Nobody loves our beautiful Australian birds more than I do. I photograph them and write about them daily. BUT, this is a plea not to feed the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos here in the Blue Mountains (or anywhere else for that matter). The population of these birds has
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The Ottery arsenic mine, near Emmaville in northern New South Wales, closed as a commercial venture in the 1930s. Arsenic was once used heavily in rural Australia as sheep and cattle dip, weed killer and for curing animal skins. It was said that stock drinking from
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EARLY HISTORY OF BLACKHEATH DUCK POND When the Great Western Railway crossed the Blue Mountains in the 1860s a reliable water source was required for the steam engines. In the village of Blackheath a catchment area to the north and east of Gardners Crescent and below
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A WANDER ALONG WENTWORTH STREET. Since the Great Western Highway from Sydney to the Blue Mountains was upgraded there has been a huge rise in visitor numbers. My home of Blackheath is one of the highest villages, and in autumn Wentworth Street in particular is a joy
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Mrs Eva Hallett arrived in the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba by rail in the autumn of 1916, accompanied by her 16 year old daughter Violet. The pair were from Brunswick in Victoria. For a few days they stayed in a well known boarding house. However, Mrs
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The following story is about my great-uncle Arthur, who I never met and barely knew existed during my childhood. This was despite the fact that my father had been named in his honour. Arthur died when I was fifteen. He was buried in our local cemetery, but
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SILENT WEAPONS OF WAR My research for this story began amid the startling news of the chemical attack on the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, and of chemical weapons being used in Syria. I knew about mustard gas in WWI, because my
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Recently I conducted a little social history survey on how the various towns and villages of the Blue Mountains are perceived. Do they have a distinct character? Well certainly most of them do. Most surprising of all to me was that Glenbrook is considered by many to
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MILES FRANKLIN AND HER BRILLIANT IDEA Many literary figures of the day visited Miles Franklin (1879-1954) at her home in the Sydney suburb of Carlton. The author of the beloved book My Brilliant Career, referred to the house as, ‘My old humpy.’ A delightful custom developed
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The sculptor Tom Bass (1916-2010) was born in Lithgow. Richard Neville (1941-2016) spent much of his later life in the Blue Mountains village of Blackheath. Both men were associated with a work of art regarded as one
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