Carols in MacCabe Park
Thursday 12 December
7 - 8.30pm Wollongong CBD
Enjoy carols, roving entertainment, festive face painting, a visit from Santa and more! Proudly presented by Wollongong
City Council
Songs Beneath the Stars
Live music in Wombarra this Saturday
Enjoy a magical evening of musical theatre songs beneath the stars with Molly Stewart & Joanna Li Sydney Parker, Jagger Leith & John Spence.
Hear songs from Company, Jesus Christ Superstar, Wicked, The Last Five Years, Matilda, Little Women, Guys and Dolls, The Outsiders and Strictly Ballroom
Beneath the shades of the setting
sun and early evening stars, sit around tables, relax on couches and rugs, enjoy light refreshments, and be surrounded by friends and music lovers. Discover the incredible young musical talent of our community. Entry is by donation. Booking is essential. Light refreshments are provided. (BYO encouraged.) Click to book.
Mosaic make Wollongong debut
Jazz in the Music Lounge this Saturday night
Sydney Jazz Powerhouse Mosaic are thrilled to announce their debut show at the Music Lounge on Saturday, December 7.
Mosaic are touring in support of their criticality acclaimed debut album Where We Are Now
Mosaic is a vibrant 10-piece contemporary jazz ensemble rapidly emerging as an exciting force in the Sydney jazz scene.
Mosaic will be making their South Coast Debut at the Music Lounge (Wollongong Town Hall) on Saturday December 7th. They will be supported by Miles Rooney (Wollongong) and Matt Harris. The two members of the ensemble Jiem explore opportunities for playful, yet distilled moments offered by this stripped back duo setting.
Don’t miss this one night only
Wobble opens at Artspace
By Genevieve Swart
“It started off just as a way to while away the hours whilst I was going through chemo and radiotherapy. It was really cathartic.”
–
Tim Donnelly
Tonight Bellambi dad Tim Donnelly will be celebrating the triumph of art over adversity, as he ends a year battling bladder and throat cancer with his first exhibition.
Wobble – a collection of fantastical fish, jellies and other sea creatures – will officially open at Wollongong’s Project Contemporary Artspace with drinks and nibbles from 6pm. Then on Saturday, Tim will be at the Wentworth Christmas Festival in Port Kembla, selling T-shirts featuring his “skateboard meets surfer dude or dudette” designs.
“My work’s always been very graphic, cartoony, manga-esque,” Tim says. “Comic book meets graffiti, and playful… I like drawing from my head.
Tim Donnelly with ‘Abysmal’ and ‘Les Trois Trembler’ and ‘Les Deux Trembler’
That’s what I was like when I was in my 20s. I wanted to explore how I could look into my mind’s eye and put pencil to paper and conjure something up.”
Born in the UK, Tim graduated from Coventry University to life in London at the height of dance club culture in the 1990s, when he painted graffiti, designed flyers for raves run by DJ friends and created UV-reactive canvas murals for the legendary Ministry of Sound.
Thirty years later, after a backpacking adventure brought him to Australia and a successful career in corporate graphic and web design, Tim is rediscovering his own talents, with all 14 works in Wobble created since March 2024, when his cancer treatment ramped up.
“For the first time in a long, long time, I’m feeling really optimistic,” Tim says. “Cancer’s given me the opportunity to reset and come back to the guy from the 90s that was the artist, trying to change the world for the better.”
For encouraging him to take the leap, Tim thanks his partner, Dr Sarah Nicholson, who as the director of the South Coast Writers Centre knows all about the power of creativity.
“It started off just as a way to while away the hours whilst I was going through chemo and radiotherapy,” Tim says. “It was really cathartic.
“The cancer has allowed me to focus more on art as therapy, my own therapy, and it has been amazingly therapeutic for me. It puts a smile on my face every day.”
The inspiration for Wobble began on a walk at Bellambi beach.
“Basically I wanted to make a statement about plastic pollution and how much it upsets me. Our oceans are getting trashed.”
Tim experimented with drawing little jellyfish and inserting them into plastic bottles and eventually this evolved into large paintings.
His favourite is Abysmal
“It’s a really scary looking monster fish, like a fluoro psychedelic fish, that’s basically coming out of the dark depths of the ocean with this massive maw, with super razor-sharp teeth. It’s quite a large painting, it’s all acrylic, and it was really hard to do.”
The monster was meant to have a jellyfish in its mouth, but Sarah and his sons were afraid he’d ruin it.
“So then I painted the jellyfish on archival quality paper and I stuck it on with super magnets. There’s a magnet on the back of the painting and you can move the jellyfish around.”
It’s been almost a year since Tim, now 54, received his shock diagnosis of bladder cancer, followed by surgery just before Christmas 2023.
“The prognosis was not looking good,” Tim says. “Then beginning of Feb, the results came back and they said, ‘Oh, the bladder cancer is not actually what we thought it was. It’s something called
myofibroblastic sarcoma that ain’t gonna kill you. However, we found that you’ve got throat cancer and that probably will, if we don’t do anything about it.’
“And that’s what I’ve been trying to get through.”
Eight weeks of “pretty brutal” chemo and radiation began in February.
“There was some times where I really wanted to throw the towel in. They nuked a big section of my head… I lost all my hair … all my skin fell off. I had third degree burns around my throat.”
Despite healing relatively quickly, Tim found the side effects remain. “Like no tastebuds, no saliva glands, tinnitus … they haven’t got any better, but I’m totally happy with it. They’re just part of what I am now.”
Tim says cancer was a “brain reset”.
“I was really in a rut before I got sick, really struggling to know who I was, where I was going in my life. And I’m not ashamed to talk about this. I was drinking too much…
“I’ve been really, really fortunate to get cancer in a weird way because it’s allowed me to come out the other side, not the person I was before I went in.”
The final two pieces made for his exhibition are a diptych of sorts titled Les Trois Trembler and Les Deux Trembler.
“‘Trembler’ is basically ‘wobble’ in French,” Tim explains. “I gave them French names, but they’re actually called the Three Wobbles and the Two Wobbles, nothing heavy in the names really. I just like to have a bit of fun.
“The jellyfish kind of have brains inside them, like Aztec graffiti graphic brains. They look really, really professional… I’m really proud of them because they’re the embodiment of what I’ve been doing over the last three or four months.”
Tim has been in remission for since late September. “I’m not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m confident that I’m okay.
“I’m really grateful for coming out the other side of cancer, not dead, and being given another opportunity. Embracing art again is my way of taking advantage of that.”
16
Meet the SPAT panto writer
By Zachary Houtenville
“Locals put their heart and soul into it … If you want to laugh, I recommend it.”
– Sage McAteer
Sage McAteer wrote his first pantomime for Stanwell Park Arts Theatre (SPAT) in 2017 at age 16. Now a professional performer who’s starred in musicals, TV soaps and countless commercials, Sage is looking forward to the debut of his second original play, Secret Santa, at the CWA hall on Saturday, December 7.
Secret Santa will celebrate SPAT’s 50th anniversary with a time-travelling plot.
“I wanted to incorporate some time machines, so that they can time jump in the plot to allude to past pantomimes that actually happened,” Sage said.
“I thought that could be kind of a special factor.”
The decision to write the 50thanniversary panto was made unexpectedly. Sage was visiting from Sydney when, on a walk home one night, he stopped by a SPAT party and heard that the panto script didn’t have much momentum. So he decided to step in.
TICKETS
“I wanted to just pay homage because it’s done a lot for me, and it brought me into the theatre,” he said.
Living near the CWA Hall in Stanwell Park, Sage had always dreamed of being part of SPAT and joined as soon as he was eligible at eight years old. Starting with roles like an elf and a reindeer, Sage thrived in community theatre roles and his talent led him to write the 43rd
annual pantomime, Miss Lily’s Holiday Home and The Stealing Of Christmas.
“I wrote that script and thoroughly enjoyed it,” he said. “I felt that it was kind of addictive, creating a project like that.”
Beyond SPAT, Sage honed his craft with the Illawarra South East Regional Performing Ensemble for high school students, acting, dancing and touring in musical variety shows.
At 16, he secured an agent and began pursuing professional opportunities in Home and Away, A Place to Call Home and numerous commercials.
Sage’s talent and determination led him to a Bachelor of Musical Theatre from the Australian Institute of Music, which he graduated from in April this year. His career gained more momentum with musical roles in the likes of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Another highlight was performing as a dancer at the Mardi Gras after party at the Hordern Pavilion in front of 10,000 people.
“That was pretty crazy, I had a lot of adrenaline doing that,” Sage said.
Sage is excited about the SPAT panto opening night this Saturday and wants everyone to support their local theatre by attending a show that children and adults will love.
“Locals put their heart and soul into it,” Sage said. “If you want to laugh, I recommend it.”
Con to lead Carols: Get ready to Jingle Bell Rock
By Genevieve Swart
Wollongong Conservatorium of Music’s finest jazz singers, a backing band, a children’s choir and circus acts are all ready to ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ MacCabe Park on Thursday, December 12.
“Be ready to sing along,” says WollCon’s Trish Delaney-Brown, the music director of Carols in MacCabe Park.
7-8.30pm Dec 12, click for more
“Bring your voices… bring your favourite tipple and a picnic blanket and your favourite people and just come ready to bow out of the Christmas rush for a couple of hours. It’ll be wonderful to sing some songs that everybody knows and get into the spirit.”
A free family night presented by Wollongong City Council, Carols in
MacCabe Park will feature WollCon’s children’s choir and top jazz vocalists, as well as the Wollongong Brass Band, visiting gospel singers, Hula Hooping Elves and Circus Monoxide stars.
Special guests the Cook Islands Christian Church Choir will travel from Liverpool to deliver an Islander Christmas set, Trish says. “They’ll be doing O Holy Night, an Islander Christmas song and a gospel Christmas song called Go Tell It On The Mountain.
“WollCon are providing our premier jazz vocal ensemble, the Hummingbirds, and our children’s choir and youth choir combined will be doing a couple of numbers.”
A WollCon vocals tutor, Trish was the Con’s head of vocals, enjoying five
Lord Trish
“Bring your voices… bring your favourite tipple and a picnic blanket and your favourite people and just come ready to bow out of the Christmas rush for a couple of hours.”
– Trish DelaneyBrown
“wonderful” years under the leadership of former CEO David Francis until stepping down recently to focus on her Masters in Music Production. She says the carols will be a great experience for the Con’s young choir – made up of students in years 5 and 6 – as they’ll get to perform with a backing band instead of the usual piano accompanist.
“We’ve got the Wollongong Brass Band accompanying the singalong portion … so things like Jingle Bell Rock, I’ll Be Home For Christmas, Jingle Bells. That’s going to be lots of fun.
“The children’s choir will be singing Silent Night for everyone to sing along with and then they’ll be doing Jingle Bell Rock with the backing band.”
The Con’s top jazz singers will perform three numbers. “The Hummingbirds are singing an original Australian Christmas song that I’ve written called All Over the World; Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas; and they’ll be doing a fantastic arrangement of Jingle Bells that Michael Buble and the Puppini Sisters performed – and we performed it last year at the big Christmas gala at the Town Hall.”
Trish’s composition, All Over the World, was inspired by the universal spirit of Christmas.
“I’ve always wanted to write a Christmas song,” she says.
“I was playing with the idea of the northern and southern hemisphere and that our experiences of Christmas are
very different because of climate, etcetera. But when you kind of burrow down to the nub of it, the spirit of Christmas is the same all over the world.
“The overwhelming response of people when you ask them what Christmas is about for them – it’s about family, it’s about peace and it’s about joy.
“That’s a spirit that I would like to see spreading throughout our world, more and more, and not just at Christmas time.”
The family carols are not aligned with any particular church or denomination.
“We are just celebrating Christmas in all of its splendour,” Trish says.
“These events are always unique because it’s who’s on stage and the atmosphere that’s created between the performers and the audience … That’s the beauty of life performance.”
The carols will be on from 7-8.30pm, timed to coincide with Thursday evening’s Crown Street Markets Christmas Markets, on from 5-9pm in the mall. “It’s carrying that community family vibe through,” says Trish, who’ll also be performing at the event.
“I love community carol events. I’ve often been a guest artist, last year I was at Bondi. It’s awesome … It’s steeped in history for me. I’ve got memories of being live at these events and of spending Christmas Eve with the Carols in the Domain on the TV.
“Christmas is not complete without a community carols event.”
Lord Mayor Tania Brown (middle), Trish Delaney-Brown (second to left) with Hummingbird group members. Photo: WCC
Here come the cicadas: Don’t miss summer’s best show
By Amanda De George
“Come nightfall, they use their specially adapted front legs to dig out of the ground and make their way up a nearby vertical surface, be it a tree, a stump or, like our local cicadas, up the clothesline.”
–
Amanda De George
There’s a pulsating shriek, the call of dozens of cicadas yelling into the heat of the early summer morning. Their big, fat bodies thud against the house before careening back off into the sky. Many become food for our local growing family of butcherbirds. You can find the nest by following the noise of the freshly plucked cicada as it screams through the air from within the adult’s beak.
As ear piercing as the sound can be, I will never stop recommending that you head out as the night cools, torch in hand, to watch the breathtaking beauty as the cicada sheds its skin.
You may have noticed round holes in your yard. If you look around, you will find the exoskeleton of the cicada that has already transformed into the noisy insects we know (and kind of love).
In reality, the process for the cicada is a long and painstaking one. The nymphs emerge out of the earth where they spend the majority of their life. Some Australian species (of which there are over 200!) are thought to live for six to seven years underground.
Come nightfall, they use their specially adapted front legs to dig out of
the ground and make their way up a nearby vertical surface, be it a tree, a stump or, like our local cicadas, up the clothesline.
They cling on like this and then slowly, their body making almost undetectable vibrations, the back of their exoskeleton begins to split open. This is the best time to pull up a chair, but fair warning, this part takes time, a long time, often an hour or so.
You will start to see the fresh body of the adult underneath, brightly coloured and sometimes shimmering with spots of gold.
In slow motion, the cicada leans backwards, stretching its legs in and out, waiting for them to harden. Once dry, it will pull itself up in one motion, grabbing the old shell and freeing the remainder of its abdomen. Jutting out from the body are four small wing buds, which the cicada slowly inflates by pumping them with fluid.
It stays like that until they harden enough for the cicada to make its maiden flight, heading off to spend its final few weeks feeding and mating and, if it is male, singing very, very loudly.
Lili J Cafe sisters plan pop-ups
By Cathy Law
SistersRaquel and Meni Jaque are excited by the opportunities that are now possible at their much-loved Lili J Cafe.
Originally confined to two rooms of an old florist shop on Corrimal Street, they finally completed their expansion into the adjacent house they had always had their eye on in April 2024.
VISIT
Combining the two buildings, and expanding into the front garden and backyard, has created an eclectic space brimming with possibilities.
“We wanted to keep the structure of a home with rooms that create zones with different feels,” says Raquel, who is studying interior design.
Now they’ve spent some time settling
into the extra space, and working out how to best manage it, they are full of ideas.
“We are creatives. We’ve put our spin on the space and now we want to make the most of it,” she says.
However – with Raquel’s background in project administration, Meni’s passion for hospitality, and the work involved in being owner-operators open seven days a week – they believe in making haste slowly.
“We don’t want to go gung-ho just because we can,” says Raquel.
“If we do something, we want to do it well.”
As a start, early in the new year they’ll begin doing pop-up theme nights once a
The Lili J Cafe website
month. “The pop-ups will be a great way to test the water and see how we go,” she says.
“We want to do some theme nights that are about our Chilean and Spanish culture and heritage.
“We are excited about bringing Chilean food to Wollongong, in a way that keeps it vibrant and fresh.”
Then there are the opportunities presented by their newly minted liquor licence and the way that the rooms lend themselves to being closed off for events.
“We are also working to increase the amount of produce grown in our greenhouse out the back, and maybe celebrating that with a special night in the garden,” says Raquel.
They are already utilising its spinach, edible flowers and micro-herbs, with the tomatoes almost there.
The credit for the greenhouse, and the abundant greenery throughout the cafe and in its front garden, goes to their horticulturalist sister-in-law – part of the family involvement that has been important in making the place what it is.
Their father used his boiler-making skills to create the metalwork elements throughout the space, including the
impressive front fence. He’s also been a great help with the renovations.
“From the get-go we have had a philosophy that everyone is welcomed and we want them to feel like they are at home here,” says Raquel.
“We are lucky with the location we have in that there is a lot of people living nearby. There are repeat customers we see every day and we’ve got to know their lives.”
This community feeling was strengthened during Covid, and helped them move on when their earlier venture – Meni on Crown Street – was destroyed by fire.
The sisters, who have been business partners for almost 12 years, recognise eating out is becoming a luxury for many and take that responsibility seriously.
“We like people to feel like they are going to be fed well,” says Raquel.
“Our food is pretty homely and eclectic. We don’t stick to one type of thing. Whatever is going to be delicious and in season is what we will do.”
Below: Lili J Cafe is at 1/156 Corrimal St, Wollongong. Photos: Cathy Law
“We want to do some theme nights that are about our Chilean and Spanish culture and heritage. We are excited about bringing Chilean food to Wollongong, in a way that keeps it vibrant and fresh.”
– Raquel Jaque
First black belt at Stanwell Park Hapkido Club
By Zachary Houtenville
BenjaminDriscoll has made history at Stanwell Park Hapkido, becoming the club’s first student to earn a first-degree black belt in the Korean martial art.
“The feeling of just the culmination of hard work really is incredible,” said Ben, who enrolled in the children’s class in 2015 and has risen through
the grades to achieve his dream.
Chief instructor Christopher Currey, who is a 4th-degree black belt in hapkido and a 1st-degree black belt in taekwondo, said Ben’s achievement was “a real boost” for the club.
“To get my first black belt [student], I feel honoured, as well that he had the passion to stay with it,” Chris said. “As an
individual … he’d come from this shy person, [he’s] still a bit shy, but the confidence within him has grown.”
13 years at CWA hall
Chris founded Stanwell Park Hapkido at the CWA Hall 13 years ago, running evening classes for children and adults.
Ben signed up for the kids’ class to help improve his focus and over the years he’s increased his training commitment from a single weekly class to rigorous sessions several nights a week.
To prepare for his black belt grading, Ben concentrated on his fitness and technical training.
“You need to put on the pressure to get there,” he said.
“[I was doing] a lot more running, going to the gym so much more, trying to pick up the fitness and all the skills necessary, which was a lot of work, but I think it turned out well.”
A first-degree black belt is just the beginning in Hapkido, as the martial art’s black belt ranking system goes all the way to 10th degree.
“I really have no plans of stopping,” Ben said.
“Between my next grading, I believe it’s two years, so I’m just going to keep on rolling.”
Confidence booster
As a branch of the Australian Hapkido Association, Stanwell Park Hapkido club (or dojang in Korean) teaches adults and children self-defence, respect and
discipline. “It gives a lot for their own self-belief and confidence,” Chris said. “You put in the work and you grow within yourself.”
After receiving his hapkido black belt in 2010, Chris decided he wanted to teach the martial art – a year later, he started the Stanwell Park Hapkido club.
“I just wanted to take it to a different level,” he said. “It’s also part of my training to instruct as well, to grow as a martial artist.”
Chris – who also trains once a week at Sutherland Hapkido in Sylvania – has created a club with a supportive culture, with an emphasis on learning over ego.
“It’s an incredible experience because I’ve known Chris for over nine years now,” Ben said.
“He’s taught me all, from that little age up until black belt, but it’s been really good and there’s so much support with everyone who works there.”
Ben has convinced his father to train alongside him and Chris said several fathers and a mother had started training at the club because their children had been taking part in the classes. “So you have that kind of thing where the family can enjoy it together.”
Fast facts
Beginners are welcome at Stanwell Park Hapkido. There are classes for children and adults, with a three-session trial and flexible payment options available, including a 10-lesson card where members only pay for classes they attend.
“He’s taught me all, from that little age up until black belt, but it’s been really good.”
– Ben Driscoll
Perils of dating your spouse
By Andy Lawrence
“Even our funnest date so far amounted to less than our glamorous expectations.”
– Andy Lawrence
The task of trying to connect with your spouse in early parenthood takes dedication, patience and a great big dollop of humour. At a time when attempting to drink a glass of water feels like an Olympic sport, it can feel utterly impossible to direct our limited energy towards the needs of our relationship.
As parents today, we are more isolated from our families and communities than any generation before. We are busier, more anxious and apparently having way less sex than our parents ever did. Which is, well… just depressing.
It takes significant work to negotiate time and resources for our relationships. And years can go by where spouses brush past one another in the dark
waters of sleep deprivation without ever coming to the surface to connect properly. There is always some other need pulling you away from each other; many times it’s a child literally tugging at you. Through a long and arduous journey, my husband and I have found a bumbling, discordant rhythm toward each other.
We worked hard at learning to communicate constructively and compassionately in therapy and dedicate one day a month to child-free connection. These date-days are rife with challenges of childcare falling through, illness, resentment over who should be in charge of organising said dates, and the general apathy caused by parenting two
young kids in this polarising postpandemic world.
Just last weekend we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary with two nights away on the South Coast. It was the longest we’d ever left our kids and we were aching for that time to ourselves. The universe stepped in to up the ante and left the whole family bed-bound with the flu for the week leading up to our time away.
We discussed cancelling the trip but the choice was as follows: stay home feeling like shit and also have to entertain the kids OR drop the kids at their grandparents as planned and spend the weekend in the Airbnb recuperating, sans children. We chose the latter option and spent the weekend reading, sleeping and bathing in nature.
Although our expectations of a steamy anniversary weekend were stolen by the flu virus, the weekend was wonderfully restorative and exactly what we needed at that particular moment.
I’ve found that even the lowest expectations will be turned on their head and a sense of humour is needed to avoid the cycle of perpetual disappointment from unmet expectations for our dates.
Even our funnest date so far amounted to less than our glamorous expectations. Miraculously, we were not ill when it came time for our date. We went to Sydney for the night to attend ‘Pub Choir’ at the Enmore Theatre, an audience-based impromptu choir, where you are tasked with belting out pub favourites along with 1000 other people. It was super fun and singing All Night Long by Lionel Richie with a wholesomely diverse crowd of strangers had my oxytocin riding high. My delight was heightened by cocktails and conversation with the witty and hilarious man I was reacquainting myself with.
The less glamorous side emerged when it was time to go back to our hotel, the booking of which was entrusted to my husband. Since we so rarely stay in hotels, we thought it would be a nice treat to book a room. Well, now I know what $150 a night will get you at an Ibis Hotel in Sydney. You’ll be wedged
between a KFC and a Maccas, the scent of both awakening you in the morning. Though after a few cocktails this feature did appear more of a pro, than a con.
You’ll receive a matchbox of a room with pebblecrete ceilings, lime-green walls and a fibreglass portaloo sealed in the corner, by way of a bathroom. The vanity for said bathroom will be placed on the other side of the room next to the bed, like your own personal bedside water feature. You will not receive any soap, all hooks for hanging clothing will be absent and the window will be sealed.
The pièce de résistance appeared as I lay on the admittedly comfortable bed and looked up at the ceiling where the smoke alarm caught my attention.
It was adorned with a fresh bandaid.
To this day, we haven’t figured out why it was there, though I suspect it may have been an attempt by staff or a patron (we’ll never know) to cover the little blinking light. But as I lay there, breathing in the stale scent of the room, the sight of that skin sticker tipped me into manic laughter.
It appeared to me that Ibis Hotels chose an appropriate namesake in the garbage-devouring bin chicken. Although, perhaps that is a disservice to the humble and loveable Australian ibis. We love to poke fun at the bird but we also lovingly claim it as our mascot, a piece of Australian culture that we sardonically celebrate… Like Raygun.
This loving, tongue-in-cheek relationship does not exist for Ibis Hotels. One star.
It was so absurd I couldn’t help but laugh and it added a little flavour of the unexpected to the date and now makes for a funny story. I will, however, be vetting all accommodation in the future.
Some of our best dates have been the ones without expectations at all. Where we follow our noses and end up drinking beer and playing snooker at Wests, or going for a long swim in the ocean.
The work it takes to carve time for our relationship rewards us … And when we fall off the rails and miss a month, we know what we need to do to make our way back to each other.
Fruiting now: the Cheese Tree
By Emma Rooksby of Growing Illawarra Natives
When the fruit of the Cheese Tree go off, they really go off! The same beautiful mix of colours and tones as a nice Pink Lady apple, though unfortunately not in the least edible.
Photos by Emma Rooksby
TheCheese Tree (Glochidion ferdinandi) is a lovely thing, particularly at the moment when many plants are in full fruit and covered in their colourful pinkish-red, very vaguely cheese-like capsules.
Cheese Trees are some of the most widespread rainforest trees of the region. I see them at all sizes in gardens, on verges and in parks, not to mention in natural areas. Many have been planted at some stage, while many more are, by my reckoning, self-sown.
This species is clearly adaptable and resilient, coping in some pretty harsh urban settings. You’ve probably walked past one or two, or a few, on Illawarra streets. Good places to see them include the eastern end of Murphy’s Avenue, where there’s a row of Cheese Trees in the small memorial park, Foothills Road in Balgownie, where the tree pictured below is located, and planted along the easternmost end of Murray Road in Corrimal, where they’re just starting to come into their own.
But I’m constantly coming across them all round town. One of the more striking locations was at the Unanderra shops, where there’s a couple of little
Cheese Trees in the car park (more please!). I’ll have to visit again, as these plants look to be managed to certain size and shape, and they’re certainly not typical of Glochidion ferdinandi growing in natural conditions.
As I said above, the fruit of this tree are very appealing and add to the charm of the tree as a whole. Right now most local Cheese Trees are in fruit.
The image below shows some more or less ripe fruit in the foreground, and a few paler or even greenish fruit in the background, which are still developing. The next stage after this pretty pink blush stage is that the fruit, a dry capsule, splits open to reveal the bright orange seeds inside.
The fruit are attractive to a wide range of birds, including pigeons, parrots and Olive-backed Orioles. The Growing Illawarra Natives photo collection includes a picture from local horticulturist and photographer Anthony Wardle showing a Nankeen Night Heron taking a kip in a Cheese Tree. Keep an eye out for Cheese Trees in your neighbourhood, they’ll be easier to spot than usual at the moment, thanks to all those lovely fruit.
Council seeks help on flooding
By Jeremy Lasek
“Wollongong has a unique vulnerability to natural disaster.”
“Following the 6 April natural disaster Council received over 6500 calls and over 1000 online requests for assistance and over 3400 tonnes of waste was collected.”
– Lord Mayor Tania Brown
Theflash flooding on 6 April this year impacting dozens of Wollongong suburbs has prompted Council to seek greater state and federal support to help manage and repair the devastation ahead of future events.
It comes at a time Council has announced the purchase of two flood-prone homes in Lake Heights.
The destruction resulting from the April flood has prompted calls for Council to do more to prevent future flooding by upgrading stormwater infrastructure and clearing creeks that turn floodways into rivers and lakes when the big storms hit. Purchasing properties which regularly flood is another option for Council but because of the cost it’s often seen as a last resort.
At the height of the April crisis,
The rear of the property of 42 Mirrabooka Road after the 6 April floods where floodwater ran down the embankment, and pushed over the fencing and washed through the house and garden. Photo: WCC
floodwaters ran down an embankment and pushed over fencing at 42 Mirrabooka Road, Lake Heights before washing through the house and garden.
This week Wollongong City Council (WCC) announced it will purchase 42 and 63 Mirrabooka Road to reduce the threat to personal safety and flood damage. This brings to four the number of properties purchased in the same flood zone.
Under the purchase program the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water pays two-thirds of the purchase price, the demolition costs and reasonable legal and valuation fees. Council covers the remaining one-third of the costs.
Lord Mayor Cr Tania Brown said decisions to purchase flood-prone
properties were not taken lightly, especially given the cost involved. She said the land in Lake Heights will allow for the construction of a detention basin “to help reduce the flood risk on neighbouring properties”.
Council currently has 50 homes listed on the eligibility list in Thirroul, Figtree and Balgownie. Since 1990, Council has purchased 86 flood-prone properties.
While WCC is doing what it can, it’s made no secret that it badly needs more resources to prevent and recover from the city’s growing flood menace.
Calls for more disaster funding
At the recent Local Government NSW Conference at Tamworth, involving all councils across the state, Wollongong City Council moved a motion to seek a significant boost to natural disaster funding to allow councils to do more to protect their vulnerable flood victims.
The WCC motion supported by delegates was “that Local Government NSW requests the Australian and NSW Governments to establish more efficient policy, procedures and funding to improve local government response and preparation for natural disaster.”
Wollongong isn’t the only LGA struggling to cope with protecting and then repairing the growing number of devastating flood events that are now almost an annual event.
Welcoming the support of other councils, Lord Mayor Brown said: “Wollongong has a unique vulnerability to natural disaster. The combination of the steep escarpment and flood coastal plains means Wollongong experiences significant impacts from high rainfall events which can pose a risk to life and property.”
The early morning deluge on 6 April this year resulted in some of the worst floods in Wollongong in decades with homes and businesses inundated and when the final damage bill is assessed it’s expected to rise to the millions across public and private properties. It is just the latest in a rising number of natural disasters impacting the city in the past five years.
“Following the 6 April natural disaster Council received over 6500 calls and over 1000 online requests for assistance and over 3400 tonnes of waste was collected,” Cr Brown said. “The disaster had a material impact on our budget, along with the cumulative financial impacts of previous natural disasters.”
The Lord Mayor expressed her frustration that councils like Wollongong weren’t able to manage flood events and the expensive aftermath because of a number of issues under the Australian Government State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).
“These impede local governments’ ability to respond, and build resilience, to natural disasters,” Cr Brown said.
“We believe there’s a valuable opportunity to use our experience in Wollongong to develop a comprehensive framework for disaster management which could be applied across other LGAs.
“A key focus would be to improve coordination between local, state and federal agencies. Council is speaking with the NSW Government to progress this,” Cr Brown added.
Key role for flood committees
Meanwhile, retired engineer Ian Young, who has been studying local flood causes for more than a decade, believes WCC needs to consolidate their feedback on flooding and flood management.
Council currently has three flood committees that cover the city’s north, centre and south. New flood committees will be established soon to support the new Council (the committees haven’t met since the April 6 flood).
“I recommend these committees are brought together periodically to look at the commonality between the flooded areas,” Ian Young said.
He believes it is important that the broader Wollongong LGA community should be able to share their experience of flooding and so identify common issues that contribute to flooding and flood relief to assist in developing a comprehensive city-wide flood mitigation action plan.
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