Get ready to board an unforgettable Hawkesbury River rich history experience.
Time Travel with us: River Cruise of hidden histories and storytelling + Symposium on rock art, archaeology, and indigenous astronomy.
Choose River Cruise or Symposium or both. Full day experience with a 10% discount.
River Cruise - Journey into the waterways of Dyarrubin with historians, writers and storytellers for a morning river cruise exploring the secret histories of the Lower Hawkesbury River.
Heading out from Spencer with historian Stephen Gapps hear how Aboriginal people used the rivers, creeks and waterways of the Lower Hawkesbury for refuge and survival and one particular resistance story from the mouth of Mangrove Creek. Stepping ashore at ‘Gentlemans Halt’ we stand on country evoked by indigenous author Julie Janson as she reads from her novel ‘Benevolence’ about the Hawkesbury River in the 1830s. Cruising upriver we trace hidden stories in the landscape of bolters, bushrangers and early river traders with expert storyteller Max Burns McRuvie - when the river was the highway.
Symposium - Rock, Stone and Sky - overlapping fields of enquiry - from rock art mapping to archaeological fieldwork in the Mangrove Creek Valley, and tracing the pathways of the celestial emu.
The afternoon Symposium brings together knowledge of rock art, tool making and Australian indigenous astronomy. Bob Pankhurst reveals his life time personal exploration of rock art sites around the valleys and ridges of the hinterland and waterways. Honouring the work of Dr Val Attenbrow hear how tools were made, formed and distributed at the Popran/ Peats Ridge quarry and the Mangrove creek area. Ray Norris, Emeritus professor at CSIRO shares his pioneering work guided by elders to uncover the significance of the celestial emu and interconnections between land and sky.
Lunch in the Thai Garden. A light lunch in the Spencer village is specially prepared by the chef of Spencer Thai Mr One. After the river cruise enjoy authentic Thai finger food and noodles in the ambience of the Thai garden at this charming local eatery.
