My grandfather as a boy in the late 1800s lived on a farm that sat on the bank of a river, the family homestead occupying a rise above a spread of the stream so wide it deserved to be called a lake.

It brimmed with fish. Yabbies dug into its banks and waterbirds of all manner were drawn to it.

When the season was right, a woman named Kitty Wallaby – always known in our family as Mrs Wallaby, though she undoubtedly had an Indigenous name – set up camp by the lagoon, building a fire and a lean-to from bark.

She was given to puffing on a clay pipe as she contemplated whatever it was that built an air of serenity around her.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/this-is-my-country-but-you-are-welcome-to-stay-20260428-p5zrra.html

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