This is remember when with Harvey Degan on Perth six pr.
Open the door, Richard, open the door and let me in.
Open the door, Richard, rich dot.
You that door, which is exactly what Richard has done. Is in the studio sitting opposite me.
Now when you opened the car park door, that was more important.
And we uh turned a bit of audio on for a bit loudly.
Well somebody scraping him off the ceiling, folks, somebody had had the headphones volume up to full board. It's blown my brains out through my nose.
I think as long as you can hear yourself from me.
And he speak up, mate, you're going to talk about some very couple at least a very important parks.
We've done a lot of the gardens and parks in Perth and about I think it was three weeks ago I gave a talk to the friends of Bowl Park, which is only up the road from me and the dog and I very often walk up there to about the history of the park and it's a fascinating history. And that made me think, well we'll do that. And the oldest national park in Western Australia is John Forest
National Park. But first I think it's quite interesting to know how national parks worldwide came into being, and the idea for them originated in the early nineteenth century in America, when an artist George Catlin expressed concerns about the wilderness
areas of the USA. And it has to be said at about the same time that sort of thing was happening in America, and on a trip to Dakota in eighteen thirty one, Catlin became very concerned about the westward movement of the urbanization, basically the effects it was having
on Indian civilization, wildlife, and most importantly the wilderness. And he wrote of his dream that there might be an I quote, by some great protecting policy of government, preserved in a magnificent park and National Nations park, containing man and beast in all wilderness and freshness of their nature's beauty.
And subsequently, in eighteen sixty four, Yosemite Valley in California was donated to the United States Congress to be present as a state park, and in eighteen seventy two it was reserved as a public park.
Or pleasuring ground as they called it.
Yes, yes, the use of language has changed over the years. I think a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of people, and it was administered by the Department of Interior. And Yosemite was the first designated national park in the world. And interestingly, seven years later Royal National Park in New South Wales was declared and that was the second national park in the world. And that's south of Sydney and is stunning. I'd spent a weekend.
In the park there.
If people are interested in the history of the national parks in America, there's a fabulous I think it's six part documentary which you can find on the Public Broadcast Survey Service. It was also on SBS and it's entitled The National Parks America's Best Idea. Now I think it probably was their best idea. I think looking at some of the ideas, I think it would have had to have been well, yes, of course, of course, but it's a wonderful story. And of course places like Yosemite are
just stunning and just as stunning. Quite frankly, I think is John Forrest National Park and that covers today two six hundred and seventy six hectares and it is the oldest reserve of that sort in Western Australia having been established, as I said in the in the last century. The initial reserve centered on Jane and Glenn Brooks and was set aside in eighteen ninety eight, and two years later it was actually named Greenmont National Park and proclaimed an
A class reserve. Now, in eighteen ninety five the Reserves and Parks Act by the State Government was passed, followed by a Land Act just three years later, and both provided a degree of security for the parks and reserves in Western Australia, so it made sure that they couldn't
be developed inappropriate ways. And in eighteen ninety eight, on the recommendation of the Surveyor General at the time Harry Johnston, an area at Greenmont on the edge of Darling Range was set aside, and in eighteen ninety nine, just one year later, Permanent Reserves Act ensured the absolute safe future of all of those parks. Now, in the early days, Greenmont National Park more commonly known then as National Park,
was managed by the Greenmont Road Board. And you know, the Roads Boards had very limited funds available to carry out any works in the park other than the construction
of a road to it. And in eighteen ninety six, the Eastern Railways line over the Darling Range was opened and that went straight through the park, which was fine, and actually it helped the park no end in a strange way, because railway travelers saw the beauty of the scenery and the waterfalls and the profusion of wild flowers in the spring, and you know, that began to give
it some public presence. Unfortunately, the railway not only drew the public's attention, but for some seventy years of its operation, it also brought brought into the park wind blown weed seeds which were on the wagons that had come from other places, and that led to serious weed infestations competing with the natural vegetation, and I think it's still probably they're fighting it to this day. In the first thirty years there was little development in the park and the
recreation area. But in nineteen eleven the Roads Board asked the Lands Department if anything could be done in the way of an i quote, beautifying the west end of the park near the York Road which is now the Great Eastern Highway, And gradually they did some extra works
in there. But it's interesting, even though it was a nature reserve and a Class one reserve during the early twentieth century, and in fact right the way through to the nineteen fifties, timberlogging continued in the park and that left a legacy of logging tracks and tree stumps and
die back disease. And dairy cattle were also allowed to run in the park close to the present glen Brook Dam, and there was an orchard in the area below the Rotary lookout site, so you know, it wasn't exclusively a park as we would see it today with anything like that. And even gold mining was carried out for a little while in the park, but it didn't have much success. There wasn't a lot of gold up there, and caused
quite quite minimal damage, thank goodness. However, the extraction of gravel for roads, there's quite a lot of gravel in the park did cause a lot of damage by the removal of gravel and stone and earth, which was eventually prohibited in nineteen twenty nine. That resulted from the State Gardens Board taking over the management of the National Park the year before.
And I think we better pay some bills, y, yes, shall we do?
That'll do that, folks, We shall be back. You won't even have time to have missed.
A sunny.
On Perth six PR. This is remember when with Harvey Dgan.
Welcome back folks, and Richard Oftens in the studio with me and he's taking a stroll around the park. We could say not just your normal suburban park, but serious.
And very serious parts.
And we got to nineteen twenty nine when the State Gardens Board started managing the National Park as it was called, and improvements in the park began to take place. But of course nineteen twenty nine was the start of the Great Depression was which caused a lot of problems for everything.
But there was a savior here in Western Australia, and that was the philanthropist Sir Charles mcness who ran the Iron Mungery on the corner of Hay Street and Barrack Street, and he provided considerable funds for the employment of what
they called sustenance labor for various projects. So it was unemployed people got a job through this fund and they found jobs for them to do, and it included works at the Anchet Park which had come by then and the National Park, and they started to create the National Park recreation sites centered around James Brook and Glenbrook and the site was both picturesque and had the advantage of being close to the railway line, which meant that day
as could come up from Perth and the suburbs very easily, and thanks to mcness's funds, between nineteen thirty and thirty one, a total of four hundred men were employed on the project of forming terraced gardens, paths and buildings, and they also constructed a road into the park now known as Scenic Drive and the dam across Jane Brook to provide water for the gardens, and of course later that dam was converted into a swimming pool from park visitors, which
is still there to this day, and other buildings were erected and other novelties like there was a wheelhouse from a ship that was relocated to the park and that helped considerably to help the people of Western Australia. And these people were also employed in cutting firewood which was transported by rail from Hovier Station to Perth and distributed by sustenance workers in the city to those who had no money for fuel.
So it was quite an incredible park.
Exercise and the garden that they built was known as the Garden in the Forest, which I thought was rather chice, and the swimming pool was supplemented by another one called the Rocky Pool, which had diving boards and so on. So there were two park pools that were built by damming the streams, and there were picnic shelters which you could hire for two shillings a day, very reasonable, and photographs in the nineteen thirties show that Jane Brook Pool and the Terraces Rising.
Were very popular.
Indeed, initially that visitors came to Hovia Station, which was about two kilometers from the picnic area, but in nineteen thirty six they built a special stop for the park itself.
Now it's interesting that quite a number of histories don't actually say when it became John Forest National Park, but I did a bit of research and according to the West Australian, it was announced that national park would be renamed Forest Park John Forest National Park in memory of that man, and it was part of the celebrations of his birth. And through the nineteen fifties, of course it became even more popular as a park. It's had a few fires and things like that, but you know, all
of these places survived. Nature is quite remarkable in doing that. And in nineteen sixty one, the area of the park was increased to three four hundred and sixty eight acres, so it's a pretty big area and is quite remarkable. And there are now heritage trails around it, history trails and the redundant railway cuttings and line no lines are a.
Cycle track through the park.
Good idea.
Yeah, So it's absolutely fabulous and an interesting history.
Indeed, that is and you mentioned Bold Park before. We've got a couple of minutes of talking about Bold Park.
Bold Park is quite remarkable. And again it was Henry Trigg, who was one of the early builders in Perth, who was granted five hundred acres of land around there to quarry stone and he did that and the Tamala limestone was used for a lot of buildings in Perth in those early days. And Trigg eventually sold the park to Walter Padbury and in eighteen sixty nine it was purchased by Henry and Somers Birch for one thousand pounds. Padbury had put he graized cattle in the area and he'd
put an abattoir out there. Now, the Birch brothers were butchers and I think they bought it because they could have the abbotoir and use that. It was then actually purchased again at an auction because Henry's birch went bankrupt and they had to sell his.
Asset.
But interestingly there was a court case because the chap who bought it at auction didn't cough up the money and so there was quite the a court case about it, and eventually it was it was sold yet again and it has the most amazing area. If you go to it from Stephenson Road, there's Camel Lake and that was where they quarantined camels before they took them out to the Eastern goldfields. In fact, Ernest Giles, the explorer who came here in eighteen seventy five, he took his camels.
He was here for a month, so the camels went out to that lake. The lakers dried up now, but that area was used for camels and they were still quarrying. And then of course in the nineteen eighties where Triggs Quarry was was turned in to the Amphitheater, which is quite by Diana Waldron who was the director of the Perth City Ballet. And again it was a job's the doll and that is still used as an outdoor theater.
It's wonderful to remember seeing a bit of a country music fan. Honest, I remember seeing John Williamson performing very very good.
Yeah, yes, and it's just one of those magical spots because you sit and take your picnic and you look back over the city and Bold Park. As I say, I take the dog there very regularly and it's always the walk of a million sniffs, but we get.
Used to that, and also the dog does much the same.
Well yes, yes, exactly exactly.
But it has a long history of being one of the special recreation site in Perth and it's managed now by the King's Park Authority, so it's an adjunct to other wonderful park.
We've got some wonderful parks and recreation areas and we're very very lucky, of course, Richard, that's fantastic, mate. That was so enjoyable, as it always is, my friend, and we shall look forward to reconvening this meeting in a fortnight night's time.
See you that che taught you open that door.