’s side. Then there is a big bush of parrot flowers and a long thick stem of a rose that had not been cut back. On cutting down the old stems of parrot flowers we discovered that someone had tried to kill of the rose. We chopped the stem right back and hoped it would revive itself. I am glad to say that after a few weeks I have seen new leaves sprouting from this near dead plant. Next there is a plant with tiny white flowers and spiny leaves that has spread along the fence a little. A number of spider flower trees planted along the border. In between there are a couple of vines which also had not been pruned in a while. 

 

Parrot Flowers and the Rose that got sever pruning after the photo was taken

Last year's final bunch of grapes

 

 Emerging vine leaves

 

 A hard prune works wonders

 

Spider Flowers

 

There is a bush that had few leaves but many tight buds. We were not sure what to make of this one but the buds uncurled into new leaves literally within a couple of days of spring. Then new buds appeared and lovely purple flowers of all shades emerged. Now we could look up the flowers on the net to identify the plant which is from the family of nightshades. 

 

Brunfelsia Australis - nightshade

 

Further along there is a lovely cover of wild strawberries among the weeds and grasses. The strawberries are deep red and lovely to look at but watery and tasteless. There are some weeds with pretty little flowers as well.

 

 First wild Strawberry

Nosiy Miners are full of beans