Joan Cooper: The Gully

Joan Cooper recalls, about the Gully at Katoomba, “we had our own bush remedies. Mum would go with her sisters and collect a certain kind of leaf that healed burns. It was the women who used to find all the medicines that made us feel better. They would rub tea tree oil all on the burns and then wrap the leaves around the burns and in two days the burns will be healed and gone. … Mum used to make us stand in line to have Sarsaparilla every day. Because of this we were never sick. She used to collect the Sarsaparilla plant, boil it and bottle it.” Johnson, p. 77. See video, ‘Visiting Grandma at the Gully’

  • Aunty Joan Moroney