26th November 2019

Have you noticed that some of the place names here don’t sound very English? Places like Wollongong, Jamberoo and Minnamurra. And in Sydney there’s Parramatta, Kirribilli and Woolloomooloo. Try saying them aloud – I think they sound lovely! These names are all from the languages of indigenous Australians – the people who lived here for thousands of years before Captain Cook even realised that Australia existed. The Aboriginal people who lived in Wollongong were the Dharawal people, and Wollongong means ‘Five Islands’ (because there are five islands in the bay).

And – great excitement – as we walked along the beach yesterday, we spotted a big squid in the sea pool. At first we thought it was an octopus, but it had a pointy head, not a round blob of a head, so it is a squid. It was eating the tiny little fish at the edge of the pool. We could see all the suckers on its tentacles, and one bulbous eye blinking. Grandad managed to get some photographs – if you look across the three, you might get a sense of the squid moving!