Two Hawkesbury Memorials to First Contact at Windsor and Pitt Town

© Jim Low

Recently I made a return visit to two memorials along the Hawkesbury River (Deerubbin). Both commemorate the first contact between the Darug people of the area and an expeditionary party led by Governor Phillip. Phillip’s party was there to discover whether the waterways they had already named the Nepean and Hawkesbury were in fact the same river.

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The Life and Times of Tom – son of Third Fleet convict John Pye

© Keri Webb

There were just the four of us as we grew up, and the only relatives we knew of were our two grandmothers, one very reserved aunt and a wonderfully eccentric uncle. We had no cousins, no family stories, no gossip, nothing. I was somewhere in my 40’s before curiosity got the better of me … surely there were more? What about grandfathers? Who were they? Why was there no mention of them?

It was then I found myself on a fascinating journey of discovery.

Annie and Ada

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There’s a Fire!

written and sung by Jim Low. See the lyrics

Like many parts of Australia, the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney in New South Wales has experienced the savage bushfires sweeping the country. Homes have been destroyed and businesses and livelihoods were lost when fires impacted on the villages in the north and west of the Mountains in the last days of 2019. Thousands of hectares of precious world heritage National Park have been ravaged and sadly countless numbers of our precious wildlife have perished.

Lower Blue Mountains bushfire aftermath [photo © Jim Low]
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