If you listen after rain, you can still hear the rush of water that used to flow from the sandstone ridge at the apex of Darlinghurst down to the harbour. This audio story goes in search of the creeks and cascades that sustained life and industry for Gadigal people, colonists and Chinese market gardeners, before being covered over by the concrete and tarmac of the modern city. 

Image: Rushcutters Creek, 1870-75 (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW - ON 4 Box 56 No 253) 

Credits 

This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation. 

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Producer: Catherine Freyne 

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley 

Music: Blue Dot Sessions 

Featuring: 

• Saskia Schut, Landscape architect 
• Ray Ingrey, Chair, Gujaga Foundation 
• Mark Dunn, Historian 
• Daphne Lowe-Kelly, Co-deputy Chair, Museum of Chinese in Australia 
• Phil Bennett, Lead Heritage Advisor, Sydney Water 
• An excerpt from E.W. West (ed) The Memoirs of Obed West: A Portrait of Early Sydney (Bowral: Barcom Press 1988), read by Russell Cheek.