Dancing with Strangers

1788…
From Middle Head, the journals tell,
natives pointed Hunter’s party
 to the ideal place to land.
It was about Balmoral that Bradley wrote,
“These people mixed with ours and all hands danced together.”

Extract - Through the Heads to BALMORAL





Did you know that Antony Symons has created a wonderful sculpture called Dancing with Strangers? It pays tribute to the historical occasion on 29-jan-1788 when a group of Gamaragal hunters, armed with spears, signalled to a long boat under the command of Captain Hunter to land on a beach at Middle Head.

The Gamaragals knew Middle Head by the name of Cubba Cubba or Gubba Gubba, depending on how people wrote down the unfamiliar sounds made by First Australians who were living in greater Sydney on the day when 11 ships, flying the British flag, sailed through between North Head and South Head, turned left, then turned right at Bradleys Head and eventually dropped their anchors in Sydney Cove.

The exact location of this first contact between the British invaders to Sydney Harbour and the First Australians, whose ancestors had been in the greater Sydney region for at least 40,000 years, is not known definitely. But the reading of entries in logs and note books written that day indicate that the location is the north facing beach now known as Cobblers Beach.

Less likely, alternative locations are: 1) the southern end of Balmoral Beach, which is also labelled as Hunters Beach in early maps of the Middle Head coastline 2) Obelisk Beach on the east side of Middle Head, or at very long odds 3) Chowder Bay, which the First Australians knew as Goree.

To find out more about this sculpture and it's anticipated relocation -  visit:-

  www.cubbacubba.net.au