Last week on 2SER we celebrated the launch of the Cooks River project. We've been blogging and tweeting about this great project since its launch two weeks ago. If you haven't heard about it you can listen to a quick overview on last week's 2SER podcast or read about it in our blog. One of the things I love about the Dictionary of Sydney is the way Sydney's history gets connected and shared. I'm always learning something new about the history of this place. So on 2SER last week, rather than talking about a particular subject connected with the Cooks River, I just pulled out two little gems that really tickled my fancy when I was exploring all the content. One of my favourite images is the Steel Park River Patrol Lifesaving Club, proudly standing outside their little weatherboard clubhouse in 1932. The club was active in the late 1920s and 1930s, part of a long tradition of swimming in the Cooks River. Apparently famous swimmer Annette Kellerman used to swim at Undercliffe at the swimming baths. My "I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!!" fact was there was once a zoo at Canterbury Park Racecourse. For over sixty years patrons could marvel at Australian fauna, including kangaroos, wallabies, emus, curlews, pheasants and kookaburras, while the horses thundered past. You can read all about it in the article by Brian Madden and Lesley Muir and see the caretaker Jim Monk with some of his menagerie in 1897. You can discover all the content connected with the Cooks River Project by browsing through the project's contributor link, which lists all the research and articles that were made possible by the Your Community Heritage Grant received by the Dictionary of Sydney from the federal government.