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Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury-Nepean River: catchme...

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury-Nepean River: catchment and surrounding regions 2020

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The Dyarubbin Project: Aboriginal history, culture and places on the Hawkesbury River

Subjects

Maps Rivers and Catchments

Natural features

Berowra Creek Blue Mountains Broken Bay Cataract River Cattai Creek Colo River Cowan Creek Coxs Creek Cumberland Plain Grose River Hawkesbury River (Dyarubbin) Macdonald River (Gunanday) Mangrove Creek Nepean River Pittwater South Creek

Places

Dorumbolooa Eastern Creek Hawkesbury district Katoomba Penrith Sackville (Dorumbolooa) Windsor

Artefacts

Real Secret River: Dyarubbin project

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Irish, Paul

Archaeologist and historian who is the author of Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal people of coastal Sydney (NewSouth, 2017).

The Dyarubbin Project: Aboriginal history, culture and places on the Hawkesbury River

The winner of the State Library of NSW Coral Thomas Fellowship in 2018-19 was a collaborative project, The Real Secret River: Dyarubbin. Based on a list of Aboriginal words recorded along Dyarubbin (the Hawkesbury River) in the 1820s by Reverend John McGarvie that is held in the Mitchell LIbrary, winning the Fellowship allowed the team behind the project to work on the recovery, recognition and revitalisation of the river's Darug and Darkinjung history, culture and Language.

Maps

Rivers and Catchments

Hawkesbury River (Dyarubbin)

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River that runs for 120 kilometres from the confluence of the Nepean and Grose rivers west of Sydney to Broken Bay north of Sydney. The Darug and Darkinjung people who lived along the river called it Dyarubbin.

Hawkesbury district

Area surrounding the Hawkesbury River to Sydney's north and north-west, which was important in early colonial agriculture and the site of the early towns of Richmond and Windsor.

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Real Secret River: Dyarubbin project

Collaborative research project led by Professor Grace Karskens as the Coral Thomas Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales 2018-2019. Once every place on Dyarubbin and its tributaries had an Aboriginal name, reflecting ways in which this Country was understood, used and experienced. Now only a handful survive on maps and in common usage. Using a list made by Reverend John McGarvie in 1829 that records the place names used by the Aboriginal people along the Hawkesbury River (Dyarubbin), a team of Darug people, historians, archaeologists and linguists identified the original locations, allowing for the recovery, recognition and revitalisation of the river's Aboriginal history, culture and Language.

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Nepean River

River that rises in the southern highlands of New South Wales and curls round greater Sydney, becoming the Hawkesbury River near Yarramundi. Several dams on the river and its tributaries help supply water for Sydney.

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Cowan Creek

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Tidal tributary of the Hawkesbury River, which is almost entirely within Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.

Berowra Creek

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Creek in the land of the Dharug people, the western bank of which was gradually settled by Europeans during the nineteenth century. Tributary of the Hawkesbury River.

Cattai Creek

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Tributary of the Hawkesbury (Dyarubbin) that starts at Castle Hill and meets the river at Clarence Reach, opposite Ebenezer, after running along the southern border of Cattai National Park.

Mangrove Creek

Tributary of the Hawkesbury River on the New South Wales Central Coast, north of Sydney. It is part of the Hawkesbury Nepean catchment.

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Macdonald River (Gunanday)

Gunanday, or the Macdonald River, is a tributary of the Hawkesbury River (Dyarubbin) that rises on on the eastern slopes of Mellong Range in the Great Dividing Range. It flows east then south of the Hunter Valley for about 120 km and into the Hawkesbury River at Wisemans Ferry. It was referred to as Lower, or First Branch in early European records. By the 1830s it had been renamed after former convict John Macdonald who had been given a land grant in the area.

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Colo River

Tributary of the Hawkesbury River that flows from the northern Blue Mountains down towards Lower Portland, near Windsor.

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Grose River

River which runs from Mount Victoria to the Hawkesbury, forging a deep valley through the Blue Mountains.

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Eastern Creek

Western industrial suburb at junction of M4 and M7 Motorways. It is home to Sydney Motorsport Park (formerly Eastern Creek Raceway).

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South Creek

A watercourse rising about 4 km NE of Narellan and 7 km west of Minto. It flows generally north for about 70 km until its confluence with the Hawkesbury River, near Windsor.

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Cataract River

A perennial river that is part of the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment, is located in the Macarthur region.

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Coxs Creek

Watercourse about 3 kilometres long which rises about 1 kilometre north east of Punchbowl railway station and flows into the Cooks River.

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Blue Mountains

Part of the Great Dividing Range west of Sydney, reaching a height of 1100 metres. In 1829 the name for the area used by the local Aboriginal people was recorded as being Colomatta .

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Windsor

North-western town on the Hawkesbury River, named after Windsor in England. It was one of the five towns named in 1810 by Governor Macquarie and contains many heritage-listed buildings. In 1829 Rev John McGarvie recorded the local Aboriginal people's name for the area was Bulyayorang.

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Sackville (Dorumbolooa)

North-western rural suburb, named after Viscount Sackville, British Secretary of State for the Colonies. It is the site of the Sackville Ferry, a cable car ferry crossing Hawkesbury River. The Aboriginal name for the area shared by local people with the Rev John McGarvie in 1826 is Dorumbolooa.

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Katoomba

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Chief town of the Blue Mountains with a name which means 'falling together of many streams' or 'waters tumble over hill'. It grew after the construction of the western railway from Sydney enabled a prosperous coal and shale mining industry and brought tourists to see the scenic beauty of the area.

Penrith

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Far western suburb lying on the eastern bank of the Nepean River at the foot of the Blue Mountains, named by Governor Macquarie after a town in England's Lake District. Developing rapidly in the 1970s, it is now one of the major commercial centres in the Greater Western Sydney area.

Cumberland Plain

Expanse of flat land in the centre of the Sydney basin, which was covered with over 1,000 square kilometres of woodland and forest used and managed by Aboriginal people before Europeans arrived and began clearing it for agriculture and settlement. The plain is now the site of most of western Sydney.

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Broken Bay

Large inlet of the Pacific Ocean located about 50 kilometres north of Port Jackson.

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Pittwater

Body of water stretching south from Broken Bay parallel to the coast, west of Sydney's northern beach suburbs.

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Dorumbolooa

Historically significant area on the Hawkesbury River (Dyarubbin) around Sackville Reach and Portland Head that was identified by the Aboriginal people who were sharing knowledge with the Rev John McGarvie in 1829 as he wrote a list of place names used by the Darug and Darkinyung people along the river. The name means 'the zone where the rainbow passes through'.

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