As Fortress Australia pulls the drawbridge even higher and rolling lockdowns continue to thwart family reunions, holidays and any sense of normalcy for our tourism industry, we ve all become very familiar with our own backyards.
My own world has shrunk to a perimeter of a couple of kilometres this past week or two – or, more specifically, about 6000 steps around Sydney s picturesque Rushcutters Bay harbourside park, my daily walk. As holding pens go, it isn t bad.
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But doing this walk repeatedly for the 18 months that I ve lived here, I realise I know very little about the history of the land I step on. I ve wondered how the bay got its name, but beyond that, I ve often thought about the First Peoples who lived there and what life must have been like for them before European invasion; a bountiful place, jumping with fish, framed by rolling hills covered in bio-diverse bushland and edged with sandstone caves for shelter.