But it carries an important story.įor hundreds of years, caves like this were used by local Indigenous communities to quarantine people who became sick.
Today, the cave is littered with broken bottles, old roof tiles, and other scraps of rubbish. 'How much history is in there, how many stories in there.' 'You wouldn't even know it's there, would you?' says local Aboriginal elder Aunty Barbara Simms, who grew up on a mission nearby. In the summertime, Frenchman's Bay, or Kamay, is usually swarming with kids in the water, the smell of hot chips, and the sound of planes taking off in the distance.īut hidden at the southern tip of the bay is a shallow cave, nestled under the road above. In the Sydney suburb of La Perouse, there is a little cove tucked away between a national park and the shipping containers of the city's industrial coast.
