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Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
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White hand stencils in a rock shelter in the Ma...

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

White hand stencils in a rock shelter in the Macdonald Valley May 2019

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

Subjects

Aboriginal Archaeology Rivers and Catchments Visual Arts

Natural features

Macdonald River (Gunanday)

Places

Hawkesbury district

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Joy Lai

Artist and photographer.

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.

Visual Arts

Aboriginal

Archaeology

Rivers and Catchments

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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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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