How did I become to be interested in writing a book on an Aboriginal Language?....
I am often asked. It almost started 70 years ago when I took up bushwalking in the Blue Mountains, and a very special area there was the Burragorang Valley and its hinterland only about 15km south-west of Katoomba.
 
The Burragorang was first settled by non-Aborigines in the 1820s, almost primarily by ex-convicts.
 
In the 1990s I began writing books about the history of the Blue Mountains including the Burragorang Valley. Two very important books (in 194 and 1995) were “Life in the Burragorang” and ‘Place Names of the Blue Mountains and Burragorang Valley”. During the two years of writing these two books I began to realise that in the 1800s another significant group also had formed a strong presence in the Burragorang, namely: descendants of the Gandanguurra people.