The Gully Tradition has it that The Gully in Katoomba was an Aboriginal pre-contact meeting place, an ancient trading place and campsite. Since European settlement, non-Aboriginal peoples joined Aboriginal peoples camping in the area, and The Gully enjoyed a reputation of being a place of peaceful coexistence.
Ethel and Lily Cooper outside their Gully home around 1940. The house, built in 1917, was made by the family out of beaten out kerosene drums and tin sheets. To keep out the wind the inside was lined with hessian and painted with clay with a bark brush. Gum tree saplings were used as supports for the house. Image: courtesy of Lyn Stanger
This natural point of contact became a permanent home and safe haven for many of the Gundungurra and Darug peoples as they made their exodus along the plateaus and out of the river valleys when occupation and finally the flooding of the Megalong Valley took hold of their traditional lands. Joined by various non-Aboriginal families, the community in The Gully lived together for more than 60 years. From 1952–1957 the traditional owners were forcibly removed from The Gully to make way for a racetrack organised by a group of 83 local businessmen who were supported by the local council. 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 today. The Gully was declared an Aboriginal Place on 18 May 2002.
Connection to country In 1896 expert bushman and keeper of traditional knowledge Billy Lynch, made a significant public statement in a newspaper interview. In his testimony, he called attention to the enormous depletion of native animals in his traditional homeland, the Megalong Valley, and tells of a time when ducks, kangaroos, and shags were in large numbers, and the river and ponds were full of fish and eels. ‘Now all is changed. The old animals, birds, and fruits have gone, I suppose it is that time for my people to be replaced with another … and so all the animals, fruits, and birds they depended on vanish.’ The decrease in bush tucker availability would have been substantial throughout the Gundungurra homelands, including the Buragorang, Kanimbla, Megalong and Hartley Valleys. Billy Lynch, also known as Mawiak or Dhual, was a Gundungurra man, born near Bungonia. He lived most of his life in the Megalong Valley, but moved to The Gully in Katoomba for his last years until his death in 1913. View of Burragorang Valley from Jumpup Lookout before the flooding in 1948. This area is now part of Lake Burrangorang, behind Warragamba Dam. Image: State Records NSW
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