This large healthy mature native Eucalypt has just been chainsawed to death today.   We could hear the noise of multiple chainsaws ripping reverberated around the neighbourhood from early this morning.

This tree grew on private residential land within The Gully Catchment on a large double block on the top of a prominent natural spur overlooking the northern part of The Gully not far from Horrie Gates’ old Catalina Dam.   

The Gully is a valued small natural valley situated on the western edge of the township of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.

The particular site is zoned by local Blue Mountains Council as ‘Heritage’ and ‘Environmental Land’ under current Local Environmental Plan 2015.  It is also a very old settlement area of the Blue Mountains dating back to 1876.  In fact, it forms part of the oldest housing area of the Blue Mountains Local Government Area (LGA) and traditionally known as ‘North’s Estate’.

It was named after the first land Torrens Title owner John Britty North (1831-1917), an English immigrant during British colonial times who owned most of the immediate area and became a coal shale miner and then property developer there.

 

Recognition of this colonial heritage is such that this North Estate precinct has been especially zoned by council as ‘K171 – Norths Estate Conservation Area‘ under council’s LEP 2015. 

Was Council permission sought?     It appears from a call to Council, that it knew nothing about the owner’s plan to kill this significant native tree in this heritage and conservation precinct, as confirmed by CSR525105.   Council used to have a Significant Tree Register to protect identified significant trees within its LGA.  It no longer does.

So why kill it?  It was a slight 5 degree lean but in the direction of the prevailing wind.  Was it some perceived fear that in many years to come it might fall on the house?  Was it a prejudiced fear of gum trees?  For fire wood?  

This native tree was probably over 100 years old, perhaps dating back to the 19th Century and was the most prominent specimen in the immediate area.

 

Yet this majestic native tree was in good health and vigour, and showed no signs of decay.

 

Was any prior assessment by professionally qualified arborist conducted on the tree?  

We recall back in 2014 with regards to saving the 300+ year old Eucalyptus oreades tree that local conservationists had dubbed ‘ATLAS’, that The Habitat Advocate contracted renown expert arborist (the late) Mr Fred Janes, to conduct a professional arborist appraisal and report on the relative health of ATLAS.   This was sought because a property developer of the adjoining land wanted the tree killed by chainsaw so that he could selfishly have an overflow car park for the benefit clients of his proposed industrial estate complex.  So he had secured a dodgy arborist, only licensed to use a chainsaw.   Where as Mr Jane’s report found the tree to be in good health and vigour, and Council agreed. 

SAVE ATLAS Campaign – Part 1

 

It’s a sad loss. 

We have observed over time since our own arrival in this special place in 2001, that whilst in The Gully’s ‘Aboriginal Place’ dissociated land parcels of native bush, the native trees within are culturally sacrosanct, as they should be; yet around the immediately periphery of adjoining private lands, housing development and deforestation continues incrementally.  It is death by a thousand cuts transforming the natural valley into an artificial urban landscape. 

This is why council insists on being called Blue Mountains City Council in its urbane dreams within a world heritage area.  

 

 

Live vegetation is waste management JJ Richards?

Above is our consultant’s tree branch from his street verge taken out by Blue Mountains {city} Council outsourced waste management truck to JJ Richards meatheads last Thursday 16th February 2023.  

We felt Council might like to get out of its ivory tower high rise offices isolated from ratepayers and find out what is actually going on in its so-called city within a disappearing World Heritage Area.  So this is our memento to Council and its hypocritical ‘planetary health’ sentiment.

Whilst working from home at the time we heard the recycle truck outside doing it rounds in the street and then snap!   So he went out to inspect.

 

 

 

So as a resident ratepayer, what does one do? 

Pick up the pieces, saw off the hacked tree limb, clear the footpath.  It wasn’t even green bin collection, as in green waste.

 

Here’s the culprit driver we caught taking off heading back to Council base minutes later.

 

Quite a noisy and distinctive vehicle in our short quiet street, so we went outside and watched it depart.

 

This particular day was ‘yellow lid bin’ recycled waste removal day.  Council gets recycled waste collected fortnightly.   

Our mutually courteous arrangement with the waste removal drivers has worked just fine for many years without issue.   No yellow lid bins were outside our premises at the time of removal.  They never are, because we position all bins on the other side of our street where there are no verge trees, so that the driver gets a clear run.  It’s the same for the weekly garbage collection (red lid bins) and also for the garden green organic waste (green lid bins). 

But J.J. Richards in November 2022 must have employed a new driver to do a run that included our street.  This when the garbage started.  We noted this because the driver turned up around lunch time instead off the normal mid-morning, taking a different route only to back track many times.  He seemed lost.  Likely no handover training was provided by J.J. Richards from their older experienced bloke to this malicious meathead.   So what happened to the older experienced bloke we’d had for two decades?

And on his first round this malicious meathead hit the curb at the end of our street, failing to judge the sharp corner.   

 

Two weeks after the curb was run over by JJ Richards, and reported and the concrete stormwater cover re-positioned, the same driver hit the same curb and stormwater cover again.  Slow learner!

Unbelievable!

Council was informed a second time but chose to ignore the Customer Service Request (CSR) complaint and simply closed the CSR we suspect to exaggerate its statistics; not the first time.    How about fixing our footpath before a local pedestrian coming home in the dark breaks their foot.

 

We reported this stormwater drain cover damage by the truck to Blue Mountains {city} Council twice since November 2022.  The initial Customer Service Request (CSR) reference number was  441245.  Council fixed it the first time, but next month the same trucker collected it again.   The damage was again reported , yet three months later it remained damaged and dangerous for pedestrians, especially at night.

Clearly the driver of the J.J. Richards waste truck lacks the skills to know that tight corners require a wider margin to allow the rear wheels with a smaller turning circle to miss the inside curb.  (This author has held a heavy combination ‘HC’ semi license since the 1980’s).

In disbelief, we delivered our severed tree limb to Blue Mountains {city} Council’s reception to pass on to its Waste Management department with a please explain.

 

 

Council’s Waste services did not respond to our complaint until 3rd March 2023, thus:

 

“I’m writing in regards to your phone call lodging a CSR on 16 February and your follow up email providing photos of the damaged branch out the front of your property.

We are sorry that the tree has been damaged in this way.  We have asked JJ’s to review the footage.  From lifting the bin at a previous property and moving toward the bin and the next property, the truck did go under the overhanging tree.  The footage shows that a very small branch dropped behind the truck, so the driver wasn’t aware of the damaged branch shown in your photos.  The driver will be asked to take particular care in the future.”

(Rebecca) Manager, Resource Recovery & Waste Services, Blue Mountains Council.

 

“Very small branch”?   Garbage!  It was 2 metres long and 5 cm thick.  Our overhand is 2.7 metres about the road, ideal for shade for cars given that there is precious little shade around our area.  But is is not suited to bulldozing truck incompetent meatheads!   The JJ Richards truck cabin roof front will surely have a dent atop.

So Council management, enjoy our dead shrub!   Have J.J Richards waste collect it. 

 

 

Some bloke at JJ Richards (Aaron) rang us to say JJ Richard’s were inspecting their recycle truck’s dashcams.   We never got that call back from Aaron. 

 

Then a week later, JJ Richards (green lid) waste truck ran over the same corner curb.  The driver is either a meathead else serial offender employed by JJ Richards and Sons Pty Ltd, probably with dodgy quals and no reference checks.  

Council’s Waste Manager Rebeccas claims a Council maintenance team “s promptly actioned” the stormwater drain cover damage and after subsequent damage would “rectify the safety hazard the damaged stormwater covers pose”.  However, Council maintenance team did nothing of the sort.   On Sunday 12^th March I chatted with a nearby neighbour about this saga, and he told me he’s heard and seen truck hit the curb in question, and that he has taken it upon himself to reposition the concrete stormwater three times. 

Yet Rebecca reckons her maintenance crew fixed the three damage episodes?  She’s in desk-bound Lalaland.

 

 

Seriously, this JJ Richards serial malicious meathead trucker off the road, before a local pedestrian trips or gets seriously injured!  Where else is he causing streetscape havoc vandalism?

 

JJ Richards ‘Total Waste Management‘ means…?  

 

… red lid bins, indeed any lid coloured bins, curbs, stormwater drain lids, verges, trees, parked cars, other trucks, buildings, pedestrians, councillors…the planet. 

JJ Richards TOTAL WASTE MANAGEMENT !

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Council’s waste manager in denial and ignoring our requests concerning this matter, we’ve tried engaging directly with JJ Richards Contract manager Aaron Hilliard.  This is the same person who didn’t get back to us once he watched his culprit driver’s dashcam footage running into our verge tree.

On 16th March 2023 it went like this:

“Hello Aaron,  as requested, I forward you my correspondence with Blue Mountains Council since November 2022 complaining about the damage in my street (and then verge) by this same JJ Richards Driver).  It includes my photo records.  Please read these, and understand that all I want is for this ongoing damage to stop, and then please investigate and sort this ASAP and  let me know the outcome.  Much appreciated. “ 

Aaron’s reply:

“I spoke to Rebecca (Manager, Resource Recovery & Waste Services, Blue Mountains Council) yesterday again about the issues you have raised.  Rebecca has now advised that all correspondence should go through Council for their follow up.  Please contact Council with any further issues you experience with the waste, recycling & garden organics services.  Thank you. Aaron”

Our response:

“It may be inconvenient to both JJ Richards and Council, but the malicious damage cause by JJ Richards as waste contractor to Blue Mountains Council it is more inconvenient to me.  I shall continue to contact both JJ Richards and Council until this problem is properly resolved. Ignoring our complaint will only prologue the matter and escalate it into politics and the media, if that is what you both want.”

 

On 28th March we phone JJ Richards again trying to track down Aaron’s boss at Glendenning.   We’re told Aaron was on the tools  at the time (back on the road driving a  JJ truck) to fill in for JJ drivers taking sickies.   Reception puts us through to ‘Ray’, who comes across as older than Aaron and we suspect Rat report to Aaron not vice versa.  Ray says he knows nothing, so we email him Ray about the saga, asking all we just want this JJ Richards street damage and harassment to us to end.   

No replies yet from Ray, not unsurprisingly.   So, we’ll keep moving up the JJ Richards pecking order (garbage trail). 

 

INCIDENT 5:

Gets worse…Tuesday 28th March at 7:30am, a JJ Richards recycle truck pulls up outside our home and puts his reversing alert on for up to 10 minutes, but without actually reversing.

Tuesday’s not a scheduled waste collection day nor was there any booked curbside household waste to collect anywhere in our small street.

The loud beeping noise woke us up, so I go outside into the street and the driver suddenly took off.  Harassment or what?

I shall get his rego next time on video.  He’s on notice for such harassment.   

Council’s waster manager Rebecca claimed the driver was looking for an empty a missed recycle bin from the Thursday prior after the owner complained.  Our street of all of 100 metres in length, so not exactly difficulty to find the only bin put out for collection in the street.  

It remains full.  Unbelievable.  We have a meathead  on our hands and Council and JJ Richards are in collaborative denial. 

Has this individual had background police checks before he started working at JJ Richards?  Has he got mental health issues or a criminal history such as a an AVO perhaps?

I saw him on his run last Thursday, observing he is a younger male perhaps in his 30s with medium length blonde dreadlock hair. 

The saga continues…

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We recall a previous trucking meathead back on 2 August 2019 who crashed his Metromix Concrete mixer truck into a crash barrier nearby.

 

 

 

Oddly, Council gave Metromix the concrete contract, but not to properly replace the damaged barrier, but to construct new concrete curbing.  Well, it’s one way to get a council contract, s’pose.  Two years later though in August 2021.  The verge is full of weeds.  Welcome to The Gully.

 

 

 

We do monitor the ongoing damage in The Gully in Katoomba, a gazetted heritage place since 2002, and our surrounding historical North’s Estate streetscape dating back to 1876 and heritage listed.  We’ve been based here since 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

We at The Habitat Advocate have lived in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of Australia since 2001.  

Situated on the western fringe of Katoomba, we continue to be closely connected with a small creek valley just below us observed outside our windows, referred to as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, or by former residents simply as ‘The Gully’.  

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley is situated within what we term ‘The Gully Water Catchment’.  It is geographically less that 50 metres away from us, uphill on a spur from the Carrington.  We observe the amphitheatre-shaped natural valley below and hear it within earshot and we greatly respect where we live and appreciate this area’s complex heritage. 

In our mind, the historical and ancestral story of The Gully is a microcosm of the greater story of Australia’s colonial settlement saga.  Whilst Australia’s colonial impost saga started from 1788 at Botany Bay then shifted to a fresh water source at Sydney Cove, The Gully’s saga started from 1815 when the Cox’s Road was driven through and then came land acquisition, deforestation, housing subdivision followed by coal mining by robber baron John Britty North who set the wrath from 1883.

The stories of the past of those before us and those current are vital and so to prevent a repeat of history, deserved to be told warts and all out there and everywhere; not greenwashed by mealy-mouthed government bureaucracy after closed door deals, eating canapes at PC publicity events.  Raw on-ground truth must hold jurisdiction over political papered propaganda for any decent society. 

 

 

We are connected to this creek valley environmentally and have cared for its ecology and monitored various threats to it for now two decades.   As a former member of local resident group activist group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. between 2002-2007 we participated in voluntary Bushcare weeding and rehabilitation and in Streamwatch water quality monitoring.  

We are connected politically.  We have lobbied the land manager/custodian, Blue Mountains {city} Council since 2001 to secure this creek valley’s ecological protection and rehabilitation).   

We are connected socially (we hold a close friendship with many local residents who live around the hilltop fringes surrounding this small creek valley.   

We are connected personally (we hear and see the going on down there daily and we walk around it weekly).   

We are connected historically having researched those who came before us, some who once lived down in this creek valley.  We have researched local history of the area back to 1813).   

 

Essentially, we think we know this small creek valley over the past 21 years quite intimately.  

We respect where we live here, regarding this natural creek valley as the environs of our neighourhood; and as an extension of our home environment.   To us and to many local residents, this is a beautiful natural creek valley; quiet, peaceful and with a sense of a peaceful welcoming sacred spirit.   Our friendship with local elders (some of whom have since passed away) as well as our readings of historical research, confirm this.  Since arriving here to call this place home in 2001, our family feels strongly connected to The Gully, like many of our neighbours.

But although we consider The Gully to now be our home after two decades, we are not so family or spiritually connected to The Gully as those who have come before us, who were here long before us but forcibly evicted by authorities.  It was simply because they were too poor to protest and fight against powerful and wealthy outsiders who usurped The Gully for their own selfish ends.  

The family and spiritual connection to The Gully by those who have come before us, extend back generations.  Indeed, their stories and archaeological evidence shows back 14,000 years to this special place.  We respect that.

Since various others refer to this creek valley and its many portions by other titles, and given various re-namings by local council over the years, for clarity we herein begin by explaining the various namings and their meanings as follows:

In summary, the portions of land of The Gully Water Catchment, including historically, and their relative sizes are:

1. The Gully Water Catchment  (290 hectares/2.9 km²)
2. The Gully (northern section pre-1957) (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
3. Katoomba Falls Creek Valley (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
4. Upper Kedumba River Valley (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
5. McRaes Paddock  (17 hectares/0.17 km²)
6. Catalina (amusement) Park (2 hectares/0.2 km²)
7. Catalina Park (motor) Raceway (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
8. Frank Walford Park (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
9. Katoomba Park and Katoomba Park Extension (8 hectares/0.8 km²)
10. Katoomba Falls Reserve – Cascades Section (8 hectares/0.8 km²)
11. Selby Street Reserve (8 hectares/0.8 km²)
12. Katoomba Golf Course (30 hectares/0.3 km²)
13. Built Up Residential Katoomba (within The Gully Water Catchment) (158 hectares/1.58km²)
14. 21 Stuarts Road (single private land holding – a mixture of pasture and intact sedge swamp (12 hectares/0.12 km²)
15. The Gully – Aboriginal Place version 2004 Plan (66 hectares/0.66 km²)
16. The Gully – Aboriginal Place‘ version 2021 Plan (73 hectares/0.73 km²)
17. Gargaree‘ (a Gundungurra word for gully) (73 hectares/0.73 km²)

 

Why so many place-descriptive names for one little sub-catchment?   Well, ask Blue Mountains {city} Council, since these place names and their renaming are of Council’s doing.  

We notably observe that Council’s land area for ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ in 2021 has expanded from 65.52 hectares since its 2004 Plan to 73 hectares in 2021.  Why so?  Has a miscalculation/estimate error occurred using different metric methods or software?   “65.52 hectares” in its 2004 Plan is pretty darn accurate since down to 0.02 hectares covers an area of just 200m², or 14m x 14m. 

Seriously, is the public who have poor analytical/mathematical interests simply being conned by Council’s guesswork data?

 

The Gully Plan of 2004 not acted upon by Council

These multiple place names for this creek valley have locally ‘evolved’ over decades to various portions by vested interests.  This is confusing to outsiders to comprehend what is what.    So from our local knowledge gained from living here for the past 20-odd years and from our passionate interest in researching to better understanding this place, we elaborate.

 

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The Gully Water Catchment

 

Given the field focus of The Habitat Advocate is ecology, for ecological clarity we shall herein refer to the entire valley catchment area with a hybrid title of ‘The Gully Water Catchment‘.  We include the term ‘gully’ as a conciliatory recognition and respect to the former residents who used this term affectionately when they lived here before the racetrack land usurpation* of The Gully.

[Ed: *Usurpation is the act of taking somebody’s position and/or power without having the right to do this.  Land Usurpation is the appropriation of land from the previous or lawful owner].

Ecologically, this creek valley is most importantly fundamentally a hydrological environmental system.  The natural geography of this creek valley is characterised as an upper course riverscape, which takes the form of a south-facing naturally steep bushland amphitheatre shape in the northern portion of this valley.  The valley lies about a thousands metres above sea level.  

This area is defined as the entire water catchment area of  290 hectares/2.9 km².   The water catchment’s geographical boundaries comprise the Cox’s Watershed (Bathurst Road) to the north, Valley Road to the Jamison clifftop escarpment to the west, a meandering watershed though central Katoomba to the east and Katoomba Falls to the south.

 

Rainwater that becomes surface water and ground water, flows from a small perennial waterfall and a number of springs which flow into several watercourses that confluence into the central creek with a native sedge swampland riparian zone leading to and surrounding the creek.   The creek flows downstream southward over Katoomba Cascades and plunges over Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River about 300 metres below in the magnificent Jamison Valley of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.  Kedumba River then flows and meanders southward confluencing into the flooded Cox’s River and the artificial Lake Burragorang (constructed 1948-1960) which has since been Sydney’s primary drinking water supply.  

This all means that indeed the relatively small creek valley on the western fringe of Katoomba forms part of an official drinking water catchment.  But it is not just for the benefit of a distant growing urban Greater Sydney metropolis. 

The Gully Water Catchment in its own right serves as a vital small natural ecosystem to sustain remnant locally native flora and fauna including aquatic macroinvertebrates throughout its creek riparian zone.  This was despite the catchment’s history of land management abuse and neglect by local council and self-interested outsiders. 

This author for five years between 2003 and 2007, as a former volunteer member of local community group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Bushcare Group (‘The Friends’ for short) undertook regular water quality monitoring and testing of three test sites of this creek under the instruction and resourcing the then Sydney Catchment Authority’s Streamwatch Programme. 

 

Our group proudly won five awards over this time for our efforts including this one below in 2005.   Our winning award was a recognition by the Sydney Catchment Authority for our specific work in monitoring, testing, investigating and reporting incidents of sewer overflow pollution of the creek from Sydney Water’s sewer network in the valley.   

 

Fresh flowing water has always been an integral value of this small creek valley.  It is not just that it is part of the Kedumba River Water Catchment that supplies drinking water to Sydney, but vital to restoring the local riparian ecology. 

At the time our volunteer charity group The Friends subsequently invested this $2000 into a fixed interest account, since its operational expenses continued to be funded by our street stalls in Katoomba Street.  Ultimately, upon the sad passing of the founder and chairperson of The Friends on 26th May 2016, The Friends elected to formally wind up the incorporated organisation.  These funds along with the balance of the operational bank account were then gifted to the Blue Mountains Historical Society as part of a successful handover of The Friends archival records spanning 27 years. 

Over two centuries, government in NSW (both  state and local) continually re-zoned and divided up The Gully Water Catchment from being a pristine natural water catchment into various ‘sold out’ portions, thus.

• The New South Wales colonial government’s land usurpation of Aboriginal country west of Sydney for colonial settlement since the British colonial explorers’ crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 
• Government sales of the Blue Mountains plateau lands around what is now Katoomba and Leura (including this creek valley) to various colonial settlers who subsequently deforested the land for timber, cattle and horse grazing and for town building and associated housing subdivision
• The acquisition of this creek valley and surrounding land by one John Britty North [1831-1917] in the 1870s for subsequent deforestation, housing subdivision and then for coal mining exploitation to the south
• John Britty North’s Katoomba Coal Mine’s coal shale tramway corridor (3 metres wide along the western ridge of the valley since the 1870s from the Jamison Valley escarpment (where Scenic World is located) to a rail loading platform called North’s Siding near the corner of Valley Road and Bathurst Road (next to what locals call ‘Shell Corner’ – where the Shell servicestation used to be  situated, currently Bohman Automotive repairs.)
• Incremental sales of bushland by Council for housing subdivisions along with urban streets over many years since the 1880s
• Catalina Park amusement park and lake [1946-1951]
• Council’s subsequent purchase of the land of Catalina Park in 1952
• Catalina Park motor racing circuit leased by Council to the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers Club Ltd [1957-1971]
• Council’s aquatic centre constructed in Katoomba Falls Creek valley in the 1980s
• Two Council cricket ovals at Katoomba Reserve
• Katoomba Golf Course [1911-2013]
• Council’s rezoning and subdivision approval of ‘The Escarpments’ townhouses on a portion of the Katoomba Golf Course site  (2000 – current)
• Council’s caravan park (currently called ‘Katoomba Falls Tourist Park’)
• The NSW Government’s Rural Fire Service’s South Katoomba RFB Station with subsequent access roads
• The NSW Government’s Rural Fire Service’s Bushfire Control Centre built near the aquatic centre below Mission Street
• As a secret waste dump for hundreds of tonnes of sand and rock on top of the swamp extracted from the RTA’s Great Western Highway cutting between Blackheath and Mount Victoria 
• The areas previously gazetted by Council as Frank Walford Park, Mc Rae’s Paddock, Selby Street Reserve and Katoomba Falls Reserve have in piecemeal been handed over to Gundungurra (Aboriginal)-only custodianship as ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ in 2002
• Council’s proposed ‘Centre for Planetary Health’ to occupy the defunct golf course clubhouse from 2022

This list is not complete.

The remnant natural bushland portions of The Gully Water Catchment continue to be steadily sold off periodically by Council (along with many other  bushland blocks owned by Council in order it seems to bankroll Council’s annual operations and councillors’ capital works indulgences – external consultants, legal fees, media public relations, over-paid executive management, and unnecessary capital works projects. 

 

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The Gully

‘The Gully’ is the old affectionate name given to this creek valley above Katoomba Falls and in particular to the northern portion by its former residents (numbering two or three dozen or so) who lived there for decades from the early 19th Century first contact with British colonial settlers.  This was until the last residents were forcibly removed from the gully 1957-1959 by Council and their homes demolished by contracted bulldozer. 

“By May 1959, the shacks of the last Gully residents had been all demolished to make way for the Catalina Racing Circuit which officially opened in 1961. “

– John Merriman, Blue Mountains historian.

 

Those residents comprised both locally Aboriginal clan families, comprising predominantly people of Gundungurra and Darug ancestry as well as non-Aboriginal, many of whom had inter-married.  It had been a tight-knit self-sufficient yet quite poor community refuge of displaced persons, subsisting in bushland typically in meagre dirt-floor shacks with no utilities (i.e. no connected running water, electricity, gas, plumbing, phonelines or streets). 

It had been simple bush living refuge of poor folk subsisting on the fringe of Katoomba of both regional Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal and a intermarried mix of both. Many had been previously displaced in 1948 from their Burragorang Valley bush homes when the NSW government evicted them to flood the valley to create a Sydney’s Warragamba Dam reservoir.  The Gully was a close-knit community. 

It holds archaeological evidence thanks to field research separately by Dianne Johnson, Ph.D (2001) and Alan Lance (2005) which confirm ancient Aboriginal archaeological sites within the gully extending to ancient origins, extending back as far as 12000 years.

 

But The Gully people must have had sewage since around 1907 when then Katoomba Municipal Council had trenched up the valley for sewage to flow to the ‘Leura Filter Beds’ via the escarpment around Katoomba Falls and situated down in the Jamison Valley.  Remnants of the long disused iron sewer pipe infrastructure may still be seen along on the hiking track between Katoomba Kiosk and the Furber Steps access down into the Jamison Valley.

Before colonial settlement, The Gully had been a traditional ‘summer camp’ location used by regional Aboriginal peoples for meeting and ceremonial place of traditional Aboriginal peoples of the Gundungurra, Darug, Wonnarua, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal of the greater Blue Mountains region and adjoining lands.  This was usually is the warmer times of year and this connection to country.   Particularly appealing to these traditional people was the constant and reliable supply of fresh flowing spring water and the abundance of bush tacker and wildlife to sustain a small community.

 

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Katoomba Falls Creek Valley

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was long the gazetted name of this creek valley by local council for decades throughout the 20th Century.  The following map shows some identified sub-portions of the creek valley juxtaposed within the black dotted line of the overall water catchment, flowing to Katoomba Falls to the south.

 

It was affectionately referred to simply as ‘The Valley’ by surrounding residents’ grassroots environmental group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (The Friends) which functioned to respect and rehabilitate its natural values and ecology as informal ecological custodians and to challenge the many damaging threats to it by various vested outside interests between the years 1989 and 2016; some 27 years.

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was the historical name of the full length of this creek valley water catchment up until 1995.  

The following recent YouTube video shows the downstream water emanating from this creek valley flowing over Katoomba Cascades and then down Katoomba Falls.

 

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Upper Kedumba River Valley

In 1995 Blue Mountains {city} Council unilaterally decided to rename Katoomba Falls Creek Valley as ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘ without local community consultation.   One presumes that Council’s renaming logic was because this the central creek flows of this upland valley flows to Katoomba Cascades and over to Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River more than 300 metres down in the Jamison Valley below, so it seems that some bureaucrat in Council wanted to continue the name to the small creek above the falls.   

The renaming suggests Council’s recognition of this upland creek valley as being part of the water catchment area of the Kedumba River below Katoomba Falls and through the lower Jamison Valley.  One suspects that given Council’s decades of fighting against the wises of local community environmental activist group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Inc. and that the renaming of the creek valley was a snide attempt by Council to undermine the validity of this group. 

Compare the following two documents below.   The second shows the original name crossed out by Council.  

 

 

 

Council’s 1996 plan of management was pretty much a copy of Fred Bell’s 1993 plan of management for The Friends.  Both plans considered the entire water catchment and recommended similar  environmental restorative actions be undertaken.  It didn’t happen.  

As a former member of The Friends, this author recalls that when the group learned of the renaming on Council’s 1996 plan of management title, the group chose not to change their name.  Affectionately the members just referred to the entire water catchment simply as ‘The Valley’ for short anyway.  

What is so hypocritical of Council’s recognition of this upland creek valley as forming the upper reaches of the water catchment area of the Kedumba River, is that over the decades both state and local government have repeatedly divided up the contiguous water flowing nature of this creek valley in various ways.  This includes rezoning various portions of the land from being gazetted as ‘community land’ to being ‘operational land’ so it could be re-purposed and exploited.  This dates from the colonial 1870s and continues with Council’s most recent culturally exclusive plan of management of 2021.

Land use development examples include:

• James Henry Neale’s subdivision and lobbying from the 1870s to build what has become Katoomba township 
• John Britty North’s adjoining subdivision and joint lobbying for housing and coal shale mining access from 1883
• Various housing subdivision approvals by Council since
• Horace Gates Catalina (amusement) Park and dam construction 1946-1951
• Council’s sewer network trenching throughout The Gully to facilitate further housing subdivision
• Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Motor Racing Club Limited’s motor racing circuit [1957-1971]
• Two Council cricket ovals
• Council’s aquatic centre – which keeps getting bigger
• A bushfire brigade building, hardstand and two access roads 
• Hundreds of tonnes of sand and rock dumped from a highway development (at Soldiers Pinch) on The Gully’s swampland by the RTA in 2001 (with Council approval)
• Sydney Water’s dumping of hundreds of tonnes of sewer fill in The Gully in 2005
• Scenic World’s Skyway development in a secret land swap deal between the Parks Service and Council [2006] 
• Sydney Water’s sewer amplification trenching [2007-2008] to facilitate further housing subdivision

 

This is just to name a few, and this doesn’t include the many hair-brained proposals for The Gully over the years, like an ice-rink, basketball courts, Scenic World’s cable hang-gliding and flying fox, a complete housing subdivision to be called ‘Highmark’, low-rent accommodation, a museum, and even Katoomba’s own mono-rail!   Study Council’s 1981 Plan of Management map below.

 

The word ‘Kedumba’ is has Aboriginal origins and is just a variation of the word ‘Katoomba’ depending on how it is pronounced.   The original meaning was supposedly “tumbling waters” in reference to Katoomba Cascades and Katoomba Falls below.

 

Another theory espoused by local Blue Mountains historian Jim Smith Ph.D. is that ‘Katoom-ba‘ could have been a local aboriginal Gundungurra phrase relating to the pointing to a certain edible ‘fern: ‘Katoom’ (the fern plant) and ‘ba’ (over there) down in the Jamison Valley.   We like the tumbling waters version.

Blue Mountains {city} Council has since renamed Upper Kedumba River as Kedumba River on Google Maps: 

 

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McRae’s Horse Paddock

This middle portion of the creek valley used to be colloquially called by locals as McRae’s Horse Paddock possibly in the post-WWII days of nearby Catalina Park.

This portion comprises the riparian zone and bushland either side of Katoomba Falls Creek extending southward downstream  situated south of Gates Avenue in the north, to Neale Street in the south and east of Peckmans Road in the west as the following map shows.  It excluse the lands already sold off by Councik for residential housing in the east along Loftus Street.

 

 

McRaes Paddock (as it has become abbreviated by Council) is characterised as a narrrow riparian swampland corridor midway along the valley creek that extends from being channeled as a drain culvert underneath Gates Avenue and then south for about 800 metres to being similarly channeled as a drain culvert underneath Neale Street. 

The creek corridor at this creek valley portion narrows from about 200 metres wide to 100 metres at Neale Street, and the approximate remnant swamp/bushland area not yet been encroached upon by housing, covers about 70 hectares (or 0.7 km²).

Anecdotal local oral history records that the land owner was a grazier by the name of McRae (Scottish heritage spelt ‘Macrae’) who grazed his horses in this ploughed up swampland and the surrounding natural grassland either side of the comparatively narrower section of this creek valley.  

Prior to the use of this area as a horse paddock, it had been utilised for market gardening as old photos reveal.

 

Over the decades post-WWI, Gully locals shortened the name to just ‘McRae’s Paddock’ and the name stuck.  The surname has Scottish ancestral origins, the ‘Clan Macrae’ being a traditional Scottish highland clan, however the origins of McRae’s Horse Paddock are not know to us, yet, but give us time with our ongoing research for this website.

 

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Catalina (amusement) Park

Post World War II, between 1946 and 1951 local Katoomba tourism entrepreneurial businessman, Horace Gates, established an amusement park in the valley (The Gully)  that, with support from local council aldermen, he named Catalina Park.

However not long after, by 1951 Horace Gates had lost patronage for his amusement attraction and the venue fell into disrepair.  In 1952 local council acquired his land in the valley. 

 

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Catalina Park Raceway

At this time, Council had hiked up the land rates of properties across the Blue Mountains including those in this creek valley.  It was in order to fund Council’s then  utility obligations in a growing need for sewage, electricity and road making.  Over more than a decade post-war, Council had forcibly acquired many bushland properties that had been investment block of private land holders due to the repeated non-payment of Council’s increasing rate hikes, outsourcing the legalities to the Katoomba legal firm Soper Brothers.   By 1957, Council owned most of The Gully.

During the 1950s motorcar racing had become very popular in Australia and particularly with local businessmen in the Upper Blue Mountains who had bought racing cars and wanted to test them out and to compete with one another.  Numerous small motorcar garages established and there became a growing motorcar racing fraternity.  They registered as as company as the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited. 

Their short uphill car races became popular, usurping various steep local streets of Katoomba and their power and influence evolved into them lobbying Council for a dedicated local car racing circuit to be established in the Upper Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains Councillors obliged on Tuesday 2nd April 1957 by passing the following motions thus:

 

And then on the same day:

 

So between 1957 and 1959, Blue Mountains [city] Council proceeded to forcible evict the residents of The Gully and demolish their homes in order to appease these influential businessmen and to construct a motor-racing racetrack circuit in the northern amphitheatre portion of this creek valley.   Council funded the racetrack construction by way of a loan to the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited, using ratepayer  moneys.  That loan was never repaid.

The usurping motor racing fraternity then called the place ‘Catalina Park‘, named after the float plane that had decades earlier been positioned in an artificial dam alongside the creek as an amusement attraction.  

 

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Frank Walford Park

 

This is the name that Blue Mountains {city} Council gave to the northern portion of the creek valley which forms a natural amphitheatre shape and covers about 80 hectares.  In the 1990’s, following the demise of Catalina Park racetrack, the government landowner of The Gully, councillors on the Blue Mountains {city} Council unilaterally named this northern portion of the creek valley after one of their own, former alderman Frank Walford [1882-1969] who was also the local mayor on three occasions. 

Frank Walford was from Sydney and settled in Katoomba from 1919 just after The Great War where he worked as a journalist with the local newspaper The Blue Mountains Echo and became its editor.  He was a keen and experienced bushwalker, bushman, mountaineer a variable adventurer.   He became an accomplished author of novels and poetry.   

As alderman and mayor he was largely credited (accused by former residents of ‘The Gully’) as being largely responsible for approving the motor racing circuit in 1957 in this portion of the creek valley.   However, while he supported the race track construction, Council records show that he was not mayor at the time in 1957, but an alderman.

Frank Walford Park is bounded by a steep bushland amphitheatre up to the surrounding ridgeline along where Lower Wells Street borders to the north, where Valley Road and Mission Street borders to the west, where Cascade Street borders to the east; and to the south where Gates Avenue, Catalina Avenue and Farnells Road.  There is also a spur-line that juts into the valley from the east which includes the residential streets of Murri Street, Waimea Street and Warriga Street.

It was the broader gazetted land area of the creek valley around which the 1940s amusement park ‘Catalina Park’ centred around the artificial lake was constructed by Horace Gates and later from 1957 where the 2.1 km ‘Catalina Park’ motor racing circuit was constructed by the former Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited.

Probably a key justification for Council’s naming of Frank Walford Park after Frank’s passing in 1969 was because his home with his wife Madge was situated close by in an 1880s stone house up on the eastern spur-line overlooking Dunlop Corner at 6 Kundibar Street in Katoomba.  Frank and his wife became a fan of the motor racing so much so that during the circuit’s peak operation in the 1960’s Frank had a second storey added to their the stone house as well as a small balcony so they could better  watch the car racing especially from the starting grid up Lockheed Straight and left around the sharp Dunlop Corner.

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Katoomba Park  (and Katoomba Park Extension)

This comprises the southern portion of The Gully Water Catchment between Neale Street and to the Jamison clifftop escarpment around Katoomba Falls.  It includes the two sports ovals primarily used for local cricket during the summer months, as well as the caravan park called Katoomba Falls Tourist Park.  It also includes the riparian zone along the eastern tributary that has its headwaters at where Hinkler Memorial Park is situated and flows through Selby Street Reserve and alongside Council Maple Grove tourist picnic area.  This water course confluences into the main creek just near the road bridge at Cliff Drive.

 

The names ‘Katoomba Park’ and ‘Katoomba Park Extension’ date from the 1990s and are documented in the Bell Report to Council of 1993 and in the Connell Wagner Plan of Management Report to Council of 1996.

Eight years hence, by the time of Council’s Plans of Management of 2004, prepared by consultancy Environmental Partnership, this area was re-labelled ‘Katoomba Falls Reserve – Cascades section (Selby Street)‘.  It had become a disjointed collection of land parcels as the following map shows.  

 

Notably, the following land parcels have been excluded from Katoomba Falls Reserve in Council’s 2004 plan:

• The two sports ovals
• Most of the bushland south of Cliff Drive
• The escarpment top bushland that includes Prince Henry Picnic Area
• The area bushland around Katoomba Falls Kiosk, including the kiosk
• The area of bushland around what is now Scenic World’s Skyway East Station (sold by the Parks Service to Scenic World in 2006)   
• The riparian area around Katoomba Cacades and atop Katoomba Falls, including Katoomba Cascades 
• About 4 hectares of intact swamp/bushland including Maple Grove picnic area  (Area ‘A’ below)
• About a hectare of intact swamp/bushland south along Cliff Drive  (Area ‘B’ below)
• About a hectare of intact swamp and bushland at the address 14-20 Katoomba Falls Road (Area ‘C’ below)

 

 

 

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Katoomba Falls Reserve

This comprises the southern portion of The Gully Water Catchment and is a mix of Crown Land owned by the NSW Government around the creek to Katoomba Cascades  and the top of the Jamison Valley clifftop escarpment at Katoomba Falls. 

It includes council owned riparian zone of the creek and surrounding bushland from Neale Street flowing southward, as well as the two sports (cricket) ovals, Katoomba Falls Tourist Park, Maple Grove Park, as well as the side creek riparian zone from Warialda Street and Selby Street, which for years was referred to as Selby Street Reserve. 

 

 

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Selby Street Reserve

This is the above mentioned side creek riparian zone and bushland to the north east direction to Warialda Street and Selby Street.  The headwaters of this watercourse begin from a spring originally situated where Hinkler Park lies in a hollow. 

 

 

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Katoomba Golf Course

The Katoomba Golf Course site lies wholly within The Gully Water Catchment situated on the south western portion near the Jamison Escarpment.   It covers 30 hectares  and the land is owned by Blue Mountains {city} Council, formerly Katoomba Council, and as such it is community land.   The Katoomba Golf Club formed in 1911 after the  Council approved the native woodland and swamps to be destroyed to make way for fertilised lawn fairways and putting greens. 

 

In the 1990s the 9-hole course was expanded to 18 holes by deforesting more adjoining woodland.  By 2013 the owner of the club went into liquidation.

At the time of writing, Council has leased the upstairs level of the clubhouse to the Parks Service and is proposing to lease the lower level to a new organisation it terms The Centre for Planetary Health in a joint partnership with two universities.  It remains unclear what that organisation will achieve and what the future use of the land will be.

 

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21 Stuarts Road:  bushland subdivision for housing

21 Stuarts Road Katoomba is located in the south-west portion of The Gully Water Catchment. It is a single bushland site of covering 12 hectares that is situated between Stuarts and Wellington Roads, west of Burrawang Street in the west of Katoomba.  The site comprises remnant bushland, swampland and riparian zone around a watercourse in a easterly-sloped side gully flowing westward confluencing with Kedumba Creek (previously Katoomba Falls Creek) about 200m to the east and downstream.  

 

The following street map identifies ’21’ Stuarts Road in more detail.

 

 

Blue Mountains {city} Council records reveal that between 2002 and 2006, the property owner of a rural bushland site, one Ronald Heasman applied for a land use subdivision of the entire site so he could sell off the land for housing development.  Heasman’s initial development application to Council proposed a one into 69 lot subdivision [DP 593545, No. 21 STUARTS ROAD, KATOOMBA, FILE NO:  (DA) S03/0029]

Essentially, the DA was to bulldoze all the 12 hectares of entire remnant woodland and swampland ecology of the site in order to create and profit from a village-scale dense urbanisation of 69 residential dwellings. 

In order to revalue the ecological integrity of this western side gully of The Gully, over time Heasman despatched various bulldozers, excavators, forestry cutters and mulchers and his tractor with a mowing slasher attached to destroy the bushland.

 

Relevant planning controls at the time included

• Local Environmental Plan 4 (LEP 4) zones the site Residential 2(a1), a zone that permits subdivision and detached dwellings. The minimum allotment size is 700m2 for ordinary allotments and 1,100m2 for hatchet shaped allotments. The minimum frontage is 18.5m.
• Local Environmental Plan 1991 (LEP 91) zones the site Environmental Protection. LEP 91 identifies land with a slope in excess of 33% as Protected Area – Environmental Constraints Area.
• Local Environmental Plan 2005 (LEP 2005) zones the site Living Bushland conservation and Environmental Protection – General Zone. The LEP designates part of the site Protected Area – Slope Constraint Area, Protected Area – Ecological Buffer Area, and Protected Area – Water Supply Catchment. 
• The Blue Mountains Better Living Development Control Plan (the Better Living DCP).

 

At the time, local resident conservation group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. actively campaigned to prevent the ecological destruction of this side valley and against the subdivision for mass housing development application, lobbying Council and arguing as follows: 

1. An over development of the site
2. The building parameters are unclear.
3. Significant Alteration of Bushland Character
4. Fails to comply with ‘Lot Layout’
5. Fails to comply with ‘Cluster Housing’
6. Proposal Fails to Provide Adequate Environmental Protection Buffer
7. Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of LEP 1991
8. Proposal Is Contrary to the Objectives of ‘Residential A1’ Zoning Under LEP4
9. Proposal is Contrary to The Objectives of ‘Environmental Protection’ Zoning Under LEP4
10. Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Environmental Protection’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
11. Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Living Bushland Conservation’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
12. Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Protected Areas’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
13. Likely adverse environmental impact on the ‘Slope Constraint’ Areas
14. Likely adverse environmental impact on the watercourse
15. Likely adverse environmental impact upon the water supply catchment. 
16. Likely adverse environmental impact upon the indigenous vegetation and native fauna
17. Likely Adverse Impact on Biodiversity
18. Failure to undertake adequate surveys for likely Aboriginal heritage
19. Failure to assess likely impacts upon Aboriginal Place downstream
20. Consequential Excessive Demand Upon Katoomba’s Existing Infrastructure, Services and Utilities
21. Lack of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
22. Failure to provide an assessment of the likely impact on traffic pressures on nearby streetsnersurvey Increased Traffic Congestion to Adjoining and Nearby Streets
23. The Proposed Creation of Burrawang Street Will Destroy The Existing Bushland Amenity
24. The Proposal  Fails to Identify Likely Impacts to Carlton Street
25. The Site Location is Too Distant From Town to Justify the provision of ‘Accessible Housing’
26. The Proposal Fails to Provide Sufficient Details of Dwelling Locations, Design and Landscaping
27. The Site is Zoned for Environmental Protection
28. The Subdivision Boundary Will Encroach Upon The Ecological Buffer Area
29. Destruction of Indigenous Vegetation Communities & Habitat
30. Downstream Contamination of Kedumba Falls Creek Valley and the Blue Mountains National Park
31. Absence of a Conservation Management Plan or EIS
32. Loss of topsoil & contamination by sediment into the watercourse
33. Steep Slopes Outside Limits for Building Construction
34. Kedumba Falls Creek Valley holds historical and cultural significance as an aboriginal place. 

 

On 23rd November 2004 [ITEM NO: 7] Blue Mountains {city} Council rightly refused consent for Heasman’s DA outright at its councillors’ ordinary meeting, and pursuant to Section 80 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.

Council formal refusal of Heasman’s massive subdivision was made on the following grounds:

1. The proposal is contrary to Clause 33 of Local Environmental Plan No. 4 as the proposed battleaxe allotments are below minimum size requirements and there are numerous allotments that do not have minimum frontages required, resulting in an over development of the site. 
2. The proposal is contrary to Clause 42 of Local Environmental Plan No. 4 as the proposal if carried out would not achieve satisfactory arrangements to reduce the risk of bush fire without significantly impacting on the environmental qualities of the site; and due to the impact on the visual amenity of the locality.
3. The proposal is contrary to the objectives of the Environmental Protection zone within Local Environmental Plan 1991.
4. The proposal is contrary to Clause 10.5 of Local Environmental Plan 1991 as the proposal if carried out would have an unsatisfactory impact on the native vegetation contained within the site and would have an adverse impact on the water supply catchment and on development excluded land within the site.
5. The proposal is contrary to the objectives of the Environmental Protection zone, the Living Bushland Conservation zone and the Protected Areas on the site as proposed and mapped under Draft Local Environmental Plan 2002.
6. The proposal will, if carried out, constitute an over development of the site due to Draft Local Environmental Plan 2002 as the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the proposal will have no adverse environmental impact: 
   1. The proposal includes development on the slope constraint areas within Precinct C and Precinct B; and 
   2. The proposal will impact on the watercourse that traverses the site and on the buffers that contribute to the protection of that watercourse; and
   3. The proposal will impact on the water supply catchment (Kedumba Creek Catchment) mapped for this locality; and 
   4. The proposal will impact on the indigenous vegetation and native fauna present on the site and on significant vegetation communities on the site and downstream of the site; and
   5. The requirements for Asset Protection will have significant impacts on the biodiversity of the site; and  
   6. The proposal does not comply with the considerations for lot layout, nor does it comply with the definition of cluster housing.
7. The development proposal will if carried out, result in significant alteration of the character of the area from a residential bushland character to an urban character.
8. The applicant has failed to undertake adequate surveys or assessments of the potential of the development to impact on the potential for Aboriginal heritage significance on the site; nor has there been adequate assessment of the potential for the development to impact on the Aboriginal Place located downstream of the subject site.
9. Insufficient details have been provided in relation to the management of asset protection zones on the site; and landscaping details for individual allotments and across the public areas of the site; and Aboriginal archaeology and cultural significance.

 

Persistent to get his way, Heasman took Council to the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales (in Sydney) multiple times between 2004 and 2006.  He amended his DA proposal thus:

“The applicant proposes to subdivide the land under community title into 46 lots (43 residential lots and 3 community lots) and to erect a dwelling on 42 of the residential lots. The development is divided into three sections: Precincts A, B and C. Lot A8 is a residential lot of 5,032m2, which is proposed for a six-lot subdivision but presented as a single lot because of the uncertainty of access from Burrawang Road.  The applicant indicated that when that access becomes available, it intends to lodge a development application reinstating the original six-lot subdivision.”  [SOURCE:  Heasman v Blue Mountains City Council, 11039 of 2004].

 

Heasman’s appeal to the Land and Environment Court (LEC) in Sydney used a team of solicitors and barristers who seconded five so-called expert witnesses to support his appeal on technical grounds, being: 

• Mr M Ball, a town planner retained by the applicant;
• Ms N Cavanagh, a town planner employed by the council;
• Mr P Mehl, a consulting civil engineer retained by the applicant;
• Dr P Bacon, a natural resource scientist retained by the council; and
• Mr R Morse, an environmental scientist appointed by the Court,

With support from Council’s appointed experts Ms N Cavanagh and Dr P Bacon, The Land and Environment Court subsequently overruled Councillors’ decision to refuse the application.   LEC Senior Commissioner, Dr John Roseth, residing, upheld Heasman’s appeal thus:

“As I indicated above, discussions between the experts led to complete agreement between them. The agreement is reflected in the amended drawings as well as in the conditions of consent.  The parties appeared before me on 10 March 2006 stating that there were no outstanding issues and that I should make orders in chambers approving the application.

Orders
1. The appeal is upheld.

2. Development application subdivide the land under community title into 46 lots (43 residential lots and 3 community lots) and to erect a dwelling on 42 of the residential lots on lots 1, 2 and 4 DP 593545, known as 21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba is determined by the granting of consent subject to the conditions in Annexure A.

3. The exhibits are returned except Exhibits 28, A, J, K, L and M.”

 

The ecological destruction of this side valley incrementally persists to this day, as remnant bushland gets bulldozed and the site is converted to a housing estate and Heasman profits.

 

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Built-Up Subdivided Residential Katoomba

Almost a half of The Gully Water Catchment comprises housing and commercial subdivision across the eastern portion.  It includes the commercial high street of Katoomba being Katoomba Street.  This water catchment extends from Cascade Street in the north to Ada Street in the east to Lurline Street in the south.   North’s Estate housing subdivision extends into the creek valley down a spur westward from the Carrington Hotel on top of the hill.  The eastern boundary of the housing subdivision runs north-south along Loftus Street.   

The exact date of Katoomba’s settlement is unclear, but since 1815 it has been on the south side of the Cox’s Road first colonial crossing of the Blue Mountains high plateau bush country.  The railway passed by the site of what would become Katoomba from 1967, but the railway platform was not built until 1874.  Katoomba was then just a remote rural locality, referred to as The ‘Crushers’ a sandstone quarry for ballast for train descent down plateau eastward. It was situated adjacent to the rail line opposite the site of what is currently The Edge Cinema) as shown in the late 19th Century land title map below.  

In 1967, English emigrant pastoralist and later Australian politician, James Henry Neale [1828 – 1890], acquired perhaps the first private permanent houses within The Gully Water Catchment including his ‘Froma House’ situated on the site of the current TAFE college on what is now Parke Street. 

As the map reveals, Neale purchased the then swampland of what is referred to as McRae’s Paddock south of what is now Gates Avenue to Katoomba Park.  Neale Street on this land is named after Neale.  Contrary to standard compass point street planning of the time, Neale Street formed a convenient direct bee-line diagonal access road from his Froma House home to the coal mine that was owned by English emigrant, John Britty North [1831-1917] from 1880.  North was a merchant, stockbroker, mining agent and later mining operator of Katoomba Coal and Shale Co. Ltd.

In the 1870s, North had acquired the rest of the plateau bushland and swampland of The Gully Water Catchment and southward into the Jamison Valley, by taking out a mortgage loan with England-based London Chartered Bank of Australia.  See his holdings are shown in the map above.   The land labelled on the map as Katoomba Park in green was probably retained as Crown land, as it remains so today.  North steadily subdivided his land holdings during the 1880s in order to profit from the residential land sales as a means of financing his shale mining business.

The Gully Water Catchment is show by the dotted black outline on the map below.  The eastern portion is dominated by the Katoomba township. 

All rainfall runoff and stormwater from these streets, inside the dotted black line, flows to Katoomba Falls and to the Kedumba River below in the Jamison Valley.  This has formed part of the water reservoir behind Warragamba Dam for Sydney’s drinking water supply since it was completed and opened on 14 October 1960. 

So what goes down these Katoomba drains ends up in Sydney’s drinking water.  As a result, WaterNSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales, which controls Warragamba Dam water drinking supply adds disinfectants (typically chloramine (chlorine), ammonia and fluoride) to disinfect and purify the water to help make it safe to drink.

 

And this is where the stormwater from this drain flows to via a large pipe into the side creek…

 

 

 

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‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’  [Council’s Plan of 2004]

The community lands within this creek valley that had long been gazetted by Council as ‘Frank Walford Park’, ‘Mc Rae’s Paddock’, ‘Selby Street Reserve’ and ‘Katoomba Falls Reserve’ were in 2004 collectively incorporated into Council’s Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management of some 105 pages.  This 2004 plan followed a series of previously separate plans for this creek valley that extend back to the 1950s and even back to the days of colonial settler ownership and subdivision of from the 1860s.   This 2004 plan was the first to recognise regional Aboriginal historical and pre-historical attachment to this creek valley and was the first plan after this creek valley had been formally declared an ‘Aboriginal Place’, named ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW). 

The rationale and the emergence of legal Aboriginal custodianship of this creek valley came at a brief period in Australia’s socio-political history (pretty much concentrated from Whitlam’s Labor government coming to power  in 1972 through to 2002 in respect to this creek valley.  The becoming of ‘The Gully- Aboriginal Place‘ is best described in detail particularly 2001-2002 in the documentary book ‘Sacred Waters – The Story of the Blue Mountains Gully Traditional Owners‘ by anthropologist Dianne Johnson [1947-2012] published in 2007.   In her superbly researched book, Johnson explains that the critical mover and shaker was local Gundungurra Elder Dawn Colless who in August  2001 had formally nominated the Upper Katoomba Falls Creek Valley (The Gully) for consideration as an Aboriginal Place.  Johnson worked closely with Aunty Dawn and members of the Aboriginal community to prepare the submission for state government.  This included two related books ‘Aunty Joan Cooper Through the Front Door – a Darug and Gundungurra Story‘ (February 2003) and ‘Report to the Gundungurra Tribal Council concerning Gundungurra Native Title Claim‘ (2004).

On 18th May 2002, the Hon. Bob Debus as NSW member  for Blue Mountains and Minister for the Environment, officially declared The Gully “An Aboriginal Place” – a place of special significance to Aboriginal culture.  

A concern at the time, was that the declaration had been closed supported by Council and the Parks Service, which had chosen to emphasise the Gundungurra cultural custodianship of this creek valley over and above other cultural claims by  Darug, Wonnarua, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal Aboriginal peoples.  Council with the Parks Service also behind closed doors and with selective invitees to the declaration process, had deliberately excluded interested local residents, particularly ostracising the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley (bushcare group), who had since forming in 1989 had continually lobbied Council to end the car racing and to start ecologically rehabilitating this creek valley.    The Friends wholly supported respecting Aboriginal cultural claims to The Gully, having over the years learning about their legacy of  Aboriginal dispossession. Founder and leader of The Friends, Neil Stuart [1937-2016] initiated a joint community informal partnership between The Friends and former residents of The Gully  (aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) and with other caring local residents in 2002, called the informal partnership The Gully Guardians.

But on matters concerning any decisions and management of The Gully – Aboriginal Place, Council has cultural form and policy of refusing to consult with anyone outside their selected few of the Gundungurra.   It is an effective socio-political tactic of ‘divide and conquer’ by an organisation hell-bent on process control through ostracising those in the community it does not wish to be accountable to. 

As a former member of the Friends, let the truth be told.

 

The truth about ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ as set aside by Council is that it is only a part of The Gully Water Catchment.  Of the remnant bushland within this catchment, ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’  comprises selective land portions that are not contiguous, that is, they don’t link up.  Yet The Gully historically, before the racetrack land usurpation, which the former residents considered The Gully.  It was/is one unified little valley from the northern ridgetop down to Katoomba Falls – two kilometres north to south and one kilometre east to west.

This is what Council bureaucracy has done ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place‘ portions – divided them up piecemeal.  Careful observation of this mapping reveals that many boundaries have changed since Council’s 2004 plan of management. 

 

 

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Gargaree

In around 2005, a small group of former residents of The Gully (from the pre-1957 Council evictions) and their descendants who hold Gundungurra aboriginal ancestral heritage, decided to form an organisation they named The Gully Traditional Owners (GTO).   Their purpose has been to become the sole managing custodians of ”The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ in a memorandum of understanding partnership agreement with the legal landholder Blue Mountains {city} Council. 

Regrettably, this has proven to be a controlling initiative over what management decisions are made concerning the Gully, about the priority works and their funding and funding streams.  Local residents around The Gully and The Gully Valley Catchment, the broader interested local community and former members of The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley have been deliberately excluded in the consultation process and so effectively ostracised by Council and this group.

If the 1957 forced eviction of The Gully residents for an elitist motor tracing group’s exclusive usage as a racetrack was land usurpation with racist overtones, then how is the current exclusion by The Gully Traditional Owners comprising a select Gundungurra-only membership that excludes interested local residents around The Gully, not the comparable reverse land usurpation…with this time reciprocal racist overtones?   

When locals of one race is favoured for planning and decision making about a land area (place) to the deliberate exclusion of a different race of locals, this suggests a racist agenda and so is illegitimate in a national society.  This implies a reciprocal repeat of a sad history.  As a society here are we learning?  Age and experience does not automatically translate to wisdom. It is not a bad thing to grow past your elders in some things. 

A few years later GTO decided to rename The Gully (yet again) as ‘Garguree‘.   This word apparently means ‘gully’ or ‘valley’ in the Gundungurra language and was sourced from Blue Mountains historian, researcher and author into the Gundungurra history, Jim Smith Ph.D.   This follows a contemporary trend of renaming geographic places in Aboriginal language.  Is it sending a socially dividing message of some sort of cultural payback to the descendants of non-Aboriginal Australians, who had no say nor played no role in tragic past events in our social history before they were born, just as do the descendants of Aboriginal people and of mixed marriages thereof?

The Gully used to look all like this, pristine riverine ecology uninterrupted by human harm –  all the way to Katoomba Falls, Kedumba River, Cox’s River, Nepean River, Hawkesbury River out to Broken Bay on the coast into the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

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‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’  [Council’s Plan of 2021]

Blue Mountains {city} Council persists with ongoing re-categorisation of land tenor within The Gully Catchment Area with its ulterior motives that are locally divisive.

Council’s latest 2021 Plan is one of many over the years.  But this one is perhaps worse than the others in that as a plan of management it not about rehabilitating this creek valley , but a biased Aboriginal cultural document that has excluded locals to the benefit of a select few.  It prescribes a racist agenda of Reverse Land Usurpation.   

 

 

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Further Reading:

 

[1]  ‘Catalina Park, Katoomba‘, 20100618, John Merriman, Local Studies Librarian, Blue Mountaisn  Library, ^https://bmlocalstudies.blogspot.com/2010/06/catalina-park-katoomba.html

 

[2]  ‘Development of Katoomba‘, Info Blue Mountains History Plaza, ^https://infobluemountains.net.au/history/dev_kat.htm

 

 

We have stumbled across another old local government plan for The Gully, adding to The Gully Collection of The Habitat Advocate. 

This one dates back to 1980 in brief draft form and was published in 1981 by landholder Blue Mountains {city} Council  (local council). We only have the first eight pages of the 1980 draft, but we have the entire 53-page document of the 1981 ‘Frank Walford Park – Plan of Management‘.

We are also aware of prior land use plans for this valley extending back after WWII in the mid-1950s to impose the racing car circuit; and even back to the 1870s, when the first private colonial landholder of the area, John Britty North, subdivided a ridgetop portion for the first tranch of profiteering housing development.  Befitting his robber baron ego, North dubbed it ‘North’s Estate’. 

We at The Habitat Advocate are actually situated on the old North’s Estate since 2001, as our later reasearch tought us.  We chose to live here because it was old established residential and so not to cause more deforestation by buying a finge ‘bush block’.   So we research this area where we live in order to better understand its history, stories and so to better appreciate its conservation values.

We embed on this webpage below the draft document extract entitled  ‘Assessment of Frank Walford Park Katoomba – Land Suitability, Environmental Constraints, Management‘.   It appears to be hand typed, in the days before computers. 

We also embed below the subsequent ‘Frank Walford Park – Plan of Management‘ of 1981 by local council.  Both documents are supplied in PDF format and are made available here to the public for printing and downloading.   Both the draft extract and the final plan of management relate to what was/remains ‘community land’, so we have no qualms in reproducing them here and making them freely publicly available.

Both documents are instructive in that they prescribe land use planning for what is currently termed ‘The Gully’ (or ‘Gungaree’ in native Gundungurra) that have subsequently been reguritated by council with many reiterations and renamings ever since.  Consistently, as has been local council’s form similarly for decades, that is solely about being seen to comply with New South Wales Government’s mandatory planning laws for community lands. 

Yet equally consistently, local council has serial form in implementing little if any on-ground action in this creeek valley.  Why?  Simply because of the lack of political/bureacratic will, and council’s decided to not even apply for external funding to have any of its plans of management for rehabilitating ‘The Gully’ implemented – since its 1972 demise of the racetrack.     It’s a classic case of persistent organisation cultural guilt that continues to be seeded across subsequent generations of politically swayed bureaucratic management and incoming councillors decade after decade.  Council’s cultural hate toward The Gully is despicable.

The contents focuses on the natural environmental features of the then ‘Park’, its historical and existing (human) uses, proposed land uses and a management plan.

 

The above included street map shows hand written existing uses of the Park as approved by Council (utilising a good magnifying glass):

• Catalina Motor Racing Circuit
• Rally Cross Circuit (inside the circuit)
• BMX Track (inside the circuit)
• Three car parks (2 for spectators, 1 for competitors’ cars)
• Pit Area (inside the circuit)
• Four food stalls (outside the circuit) including the Apex Club food stall (top left)
• Three toilet blocks for spectators (outside the circuit) 
• One toilet blocks for spectators (outside the circuit) 
• One shower block for competitors (outside the circuit)
• Catalina Lake (for swimming)
• Indoor Recreation Centre (Council’s)
• Swimming Complex (outdoor pool)
• Bushfiire Shed (Rural Fire Service)
• An archery field

So at the time, the predominant appproach by Council to the use of the Park was for recreational and tourism use, less so environmental conservation and ecological rehabilitation.

 

Frank Walford Park Management Plan of 1981

After Blue Mountains Mayor Frank Walford [1882-1969] passed away at age 80 years, Blue Mountains {city} councillors decided to name the creek valley after him as Frank Walford Park, probably sometime during the 1970s.   Frank Walford had been a key supporter on council that approved a motor racing circuit to be constructed from 1957 in this small amphitheatre-shaped creek valley on the western fringe of the township of Katoomba.

 

Local residents who had lived in this small creek valley before 1957 had affectionately referred to it as ‘The Gully’.   Council as the landowner of the valley, forcibly evicted all the local residents between 1957 and 1959, which involved council sending in a bulldozer to raze all their homes in order  to make way for the new racetrack for a group fo locally influential and wealthy businessmen who were avid sportscar racing enthusiasts.  Dubbed ‘Catalina Racetrack’ by council, the track operated between 1961 and 1971, after which the organisation running it went bankrupt.

By 1980, New South Wales Government planning laws required local councils throughout the state of New South Wales to periodically produce appropriate land use plans of management for community lands under their control, such as in the case of locl council, Frank Walford Park.

The draft extract of the 1980 plan would seem for the first time to start respecting the environmental values of this creek valley portion referred to by local council as Frank Walford Park.  Local council’s draft assessment of Frank Walford Park is divided into two sections:

• Section 1:   Reviewing the existing landscape, natural features, persent land use and historcial uses and :
• Section 2:  Proposed land use development options

 

The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. was a legendary, yet little known, grassroots volunteer group of local residents of The Gully Water Catchment (creek valley) situated on the western fridge of the rural bushland township of Katoomba in the central Upper Blue Mountains plateau, 100km west of Sydney. 

Conveniently and affectionately shortened to ‘The Friends’ by its members, the group formed and functioned to respect and rehabilitate the natural values and ecology of this creek valley (including The Gully) as informal ecological custodians and to challenge the many damaging threats to it by various vested outside interests between the years 1989 and 2016; some 27 years.  

The editor of The Habitat Advocate was an active former member of The Friends between 2002 and 2007, after which The Gully (Gundungurra) Traditional Owners usurped management control of The Gully.

(more details to follow)

 

Sometime back in early 2022, Blue Mountains {city} Council, in its insular ‘ivory tower’ bureaucratic wisdom, reckoned that wasting thousands of grant funding from the NSW Government on a so-called sandstone ‘yarning circle‘ for The Gully in Katoomba would be a public relations hoot!   

Council’s yarning circle site was strategically chosen for maximum PR exposure for visitors to The Gully, just by the lake off Madge Walford Fountain carpark, just off Gates Avenue in Katoomba.   Sure enough, the project, completed in February 2022, found its way to a press release in the local newspaper, the Blue Mountains Gazette, on 20th April 2022 entitled ‘Transforming The Gully’.

 

This press release states that this new stone yarning circle on..

“the edge of Catalina Lake in The Gully is slowly being transformed after the decade-long work of a vibrant bushcare group, Blue Mountains council’s environment team, the Gully Traditional Owners and a special NSW environmental trust grant…. a yarning circle at the Gully and a YouTube bird watching tour are now just some of the welcome additions to the restorative Bushcare and Swampcare work.”

A stone yarning circle being part of restorative bushcare?  Seriously? 

Council previously had approved three similar stone circles nearby in The Gully back in 2008.  That’s where an external grant of some $600,000 went – on an Aboriginal-only interpretative history path.  

Sure, the dedicated group of volunteers of Garguree Swampcare Group who frequently convene in The Gully to weed out invasive plant species and plant out locally native plants do certainly effect restorative bushcare.  The group formed a decade ago back in 2011 under the New South Wales Government’s Landcare NSW umbrella (not Council’s).  As a local, the regenerative on-ground results of this volunteer group’s Swampcare efforts are readily observed by one walking around The Gully, especially noted inside the Dunlop Corner section of the old racetrack with the removal of all the blackberry and cotoneaster and the landscaping and planting out our of locally native plants and trees. 

Former members of ‘The Friends’ would be well pleased that the native habitat restoration in this creek valley has continued since 2011.  Yet sadly, no mention is made of the 27+ years of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Bushcare Group [1989 – 2016] and their related subgroups who continue to work in adjacent McRae’s Paddock and Selby Reserve, contributing many thousands of volunteer hours weeding The Gully of invasive plant species.   Let the truth be told.  

The Habitat Advocate has been based in The Gully Water Catchment since 2001 and over the two decades we have become very familiar with this rather special creek valley.   Our editor walks around it weekly for exercise and peace of mind in Nature, not just the old racetrack, but south from the aquatic centre through MacRaes Paddock, Selby Reserve and to Katoomba Falls.   He observes the goings on – the creek health, the landslips, continuing off-leash dog walkers, and the incremental new housing replacing the bushland along Wellington Street, etc.  

Council’s press release states that the group’s volunteer co-ordinator David King (being a son of a former Gully resident) has been..“slowly mulching, planting, moving logs and stones to create habitat for the amazing number of aquatic birds that frequent the Lake – 100 have been recorded..The group is working hard to restore the delicate environment at the headwaters of the Katoomba Falls Creek and make it a happy place for new memories.”

The Habitat Advocate supports David King’s Swampcare leadership, wholeheartedly.

Council’s press release goes on…

‘Mr King said for thousands of years Garguree – which means The Gully – was a campsite that sustained the Gundungurra and Darug people. Indigenous communities were displaced when council approved a car racing track – the Catalina circuit – in 1957. It has been recognised as an Aboriginal place since 2002.

The 81 hectare site* is being cared for with the help of a Protecting our Places NSW Environmental Trust grant…Mr King said the lake habitat is linking with the riparian corridor works along Gedumba (sic) Creek and all the restoration works in the middle swamps and McRaes Paddock.  The whole 81 hectares of The Gully is an incredible diverse wildlife haven and safe corridor linking up to the valley. While working around the lake it was decided that it would be a beautiful spot to also create a yarning circle on the lake for the Gully Traditional Owners and community to meet and share stories and cuppas.”

Garguree Swampcare has previously won the prestigious regional Indigenous Land Management Landcare Award in 2017.’

 

[* Editor:  “81-hectare site?” 

The Gully Water Catchment covers 290 hectares/2.9 km²  Dr Fred Ball’s 1993 Plan.  So, Mr King’s 81 hectares represents a tiny 28% remnant of the creek valley’s water catchment area.  However in fact, Blue Mountains {city} Council’s 2021 Plan at page 17 states the land area is 73.1 hectares as per the extract below, not 81 hectares; that is, unless Council’s doing another sneaky ursurp of its zoned community lands?…]

 

Again, The Habitat Advocate supports this habitat restoration endeavours wholeheartedly.  But the timing of Council’s yarning circle is apposite.   It took place during the period between July 2018 and October 2021 when Council was undertaking a revision of its 2004 Plan of Management for The Gully Aboriginal Place.  Yet in both Council’s 2004 plan and subsequent 2021 plan, ‘yarning circles’ were not suggested, discussed, featured, nor budgeted for.   

Instead, Council’s latest ‘yarning circle’ in The Gully seems to be some unplanned whim from grant funding undisclosed and outside any of the now 19 plans for and reports on The Gully.  Maybe it was some bureaucrat’s whim within council with connections to the Parks Service to utilise excess stone blocks over-ordered for heli-upgrading of nearby hiking tracks in the national park.   Voilà, another Council stone yarning circle crops up!

Anyway, so today we checked out this Council’s yarning circle down by the old artificial dam; a ten minute walk each way and took a few photos of it.   Currently in the depth of winter, sitting on these fifteen cold hard sandstone blocks for too long would likely bring on a bout of haemorrhoids, so wise to bring a rug or two.   The following photo was taken from the steps leading down to the lake, which originally provided the main access for swimming in the 1940s and 1950s before Council built its aquatic centre.  Note the old changing sheds in the background.

 

Now this new ‘yarning circle’ is situated right by existing picnic tables on the lawn area behind next to the old racetrack and these serve to provide quite adequate seating for picnicking and if you like, some yarning.   So it is an extraneous folly indeed.

For some reason Council in its wisdom, also recently decided to remove the only rubbish bin on this side of the lake. 

 

This is possibly because there is no Council ranger assigned to empty it. Instead  there is a bin at the Madge Walford Fountain carpark side of the lake, and two of Council’s aquatic centre car park, meaning Council’s ranger now doesn’t have to walk far from his/her car to empty them – must be to do with OH&S walking.

Speaking of safety, the site of this yarning circle is just metres down slope from a small freshwater spring that causes the grass in the vicinity to be constantly boggy.  The site was originally a sedge swamp within the original natural riparian zone of the central creek; that is, before the artificial lake was constructed.  The problem is that constant ground water seepage drains around and down the only steps leading to this new yarning circle below.   

 

This is simply local knowledge by those like The Habitat Advocate who know this creek valley intimately.  But Council in its ivory tower mindset constantly chooses not to consult with locals knowledge about its actions in The Gully.   Yes, Council must first legally consult with The Gully Traditional Owners (GTO) as custodians of The Gully Aboriginal Place, yet despite none living within ‘Cooee!‘ of The Gully. 

But the GTO would not have designed this folly and not at this location.  When the interpretative walking pathway was designed, a primary feature was to enable disabled access so the pathway and boardwalks were all pre-designed to facilitate wheelchair access throughout. 

 

Key problem with this Interpretation Pathway biasely tell an Aboriginal-only story, not the true account about dispossessed poor folk who were Black and White and mixed.  Council funded any of it, rather all the funding was external – NSW Government and Rous Water in the Northern Rivers region.  Council did not seek or obtain a development application.  Council did not seek or obtain any local community consultation, but only from the Gully Traditional Owners who were by 2008 usurping control in all decision making of The Gully to the deliberate exclusion of all other locals.  Council deliberately and hatefully ostracised The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creel Valley Inc., who had undertaken considerable bushcare rehabilitation and lobbied Council since 1989 to protect this creek.

Council did not seek or obtain a development application.    Council received no official clearance. It just thought it up and did it.

Sound familiar?

Apocalypse Now quote:  

“Kurtz staged Operation Archangel with combined local forces, rated a major success.

He received no official clearance. He just thought it up and did it.

What balls.

They were gonna nail his ass to the floorboards for that one.

But after the press got a hold of it, they promoted him to full colonel instead.

Oh, man, the bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it.”

^https://movie-sounds.org/war-movie-sound-clips/quotes-with-sound-clips-from-apocalypse-now/he-received-no-official-clearance-he-just-thought-it-up-and-did-it

 

Former residents of The Gully (pre 1957-59) are elderly and many are observed by this author as being physically disabled, having attended a number of invited gatherings with former residents in The Gully.    This points to this ‘yarning circle’ down by the lake, accessible by only by the steps, as being is a Council thing and likely contrived by some person without knowledge in perhaps Council’s PR department or by another one of Council’s external consultants driven in from distant Sydney.

Since at least 1981, a whole series of plans and reports to local Blue Mountains {city} Council on this creek valley have prescribed many environmental rehabilitation actions to be undertaken throughout.  However precious little has been done by council as the custodial land manager.  For instance, the ‘Bell Report’ of 1993 (plan #8) to Council on this creek valley in its executive summary on pages 6 and 7 identifies some sixty recommended actions for this creek valley of varying priorities as part of a prescribed environmental management plan. [Read More].  Had Council acted upon these recommendations then the Gully would have been truly transformed back to approximating its original ecological landscape and health as it was before the colonising usurpation since perhaps the mid-1800s.   

Neither the Bell Report nor any of the 19 plans/reports (at least) on this creek valley include any ‘yarning circle’ nor ‘stone circle’, nor even a ‘crop circle’. 

 

Blue Mountains {city} Council has already approved three other such stone block gathering places or ‘yarning circles’ in The Gully.  These were part of its approval in 2008 for an Aboriginal interpretative meandering pathway concreted inside its terminated Catalina Park motor racing circuit.  It serves to showcase the history of prior Aboriginal residents of The Gully – which Council forcibly evicted between 1957 and 1959 for its motor racing mates.

Evidential of the truth, Council’s meeting minutes recorded this back in 1959:

 

So why the need for a fourth stone circle in The Gully?  And why position it adjacent to an invasive dam that was built by non-Aboriginal people over the top of the pre-existing riparian zone of the creek?

Here we show Council’s other three ‘stone circles’ in The Gully.

 

 

 

 

The invasive non-Aboriginal history of this creek valley

Council’s stone ‘yarning circle’ is artificial just like the artificial lake adjacent.  It is pure aesthetics and seems to be a public relations ploy by Council to showcase: “Look, Council is actually doing something constructive in The Gully!”

But Council’s latest haemorrhoid yarning circle achieves precious little in rehabilitating the riparian zone habitat of this decades-long neglected and abused creek valley. 

For starters, the lake adjacent is actually a dam that was constructed post-WWII over the top of the old ‘Frogs Hollow’ spring/swamp riparian area of Katoomba Falls Creek by local tourist entrepreneur at the time, one Horace Gates.  It was part of his grand scheme to impose a carnival amusement park called ‘Catalina Park’ in the valley.. offering ‘every facility for fun and food’. 

Horrie in 1948 seconded the shell of an old Catalina PBY-5 flying boat for his new dam as a unique tourist attraction to his amusement park.   By 1949 he arranged for local council to supply 100,000 gallons of water for it, metered at 1/6d. per thousand litres.  [Council of the Blue Mountains meeting minute :’Supply of Water to H. Gates for Catalina Park’, dated 11th January 1949, 7 pm, page 3.] 

Horrie also paid £500 towards the £2,500 cost of constructing new Plantation Street westward between Cascade Street and his Catalina Park that same year.  [Council of the Blue Mountains meeting minute :’Plantation Street: Katoomba’, dated 15th February 1949, 7:30 pm, page 183.]   

Horries’ new ‘Catalina Park’ subsequently served to provide various attractions and activitioes including speedboat rides, tearooms, miniature train,  a Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, swimming pool and a Giggle House showing Charlie Chaplin films.  

 

Horrie also locally owned an amusement parlour on the north-west corner of Katoomba and Waratah Streets, as well as his ‘Homesdale Guesthouse‘ at 207 Katoomba Street including its Wentworth Cabaret nightspot downstairs.  Subsequently the guesthouse was replaced to become the much larger Katoomba Corps branch of the Salvation Army, then in 2021 it was converted into backpacker accommodation of international Youth Hostels Association (YHA). 

 

Katoomba tourism was Horrie’s thing 1920s into the 1950s.  He was a relatively successful entrepreneurial businessman of Katoomba.  But he used his wealth to be one of the many usurpers of The Gully. 

But Horrie cared not for the welfare or quite enjoyment of the  adjacent residents of The Gully.  They were mostly Aboriginal impoverished families subsisting in meagre self-made shacks in the bush with no utilities – having no running water, no electricity, no gas, may be septic tanks pre-1907.  Thereafter Council imposed town sewage be trenched throughout the creek valley, yet not connected to any of the Gully shacks (councillors didn’t want to encourage what they regarded as a shanty bush settlement on the edge of town).

A walking visit to The Gully these days reveals interpretative signage record of the simple subsistence living conditions that former residents endured before Council’s forced evictions and calling in the bulldozers 1957-1959. 

 

May be there was one toilet block for the entire Gully if they were lucky.  May be that tiny brick one below Wells Street, or was it a more recent addition for overnighting campers attending motor race meets later in the 1960s and 1970s?

By the early-1950s, Catalina Park as then an amusement park was pretty dated and run down.   When Horrie died, Council named Plantation Street adjacent as ‘Gates Avenue’ and Horrie’s dam as ‘Catalina Lake’.  Council in the 2000’s renamed a nearby short portion of Farnells Road as ‘Catalina Avenue’ as an appeasement gesture to the petrol-head fraternity bemoaning Council’s 2002 closure of their Catalina Park motor racing circuit just by the lake.  

This use of The Gully was all entirely non-Aboriginal use and exploitation by wealthy outsiders – the amusement park (1946-1950s) followed by the raceway (1957-2001).  So the pertinent question in relation to this fourth stone yarning circle by Council is why spend money complementing an unnatural part of The Gully. This is just another whim, indeed a folly.

Who’s idea was it?  How much did it cost?  Why did this civil works project take priority over many other priority ecological rehabilitation actions in the valley as prescribed by many plans of management since at least 1981?  Surely, given the latest Plan of Management of October 2021, the use of that “special NSW environmental trust grant” as quoted in the newspaper article, should have applied to the action items listed in that plan.  The 2021 plan lists a mere 6 action items on page 111.  , just 10% of the 1993 plan. 

In comparison to the 1993 plan of management’s 60 recommended action items, Council’s 2021 plan list a mere 6 ‘governance actions’ on page 111 budgeted to cost $54,950.  How much did this fourth stone yarning circle project cost?  On page 113 indicates a massive budget of $4,742,910 to implement the latest plan of management.  But this list is not about habitat restoration of The Gully, its all about human usage as the following cost summary reveals:

  

 

Council’s 2021 plan includes a pie-in-the-sky budget totalling a massive $4,742,910.   Co-incidentally Council’s 2004 plan budgeted a similar $4,682,000.   Didn’t happen. 

Council’s 1996 (Connell Wagner) Plan listed many distinct habitat restoration focuses and action plans for each portion of the creek valley, then respectively named Frank Walford Park, McRaes Paddock, Katoomba Park, and included Katoomba Golf Course.  Featured in all four portions included regenerating of re-vegetation degraded areas and rehabilitating swamps and bushland.  Budgeted total costs came in at $794,500. 

Didn’t happen.

Council’s 2021 plan won’t happen.  This latest plan is set to be mothballed by Council again, because like the 18 previous reports and plans on this riparian valley, the 2021 plan contains the usual escape clause to allow Council to do again nothing in The Gully.   A funding excuse.  Council is legally compelled by the New South Wales Government to prepare a plan of management for a public (community) land it controls/owns such as The Gully, but Council in its history is yet to seek the requisite budgeted external funding for any plan for The Gully in order to complete the recommended action items.

May we suggest to the insular thought bubble that is Blue Mountains {city} Council that rather than it have imposed a 4th Celtic yarning circle in The Gully for the rarely seen Aboriginal folk around, that Council instead focus its cash on more pressing public safety measures in and around The Gully?  

Below is one such pressing public safety problem deserving Council’s prompt maintenance. 

It’s possibly the largest pothole currently besetting the Blue Mountains at some 4×2 metres in size! 

It’s situated down the very steep road of Warriga Street on the eastern approach to The Gully.  Such being the months of this pothole’s  deterioration, one almost needs 4×4 vehicle to currently negotiate through it!

 

Further Reading:

 

[1]  Garguree Swampcare Group, ^https://garguree.bushcarebluemountains.org.au/

 

[2]  Catalina Park (motor racing circuit 1961-2001), ^https://www.racingcircuits.info/australasia/australia/catalina-park.html

 

[3]  (Photos of Catalina Park), Blue Mountains Library, ^https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_mountains_library_-_local_studies/2627033062/in/photostream/ | ^https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_mountains_library_-_local_studies/2493550745

 

[4]  Catalina Park (amusement park 1946-1950s), Blue Mountains Local Studies, ^https://bmlocalstudies.blogspot.com/2010/06/catalina-park-katoomba.html

 

We herein enclose a complete copy of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s 2004 Plan of Management for Upper Kedumba River Valley, which we term The Gully Water Catchment.  It was formerly gazetted by Council as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley for decades prior to its unilateral renaming by Council in 1995. 

 

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[Editor’s note:  We reject the urban assertion by Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) councillors that the Blue Mountains could or should be in any way labelled as a “city” as if comparable with Sydney.  So we choose to place the word {city} in BMCC’s title in brackets.] 

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The  Gully Water Catchment lies on the western edge of the regional township of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains region, located 100km due west of Sydney’s CBD. 

The Valley takes that shape of an elongated valley from a natural amphitheatre in the north southward and features various natural riparian zones around watercourses that confluence into a central creek across this section of the Blue Mountains plateau to Katoomba Falls. 

 

The Gully Water Catchment is situated on the Blue Mountains central plateau and covers (290 hectares/2.9 km²) and lies wholly within the watershed ridgeline of Bathurst Road to the north, meandering along the watershed through central Katoomba to the east, the ridgeline along Valley Road to the Jamison clifftop escarpment to the west, and to Katoomba Falls to the south.

The water plunges into the Kedumba River into the Jamison Valley 300m below the Blue Mountains plateau which then flows downstream for about 50km to the artificial Lake Burragorang above Warragamba Dam. 

This dam was built in post-WWII from 1948-1960 to provided a fresh water reservoir for an ever-growing Greater Sydney for it’s primary drinking water.  Before the construction of the dam, Burragorang Valley had been inhabited by white settlers since the 19th century, and for thousands of years before, the Burragorang valley was part of the tribal lands of the Gundungurra Aboriginal people, who became displaced local Aboriginal refugees in their own country. 

In 1948 some fled to squat in the small valley they were familiar and had family connections with, situated about 40 km to the north they nicknamed The Gully on the edge of Katoomba.

 

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was unilaterally renamed by Blue Mountains {city} Council in its wisdom around 1995 to being renamed ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘.  

Why the name change?   Well, from experience in dealing with Blue Mountains {city} Council in relation to this valley (2002-2007) one suspects that it was part of Council’s relentless ‘divide and conquer strategy’ to undermine then in 1996, what had been a decade long struggle by local resident group Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (The Friends) to save and protect The Valley from ongoing threats of destructive harm and neglect and to seek a joint co-operative land management between the interested local community and Blue Mountains {city} Council.  

The Valley includes the Aboriginal Place (AP) affectionately known by former residents as ‘The Gully’.  They were a mix of poor folk, a few dozen or so, who subsisted on the edge of town either renting or squatting in very basic shack-style homes.  That is until Blue Mountains {city} Council back in 1957 decided to forcibly evict them all and bulldoze their dwellings to build a motor racing track for an elitist wealthy motor racing fraternity.  For many years this northern part of The Valley used to be called Frank Walford Park, after a previous Council mayor.  

Subsequently over the years since, Blue Mountains {city} Council has incrementally sold off numerous land parcels to private housing development so as to boost its revenue base.   The remnant bushland sections are gazetted as ‘Community Land’ under the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993.   

Despite The Valley naturally being a riparian zone (mostly wetland) of the creek and its various headwater streams, the community land have become quite separated as Council has unilaterally re-zoned various land parcels on paper from being ‘Community Land‘ to ‘Operational Land‘, invariably in preparation to be flogged off for housing.  History records many land sales by Blue Mountains {city} Council throughout The Valley sold by either for private housing, Katoomba Sports and Aquatic Centre and for what is called South Katoomba Rural Fire Service Station.   

Beneath the surface, Council dug up the wetland and installed a massive sewer network.

 

Council’s 2004 Plan of Management (POM) for The Gully

 

Council had this 2004 POM document initially compiled in draft form in October 2002 by external consultancy, Environmental Partnership, which is off-Mountains based in distant Ultimo in central Sydney.  These dudes do urban landscapes, not natural landscapes – so were they an appropriate choice by council?  Well, it depends upon the outcomes council wanted to The Gully plan of management back then.  Council filed it anyway.

The POM draft was subsequently revised over a two year period and the final document has the rather lengthy bureaucratic title thus: ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within  “The Gully” Aboriginal Place’ (Revised Edition 2004).

Ok, so the names were evolving and former council mayor Frank Walford, who supported the racetrack usurpation of 1957, and by 2004 was getting out of favour with council due to expressed criticism of his namesake in The Gully by the former residents of The Gully.  We note that council’s sky blue coloured ‘The Frank Walford Park’ sign also suddenly disappeared in recent years.

So the ‘subject lands’ exclusively described as ‘“The Gully” Aboriginal Place’ are shown in this map on page 6.

 

This 2004 iteration stipulates three separate plans of management, one for each of the geographic public land sections of The Valley.  It excludes the sizeable western side of The Valley referred to as Katoomba Golf Course – which was and still is public land owned by Blue Mountains {city} Council.  It also excludes the watercourse and riparian zone to the west between Wellington Street and Stuarts Road in Katoomba, which is at the time was private pastoral land addressed as 21 Stuarts Road.

The public (Community Land) sections of The Valley included in the document, form a natural riparian corridor along Katoomba Falls Creek, they being:

1. Frank Walford Park (comprising the northern headwaters of Katoomba Falls Creek)
2. McRae’s Paddock (comprising the main centre section of Katoomba Falls Creek)
3. Selby Street Reserve (comprising a eastern side tributary to Katoomba Falls Creek which confluences with Katoomba Falls Creek at Maple Grove Park, as well as the sports ovals and the escarpment top riparian zone to the top of Katoomba Falls)

 

In addition on page 39 of the 2004 Plan of Management there is a 35-point Stormwater Plan for The (entire) Valley.

 

Council’s Legacy of Planned Inaction for The Valley 

 

These 2004 plans of management (x3) along with the Stormwater Plan were never acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council.   This is despite the considerable cost of all the research and compilation of preparing the 2004 plans over more than two years, which likely exceeding $100,000. 

These plans follow a series of similar plans compiled for this creek valley, which we have on file are:

1. (no date) Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study A & B
2. (no date) Frank Walford Park – Bushland Management and Report
3. 1955: Frank Walford Park Master Plan for Development, 1955 (car racetrack), by Katoomba Municipal Council (Ed: better name)
4. c.1980: Draft Assessment of Frank Walford Park, Katoomba – Land Suitability, Environmental Constraints
5. 1981: Frank Walford Park Management Plan, by BMCC, 54  pages
6. June 1993: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study – Part 1 Draft Report and Management Plan by F.& J. Bell & Associates, for BMCC, 85 pages
7. June 1993: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study – Part 2 Technical Reporrts, Data and Analysis by F.& J. Bell & Associates, for BMCC, 55 pages
8. April 1996: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley – Draft Pan of Management and Report, by Connell Wagner Pty Ltd (consultancy), (for BMCC) approx. 200 pages (inconsistently numbered)
9. 3rd July 2000: Upper Kedumba Valley, Katoomba – Report on Cultural Significance…, (for NPWS) by Dianne Johnson with Dawn Colless, 162 pages
10. 2001:  Area 2 Community Plan (including Katoomba) by Area Community Planning, BMCC, 102 pages
11. 2001:  Area 2 Sport and Recreation Plan (including Katoomba) by Area Community Planning, BMCC, 107 pages
12. 2004: Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within  “The Gully” Aboriginal Place (Revised Edition 2004), by Environment Partnership (consultancy) for BMCC, 105 pages
13. August 2005: A Heritage Study of the Gully Aboriginal Place, Katoomba, New South Wales by Allan Lance of heritage Consulting Australia Pty Ltd & NSW Dept Environment and Heritage (for BMCC), 113 pages
14. March 2005: Catchment 7 Improvement Grant No.44 Upper Kedumba River Valley, by members of Kedumba Creek Bushcare & BMCC  – Final Report for Sydney Catchment Authority, 27 pages
15. June 2006: Hawkesbury Nepean River Health Strategy Volume 1, by Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority, 78 pages
16. June 2006: Hawkesbury Nepean River Health Strategy Volume 2, by Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority, 144 pages
17. June 2019: The Gully – Stakeholder Engagement Report (June 2019), 44 pages
18. 29th September 2021:  Proposed Recategorisation of Parts of the Gully Aboriginal Place, Katoomba – Public Hearing and Submissions Final Report, by Parkland Planners for BMCC, 56 pages
19. 4th October  2021:  The Gully Aboriginal Place Plan of Management, by BMCC, 145 pages.

 

Not one of the plans above for The Valley has been acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council to date since that of 1981. This is disingenous and shameful.   It is no wonder that The Friends [1989-2016] became exasperated with Blue Mountains {city} Council and it’s ‘all-talk-no-action‘ recalcitrance on The Valley over the years.

It noteworthy that the chambers  of Blue Mountains {city} Council is situated just 200 metres from the eastern ridge top  of The Valley’s northern amphitheatre as the crow flies – so close geographically, yet shunned.  It seems that since time immemorial nothing’s changed from the time The Valley (Gully) community of struggling ‘have nots’ (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike) on this edge of town were shunned by the ‘haves’ uphill of Katoomba and nearby villages.

One would not be surprised if the combined cost of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s compiling of all these plans and reports on The Valley exceeds a million dollars.  The funding came from local ratepayers else from grant moneys received from the New South Wales Government.  Indeed, one would not be surprised if once each plan was finalised, that Council instantly filed it to gather dust on an archival shelf, such is one’s experience as a former member of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.

Copies of the above plans and reports over time we shall publish in The Gully Collection on this website, available for free download and printing to the general public.  Access to the ‘The Gully Collection’ is by clicking on The Gully Collection’ photo image on the front page of this website.

 

Stipulated Plans of Management for Council Community Lands

 

Under Section 36, of the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993,  each local government (local council) throughout New South Wales is legally required to prepare a plan of management for a Community Land area under Council ownership.  This means that in the case of the Blue Mountains {city} Council, it is compelled to draft plans of management for each community land area and update these plans from time to time, including the community land within Upper Kedumba River Valley. 

Under  Section 36 of the Act: 

1. “A council must prepare a draft plan of management for community land.
2. A draft plan of management may apply to one or more areas of community land, except as provided by this Division.
3. A plan of management for community land must identify the following:
   (a) the category of the land,
   (b) the objectives and performance targets of the plan with respect to the land,
   (c) the means by which the council proposes to achieve the plan’s objectives and performance targets,
   (d) the manner in which the council proposes to assess its performance with respect to the plan’s objectives and performance targets, and may require the prior approval of the council to the carrying out of any specified activity on the land.”

 

The New South Wales Local Government Act 1993 in fact superseded previous local government Acts that date back to 1919.   So the above list where it refers to a plan of management, likely similarly was a required document under the NSW legislation.  So the plans of management prepared for Blue Mountains {city} Council have always been mandatory, rather than being some noble gesture by Blue Mountains {city} Council seen to be doing the right civil thing for the local community.

In addition, in the case of selected surviving remnant bushland sections of community land connected with local Aboriginal cultural heritage within the Upper Kedumba River Valley, since 18th May 2002,  ‘The Gully’ was declared an Aboriginal Place (AP) by Blue Mountains {city} Council and the NSW Parks Service under Section 84 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW) No 80.  

Under Section 72 of National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 No 80 ’72 Preparation of plans of management’  “The Secretary..  (d) may from time to time cause a plan of management to be prepared for any Aboriginal area or wildlife refuge.”

 

2004 Action Plans not acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council

 

The stipulated Action Plans of the Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management of 2004 were not acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council in the intervening seventeen years between 2004 and the current 2021 Plan. 

Refer to the supplied copy of the document below – both the Action Table (pages 69-74) and Appendix B (pages 83-94).  Council senior management will respond excusing lack of external grant funding (usually from the New South Wales Government), but then they won’t be able to provide any evidence of applying for such funding. 

Council simply doesn’t care.  It only prepares plans of management because it is legally required to do so under Section 36, of the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993 and also under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 No 80.

Under the latter, Section 79A ‘Lapsing of plans of management‘ stipulates: 

“(1)  A plan of management for lands reserved under Part 4A expires on the tenth anniversary of the date on which it was adopted unless it is sooner cancelled under this Part.

(2)  Not less than 6 months before a plan of management expires, the board of management for the lands concerned must prepare a new plan of management to replace it.

(3)  The board of management is to have regard to a plan of management that has expired until the new plan of management comes into effect.”

 

Blue Mountains {city} Council delayed its review of its 2004 Plan some seventeen years.  Not including the NSW bushfire emergency declarations of 2019 and the Coronavirus Pandemic 2020-2021, council’s review process was still an inexcusable five-year delay between the due scheduled review in 2014 and when council initiated community engagement from 4th September 2018. 

This is evidencial from Blue Mountains {city} Council’s Stakeholder Engagement Report concerning The Gully dated June 2019, page 7 extract as follows: 

 

The image below is the Stormwater Plan for The Valley as part of the 2004 Plan of Management for The Valley on page 39.  There are some 35 specific actions identified, explained and specifically geo-located on the map.   The clarity of the image is regrettably poor and almost impossible to read.  It has been sourced from the 2004 Plan of Management on Blue Mountains {city} Council’s website concerning the 2021 POM; perhaps the poor clarify of the image was intentional?

 

Council failed to act on any of the 35 recommended actions of the Stormwater Plan.

Council failed to act on any of the recommended actions of the Bush Regeneration Plan.  The only work carried out in The Valley was the ongoing weeding by local residents associated with the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley bushcare groups.  One group focused on the Frank Walford Park area, another along Selby Street Reserve and a third in MacRae’s Paddock.

There was supposed to be stream restoration works, a Heritage Management Plan, native re-vegetation, macrophytle planting around Horace Gates’ artificial lake, removal of the derelict toilet blocks, contruction of a heritage centre and installation of picnic shelters.  There was to be a paid re-vegetation coordinator supported by some 20 trainee staff.  None of that happened.  These are all listed in a Action Plan Table in Section 8.2 of the 2004 Plan of Management from page 71 to 74. 

Unbelievably, the total budgeted cost of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s wish list for the entire ‘Masterplan‘ for The Valley came in at a staggering pie-in- the-sky $4,682,000! 

The funding for all this was supposed to be gleamed from grants from various departments of the New South Wales Government such as the NSW Department of Conservations and Land Management, the NSW Heritage Office and somehow from from State Treasury, in theory. 

That didn’t happen because Council didn’t actually apply for any grant funding for these listed projects.

 

So what did Council actually manage to do for The Valley over these 17 years (2004-2021) ? 

Funding that was secured between the 2004 Plan and the 2021 Plan was from a joint Aboriginal grant between The Gully Traditional Owners (Gundungurra) and  the Widjabul traditional custodians the Wilson River region near Lismore in the northern rivers region of New South Wales.  A grant of $600,000 was obtained through partnership with Rous Water and Sustainable Futures Australia as part of the Aboriginal ‘Reconnecting to Country‘ project.  The funding was used to construct a boardwalk and interpretative Aboriginal signage in the northern (formerly Frank Walford Park) section of The Gully. 

Also,  a small section of the Catalina Racetrack sleeper fencing was removed near Catalina Lake as a symbolic gesture of finally ending the motor racing usurpation of The Valley since 1957. 

Since The Gully was declared an Aboriginal Place on 18th May 2002, motorised use of the track was prohibited by Blue Mountains Council.   This ending of the racing era in The Valley came about mainly through the conserted campaigning by local resident activist group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley from 1989 to end the racing and the noise.  Others wish to claim the credit.

However, occasional mischievous motorised access persisted from time to time for a few years.  The steel gate was illegally towed out of its concrete base near the South Katoomba Rural Fire Station in order for someone to gain vehicle access to the old race track.  A second steel gate was also illegally removed nearby the Aquatic Centre to gain vehicular access to the track.   The odd trail bike and mini bikes were observed by this author illegally racing as recently as December 2005. 

During this period , a coppice of willow trees were professionally removed from inside the racetrack, near the disused toilet block.  An Aboriginal Liaison Officer, Reg Yates, was employed by Blue Mountains {city} Council for a short time in around 2006.  The Council-owned cottage at 23 Gates Avenue was donated to newly formed Gully Traditional Owners, after the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institiute (BMWHI) relocated.   The building is occasionally used currently as an office, and meeting place for Gundungurra use.  A small art gallery was constructed adjacent.  As a local resident, this author usually observes that most of the time the premises are closed and all the window blinds are pulled down.

 

At the end of 2011, Blue Mountains {city} Council in partnership with NSW Landcare established a volunteer-based Garguree Swampcare group tasked to rehabilitate the riparian swamp/wetland areas from weed infestations inside The Gully, as well as re-landscaping and planting out locally native vegetation.  The name ‘Garguree’ means ‘gully’ in Gundungurra language, apparently according to local historian Jim Smith Ph.D.

 

We enclose below a complete copy of the final revised Plan of Management of 2004 in Adobe Acrobat .PDF format below.  Being a publicly funded community document wholly concerning community land, this document below is freely available  to the public for download and printing. 

 

The Blue Mountains conservation grapevine has alerted Leura locals to a new development threat atop the Jamison Escarpment.  It’s seems to be all about facilitating mass tourism and its coming from the custodial land holder itself, the so-called National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).

Trust NPWS?

Apparently, local residents were letterbox dropped on 22nd April 2020 by NPWS.  Its Community Information Letter on official NPWS letterhead outlined a project proposal described as the “Gordon Falls Lookout accessibility upgrade“.  Accessibility upgrade for whom? Busloads overflowing from nearby congested Echo Point?

It is flagged to be part of some grander “Grand Cliff Top Walk“, and it seems NPWS has already selected a construction contractor, NewScape Designs from inner Sydney. 

The colourful ‘artist’s impression’ of this proposal:  it’s not what you know, but who you know in the NSW Government.

 

So why is Gordon Falls Lookout targeted for tourism development?

 

Well,  NPWS’s distributed Community Information Letter to nearby Leura residents reads as follows:

So NPWS is calling this tourism development its ‘Gordon Falls Lookout Accessibility Upgrade‘.  So it is all about providing disabled access is it?   

According to the 2020 sales pitch of NPWS for this tourism infrastructure proposal, it’s apparently just an “upgrade” for Gordon Falls Lookout, not a new development, but this smells of legislative avoidance speak.  The entire project is wholly within the Greater Blue Mountains Area, and Sydney Water Catchment, so with such a proposal clearly NPWS are keen to not trigger any sense of ‘development’ (which it obviously is).

The authority behind this Community Information Letter is…

These public servants are invariable in ‘Acting’ responsibilities akin to casuals. Should they stuff up, then their acting days are immediately over.

 

The overarching policy and funding is coming out of NSW Premier Gladys Berijiklian‘s tourism infrastructure programme dubbed ‘The Improving Access to National Parks Programme‘.   Publicly announced on 9th February 2019, the programme funding is almost $150 million in capital expenditure budgeted to span four years (2019-2023).

“This includes major upgrade works in places like Sydney’s Royal National Park and in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, making it easier for people to enjoy our wonderful natural beauty,” Ms Berejiklian said.    The funding is to “upgrade” walking tracks, better visitor infrastructure and facilities, etc.   Specifically the  Gordon Falls Lookout Accessibility Upgrade is part of a masterplan to “upgrade” a 13.6 kilometre Grand Cliff Top Walk from Wentworth Falls to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area costing $10 million, and “upgrading” access to iconic lookout points to a mobility impaired access standard (another $10 million).

The problem is that the 13.6 kilometre Grand Cliff Top Walk from Wentworth Falls to Katoomba does not exist.    Prince Henry Cliff Walk extends from Scenic World to Gordon Falls.  But there is no track east of Gordon Falls, not yet anyway, just untouched bushland to Sublime Point to the back of the Fairmont Resort in Leura.  So this masterplan is not an upgrade but a new tourism infrastructure development.

Is NPWS Cameron Chaffey tasked with finding a lookout overflow for mass tourism saturated Echo Point?  Isn’t Echo Point on local council land?  Isn’t the access to Gordon Falls Lookout on local council land as well?

Three Sisters lookout on a quiet day

 

So this is the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the delegated official governmental custodians of  the Greater Blue Mountains Area?

Has NPWS turned corporate exploitative for the mass tourism visitation buck?

This is test wedge tourism development to broaden the overburdened mass tourism of over-crowded iconic Echo Point to spread the day tripper visitation to multiple eye candy lookouts to suit bus loads of international tourists.

 

Whose Grandiose Idea is it to rename Prince Henry Cliff Walk?

 

And why delete the heritage named track Prince Henry Cliff Walk constructed by hand by unemployed men during The Great Depression in 1934?    The famous hiking track is seven kilometers long and skirts the northern Jamison Escarpment clifftop track extending from what is now Scenic World on the southern edge of Katoomba to Gordon Falls Reserve on the southern edge of Leura.  

The track is undulating and in many sections quite poor, eroded and neglected by the custodial land manager, Blue Mountains Council, to the point of being quite dangerous.  

Since the deluge from an East Coasts Low weather event in mid February 2020, the track has been closed due to a number of unrepaired landslips.  The entire Leura Cascades area, popular for picnickers and families has been completely off limits to the public for the past four months.

Prince Henry Cliff Walk heritage walk since 1934

 

Prince Henry Cliff Walk is named in honour of Prince Henry William Frederick Albert, Duke of Gloucester, a son of King George V and Queen Mary.  Prince Henry visited Australia and Katoomba by train in 1934.  The New South Wales government of the day engaged hundreds of unemployed young men between 1934 and 1936 to construct the track by hand as a means of keeping them gainfully employed and to create a healthy tourist visitation experience for the Blue Mountains.   [Source: ^https://sydneyuncovered.com/prince-henry-cliff-walk/]

Prince Henry Cliff Walks is listed on the State Heritage Register as a walking track of historical and aesthetic significance (Item K014).  

Then Katoomba local council funded the track, suitable for “comfortable walking for pedestrians of all ages and conditions, linking many of the cardinal attractions of the Jamison Valley escarpment at Leura and Katoomba, is a significant historic token of the efforts to repair the Mountains economy and to serve a public need after the worst of the Depression of the early 1930s. The long track has considerable historic significance at the local level”..and has aesthetic significance at the local level.”  [Source: ^https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=1170735].

 

Realise the Political Background…

 

Feb 2019:  ‘Wentworth Falls to Katoomba – all along the cliff tops’

Blue Mountains (Labor) MP Trish Doyle, with Leura Bushcare worker and cliff top walk advocate, Norm Harris, near Olympian Rock at Leura.

 

In 1982, then chief engineer at Blue Mountains Council, John Metcalfe, had a vision of a walk from Wentworth Falls to the marked tree at Katoomba – all along the cliff tops.

Map of existing tracks and the missing links for a Wentworth Falls-Katoomba cliff top walk.

 

Some 20-odd years later, Leura Bushcare worker Norm Harris and his wife, Laurel, took up the cause, convincing the Conservation Society that it would be a “great tourist attraction”.   And last week, the NSW Government announced a $10 million grant for an “significant upgrade to the 13.6 kilometre grand cliff top walk”.

Mr Harris was “ecstatic” at the news.  “I’m so delighted. I just want them to do it,” he said. The crucial missing links are from the Fairmont Resort around to Sublime Point.  But Mr Harris believes a path could be built 60 metres from the rear of properties on Sublime Point Road, which would be invisible to, and not interfere with, the private land owners who live there.

Some years ago he wrote to Waverley Council, asking how it had managed to secure land to complete the Federation Cliff Walk from Watsons Bay to Bondi.  

Council replied it had unsuccessfully negotiated with a private land owner but later was able to compulsorily acquire an easement because the land was zoned “regional open space”.

Mr Harris is hoping such an approach may work around Sublime Point Road.  He praised the efforts of Blue Mountains MP, Trish Doyle, for raising the issue with then premier, Mike Baird, in 2015, which included sending him detailed maps and concept plans.
“I’ve contacted all the state MPs – Bob Debus, Phil Koperberg, Roza Sage and Trish and Trish is the only one that’s done anything,” Mr Harris said.

Ms Doyle said: “Mr Harris has been plugging away quietly at this proposal for many years, and the announcement of $10 million for stage one of the grand cliff top walk is a testament to his methodical, thorough and expert analysis of the project.

“I am thrilled to have been able to help Mr Harris put forward this proposal and see it come to fruition after four years of making representations to the government on his behalf,” she said.

The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, also announced funding of $9.9 million to upgrade access to iconic lookout points in the Mountains so they comply with mobility impaired access standards.’

[Source: ‘Wentworth Falls to Katoomba – all along the cliff tops ‘, 20190207, by Jennie Curtin, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/5892855/10m-funding-for-cliff-top-walk/]

 

July 2019:  ‘Work begins on $10M grand cliff top walk upgrade’

 

Work is underway on a major upgrade of national park walking tracks along the cliff tops between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba.

NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean was in the Blue Mountains on Friday to talk with National Parks and Wildlife Service walking track teams carrying out the work, and to visit some of the areas to be upgraded.

Blue Mountains Councillor Kevin Schreiber (disguised in sunglasses), MLC Shayne Mallard, Environment Minister Matt Kean and the Blue Mountains director of NPWS David Crust, at Govetts Leap Lookout at Blackheath. The carpark at the iconic lookout will be improved, accessible paths added, and the toilets will include disabled access.

 

Work has begun in the national park at Wentworth Falls, with the full upgrade expected to take four years to complete.

David Crust, the Blue Mountains director of the NPWS, said they would be adding in a few missing links to walking paths between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba, but mostly they would be improving the quality of existing tracks.

In February the state government announced it would spend $10 million on a “significant upgrade to the 13.6 kilometre grand cliff top walk”. “The changes will include improved walking tracks, better visitor infrastructure and facilities, and upgrading of access to iconic lookout points including mobility impaired access standards,” Mr Kean said.

The grand cliff top walk links a series of existing tracks and is accessible from multiple locations, providing the opportunity for visitors to tailor the length of walk and to create a multi-day itinerary.  The walk also provides access to many sidetracks, which offer a variety of experiences and opportunities for all park visitors.  Govetts Leap at Blackheath is one of the iconic lookouts in the Mountains set to be upgraded with accessible paths, toilets with disabled access, and improvements to the carpark.

“The investment recognises the importance of the tourism economy in the Blue Mountains and will provide for better and safer visitor experiences across the Blue Mountains National Park,” Mr Kean said.

Work is underway on a major upgrade of national park walking tracks along the cliff tops between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba.  NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean was in the Blue Mountains on Friday to talk with National Parks and Wildlife Service walking track teams carrying out the work, and to visit some of the areas to be upgraded.

Councillor Kevin Schreiber, MLC Shayne Mallard, Environment Minister Matt Kean and the Blue Mountains director of NPWS David Crust, at Govetts Leap Lookout at Blackheath. The carpark at the iconic lookout will be improved, accessible paths added, and the toilets will include disabled access.

Work has begun in the national park at Wentworth Falls, with the full upgrade expected to take four years to complete.

David Crust, the Blue Mountains director of the NPWS, said they would be adding in a few missing links to walking paths between Wentworth Falls and Katoomba, but mostly they would be improving the quality of existing tracks.

In February the state government announced it would spend $10 million on a “significant upgrade to the 13.6 kilometre grand cliff top walk”.

“The changes will include improved walking tracks, better visitor infrastructure and facilities, and upgrading of access to iconic lookout points including mobility impaired access standards,” Mr Kean said.

Young Matt Kean – Gladys patsy to “Kick Start NSW Tourism” by the cruise ship load?

 

The grand cliff top walk is a head office branded construct stealing Tasmanian ideas. This late night thought bubble amongst marketing types fueled by taxpayer happy juice, was to link a series of existing tracks and is accessible from multiple locations, providing the opportunity for visitors to tailor the length of walk and to create a multi-day itinerary.  The walk also provides access to many sidetracks, which offer a variety of experiences and opportunities for all park visitors.  Govetts Leap at Blackheath is one of the iconic lookouts in the Mountains set to be upgraded with accessible paths, toilets with disabled access, and improvements to the carpark.

“The investment recognises the importance of the tourism economy in the Blue Mountains and will provide for better and safer visitor experiences across the Blue Mountains National Park,” Mr Kean said.

[Source: ‘Work begins on $10M grand cliff top walk upgrade’, 20190728, by Ilsa Cunningham, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/6295587/work-begins-on-10m-grand-cliff-top-walk-upgrade/ ]

 

 

Rockclimber Michael Connard on his Facebook page ‘Rock Climbing in the Blue Mountains‘ views this project as a “New threat to the Blue Mountains.”

He comments: 

“National Parks have just announced the development of a new Grand Clifftop Walk Project – an upgraded walking track stretching from Echo Point to Wentworth Falls. So far National Parks have provided minimal details, but it seems that they are planning to replace at least sections of the existing tracks with raised boardwalks and paving.  Part of this redevelopment will be a series of new lookouts including an Echo Point style lookout at Gordon Falls, Leura.

This redevelopment will exacerbate the problems already associated with Echo Point and Wentworth Falls, ie increased visitor numbers, traffic, parking, litter. It will create a new monstrosity at the base of Leura Mall.

Echo Point and Wentworth Falls represent a catastrophic failure of different levels of government to coordinate. The sites are owned by Parks, but council are responsible for parking, traffic management, sewerage & rubbish. Leura simply does not have the capacity to absorb another Echo Point.

This project will cause irreparable harm to Leura and possibly to the clifftop environment. Parks have not released a detailed proposal. They have not released estimates of visitors. There is currently no plan for accommodating tourist buses, toilets, parking or traffic.  We would never allow a private developer to undertake such a major project in a national park without releasing detailed plans for public consultation. We shouldn’t allow Parks to do it either.

National Parks are requesting comments regarding this proposal but are proposing to commence construction in June 2020. This is not a genuine public consultation process.  If anyone can put me in touch with Wentworth Falls and Katoomba people who are grappling with the impacts of the Echo Point and Wentworth Falls lookouts I would greatly appreciate it.”

[Source: ^https://m.facebook.com/groups/rcibm/permalink/1352591044928657/]

 

So what does NPWS stand for?

 

Now for starters, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is not national. It’s a misnomer.  The NPWS is a New South Wales Government department; actually it is not even that.  It has been reduced to being a sub-department within a department, having had years of funding cuts and staff mass sackings.   Since 2009, restructure after restructure has meant 50% fewer rangers since 2009, deliberate dumbing down of rangers to non-graduate classifications and junior roles, with dozens of scientists, ecologists and specialists having been made redundant.   In 2016 and 2017, 27% ($121 million) was pulled out of the NPWS budget according to Labor’s opposition then environment spokesperson Penny Sharpe with 500 full time positions lost since 2011.

NPWS is just like Parks Victoria across the southern border.  It is a state agency headquartered in Hurstville in southern Sydney, not in Canberra.  Even the headquarters is a shell..

[Source:  ^https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/contact/Hurstville.htm]

 

It has been swallowed up under what is currently called The Environment, Energy and Science (EES) Group, a corporatised body within the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (NSW). 

It is a shadow of its former self from the halcyon optimistic days under conservationist Premier Bob Carr between 1995 to 2005, when 100 national parks were rolled out between Nowra and the Bega Valley, and when the Greater Blue Mountains Area received world heritage recognition by UNESCO in Geneva.  In New South Wales, there is no Department of Environment, and the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) is gone.

And NPWS is not a service for wildlife.  The recent Summer 2019-20 bushfire emergency that engulfed the Greater Blue Mountains Area is a testament to that.  Three small remote ignitions were allowed to burn away – one in the Wollemi National Park, one in the Kanangra Boyd National Park and one in the Blue Mountains National Park.  They were dubbed respectively the Gospers Mountain Fire, the Green Wattle Creek Fire and the Ruined Castle Fire.  NPWS allowed some 80% of the Greater Blue Mountains Area wilderness and native habitat to be incinerated causing wildlife extinctions throughout the region.  Across the state, more than five million hectares of mainly natural bushland was allowed to go up in smoke, most of it under the custodial responsibility of the NPWS.

According to ecologist Professor Chris Dickman from the University of Sydney,  over a billion fauna and “hundreds of billions” of insects have been killed in bushfires throughout New South Wales over the summer season.

“For some species we’re looking at imminent extinction.  There will almost certainly be species of all geographical ranges and populations that are cooked before we’ve even had the chance to discover that they exist.”

Professor Dickman said the aftermath may mean “species that are rendered extinct, ecosystems that have been eroded to the point where they are completely changed, and habitat in a state of widespread impoverishment.  The loss of life we’ve estimated for NSW is 800 million terrestrial animals, including birds and reptiles. But that figure doesn’t include frogs, fish, bats and invertebrates,” he said. “Combining these figures [it] is likely well over a billion animals lost.”

[Source: ‘NSW bushfires lead to deaths of over a billion animals and ‘hundreds of billions’ of insects, experts say‘, 20200109, by Emma Elsworthy, ABC, ^https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-09/nsw-bushfires-kill-over-a-billion-animals-experts-say/11854836].

 

Australia’s iconic Koala – officially fast-tracked towards being categorised as ‘Extinct in the Wild’.

 

NPWS is really a tourist park service.  It’s brief is less about wildlife conservation and more about economic cost recovery.

 

Further Reading:

 

[1]   ‘A New National Park for NSW‘, 20190204, media release by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, ^https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/a-new-national-park-for-nsw.  Read below:

‘Premier Gladys Berejiklian has today announced a new national park for NSW – providing another significant boost for the State’s koala population – along with a major new package that will improve access to existing national parks.

The State’s newest national park will cover around 3680 hectares in the north of Goulburn electorate, bordering Wollondilly. The new park is centered around Tugalong Station – about 25 kilometres northwest of Bowral.

“The NSW Liberals & Nationals have been careful custodians of the State’s national parks and I am thrilled to be able to unveil a new one today,” Ms Berejiklian said.

“This new national park will ensure that a vital koala wilderness area south of Sydney is preserved. Like all national parks, it will be open to the public so they can explore the wilderness country.”

Ms Berejiklian also announced a $150 million investment to improve access to national parks across NSW – funding made possible due to the strong economic management of the NSW Liberals & Nationals.

“This includes major upgrade works in places like Sydney’s Royal National Park and in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, making it easier for people to enjoy our wonderful natural beauty,” Ms Berejiklian said.

Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said the new national park contains some of the Southern Highlands’ best koala habitat.

“Koalas are an iconic species and we are acting to ensure their survival,” Ms Upton said.

“The new national park will not only add to the State’s conservation lands, it is yet another example of how the NSW Government is moving to protect and preserve the koala population.”

The Government’s $150 million investment to improve access to existing national parks includes upgraded walking tracks, better visitor infrastructure and facilities and new digital tools such as virtual tours and livestreaming cameras.

This will include:

• • More access – significant upgrade to the 13.6 kilometre Grand Cliff Top Walk from Wentworth Falls to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area ($10 million). Also, upgrading access to iconic lookout points to a mobility impaired access standard ($9.9 million);
  • Improved park visitor infrastructure and facilities – expansion of picnic areas, BBQs, water provision, facilities ($38.7 million) and increased support for families and people with restricted mobility ($45 million). This will include upgraded picnic facilities and the walking tracks at Audley Weir, in the Royal National Park.
  • Safe access – Investment in making our extensive network of walking tracks and trails safer and more accessible ($36.4 million); expansion of the ‘Think before you Trek’ safety program for bushwalkers and work with other agencies to deliver other priority safety programs like rock fishing and enhanced mobile connectivity in the parks ($1 million).

“NSW boasts some of the most majestic and picturesque coastal lookouts, outback walking tracks, camping grounds and beaches in the world and we want more visitors to experience the natural beauty and wonder of our national parks,” Ms Berejiklian said.

Ms Upton added:“As well as international and interstate tourists, we want to make it easier for families to get out there and discover the natural beauty our State.”

 

[2]    ‘Under siege: our commitment to Australia’s national parks is waning‘, 20181218, by Anne Davies, The Guardian (newspaper), ^https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/17/under-siege-our-commitment-to-australias-national-parks-is-waning.

 

[3]  ‘Wentworth Falls to Katoomba – all along the cliff tops ‘, 20190207, by Jennie Curtin, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/5892855/10m-funding-for-cliff-top-walk/]

 

[4]  ‘Work begins on $10M grand cliff top walk upgrade‘, 20190728, by Ilsa Cunningham, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/6295587/work-begins-on-10m-grand-cliff-top-walk-upgrade/

 

[5]  ‘K014 : Prince Henry Cliff Walk‘, (state heritage listed item), NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (NSW Government website),  ^https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=1170735

 

[6]   ‘Sydney Uncovered‘ (tourist website), ^https://sydneyuncovered.com/prince-henry-cliff-walk/

 

[7]   ‘Leaked Documents Uncover Massive Gaps In National Parks Positions‘, 20191122, in The Beagle Weekly, Eurobodalla Shire NSW, ^https://www.beagleweekly.com.au/post/leaked-documents-uncover-massive-gaps-in-national-parks-positions

 

[8]  Park Watch – Defending our National Parks (conservation website), ^https://parkwatchnsw.org/