Aboriginal families living in and around reserves

Many Aboriginal families are living along the foreshores of Yarra Bay, Frenchman’s Bay or near Botany Cemetery. A number of the families living, some of whom have come from the Salt Pan Creek reserve, are congregating in the same area, on the edge closest to Bunnerong Road. During the depression many non-Aboriginal people as well as many Koories are living in the area. Many Koori people have been forced to reserves because they cannot get Sustenance unless they are living on a reserve. Some living near the official La Perouse reserve are not allowed to enter, for instance, white men married to Aboriginal women. Gladys Ardler, for example, lives with her non-Aboriginal father and Aboriginal mother in a camp known as Happy Valley. She recalls, "My father wasn’t allowed there [on the Aboriginal Reserve] but my mother used to go down there and see her father and her brothers and her sisters. They lived there and we just went down there for visits."

  • Home made house, La Perouse
  • Wallaga Lake Gum Leaf band
  • Children near golf course at La Perouse in the 1930's