This site-based history caught my eye in Sydney . What an interesting idea, to reveal previous (tho largely settler) iterations of the city this way!
As the winter term starts, there is not a lot of time for me to spend reflecting on my wonderful Christmas holiday in Australia. A few landscape highlights are in order, however, so I will paste a few of them below.
One thing I saw that I particularly wanted to highlight here was the above plaque in Sydney. I’m always interested in landscape change, and this is the first time I’ve seen this kind of public record of past land uses of a particular site. In rural contexts, past landscape versions are usually still legible in later iterations, but in cities that is not the case, so making it explicit in this way feels interesting. I don’t know whose decision it was, but I didn’t notice any others.
This plaque reminds me of a great radio documentary by Craig Desson and Acey Rowe I heard on CBC a few years ago, called “Whose Condo Is It, Anyway?” (54 mins, a related CBC First Person article is here). Desson bought a condo and found himself wondering if he really owned it, and tracked all previous recorded uses of his land parcel, and ended up questioning the whole idea of ownership in a treaty context.
-
-
Lake Burley Griffin and southern Canberra from the Australian Arboretum
-
-
In Canberra we stayed opposite the new ACT government building; can you count how many people couldn’t bother biking home?
-
-
Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve
-
-
The Macquarie River near Bathurst, NSW, with an uprooted tree evidencing recent floods in the area.
-
-
Fitzroy Falls near Bowral, in the lovely Great Dividing Range.
-
-
The mangrove boardwalk at the Jervis Bay Marine Park.
-
-
Old friends greet us at the Lyneham Ridge Reserve behind our first house in Canberra.
-
-
Callala Beach at Jervis Bay, NSW, Christmas Eve
-
-
The mangrove-lined Parramatta River on the RiverCat ferry from Circular Quay as far inland as it goes.
-
-
Sydney Harbour Bridge from Watson’s Bay and The Gap, taking the ferry as far as possible the other way.
