Aboriginal Heritage
Aboriginal stories about the region remain as oral tradition among Aboriginal communities. The following story about Nobbys was published in the Christian Herald February 1855.
At the entrance of Newcastle there is a small high island, called by the English Nobbys Island. The blacks have a tradition that it is the abode of an immensely large Kangaroo which resides within the centre of the high rock, that occasionally he shakes himself, which causes the Island to tremble and large pieces to fall down, as any one can perceive has been, and still continues to be the case, on the eastern side of the Island. It is evident on the slightest inspection, that at some early period the Island formed part of the main land, the strata correspond with the similar ones of coal, sand, and other stone to those on the opposite shore, nothing but a general convulsion of nature could have affected such a change. Manual labour is now employed to fill up the space betwixt the Island and the main land so as to form a breakwater for the protection of the harbour at Newcastle, and a great part of the top of Nobbys Island has been taken down without reaching the monster kangaroo said to dwell within the rock!
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