Ther wasn't many inhabitants there prior to colonisation, but it was definitely used as a relocation area for some displaced indigenous people. The cultural significance of the area is completely valid though. The hanging tree (literally what it sounds like) along with the natural spring, should've been enough for the race track to have never been built. Let alone displacement of the same peoples for a second time.
How do you know there wasn't many inhabitants before colonisation? There are aboriginal wells there and other artefacts to prove otherwise... hanging tree?,,,that isn't there ,it burned down a long time ago from my understanding?
@sdjuxu there was no fulltime settlement by Aboriginals prior to colonisation, the mountains were a meeting place for the nearby nations. As far as I know the hanging tree is still there, as a kid we didn't know which tree it was but it turned out we camped underneath it. Getting out of their into normal housing was far better for most inhabitants, it was for my family.
It went anticlockwise. I did one lap-dash in 1978 on this circuit but had no idea what was involved in its construction. Just terrible what the indigenous population were forced to endure.
Yep definitely Counter clockwise,I saw many races,as a child you could still see the line up grid and there was an old controllers tower or race tower that was demolished at some stage
Sorry to be a bother lol. I get too excited when you upload lol. Yup. Track construction destroyed the naturally occurring spring that feeds the Kedumba Creek. This creek is what forms the Katoomba Falls that runs down into and through the kedumba vally. The word ‘Katoomba’ is a white Man anounciasion of the Koori ‘kedumba’ which is what Koori people called it.
I know people that are still alive today who lived there....ive been told violence and threats were made to get the aboriginal people to leave.... Now the land is owned by a "land council" and the original people sitll cant live there...shame shame shame...
@@sdjuxu Wikipedia has all the info of the removal of aboriginal people from Hill 60 around WW2 so they could build the Illowra Battery. A defence fortification incase the Japanese forces invaded. Very interesting stuff. Thanks for the comment.
That’s right. The gully was occupied before white settlement. Also lots of sad stories as this also became a resettlement location for Koori people as whites moved into their lands. Their nirvana became a place of squalor and disease and extreme hardship. Then we put a racetrack on it. I’ve walked Catalina a few times. Always try and envision how it was when it was a garden of eden.
The gully wasn't inhabited before white settlement, they were forcibly moved there from there traditional lands to build Sydney. If you look in 1974 World Encyclopedia, there is a photo with a dairy farm where the marshalling area was.
@@lorraineamos1480 my grandparents were part of that community, after their parents were displaced. The Blue Mountains was a meeting place for different neighbouring nations. The gully was my playground growing up, if there was anything like that down there I would of known about it, of course I wasn't aware that our campsite down there was under the old hanging tree.
