SKIPPY

THE BUSH KANGAROO

Photographs Courtesy of Hayley Baillie THE SMITH FAMILY

"What's that, Skippy? The kids are trapped down the old mine-shaft, again?"
Our original farmhouse was built during the time an Australian television series was being filmed in the area that was later to become a worldwide Australian cult TV series. If you are an Australian child of the 70’s, chances are you grew up with a very clever Kangaroo called "Skippy The Bush Kangaroo."

The series was shot in northern Sydney at the
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and the adjacent Waratah Park (now known as Waratah Park Earth Sanctuary). Ninety-one 30-minute episodes were made over the three seasons of production.

In the late 1960’s, when Kerry Packer (Australian Entrepreneur) owned Channel 9, he was granted permission by the New South Wales Government to use a 24-acre parcel of Crown Land as its set for the filming of this now National treasure. The show aired from 1967 until 1969, but repeated for years afterwards in several countries. Within the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park, sits the fictional Waratah Park, once the home of Skippy’s friends, along with the beautiful and very real parcel of land they call Duffys Forest.
The Farmhouse shares the same soil with this etched-in Aussie history.

This is a common siting around The Farmhouse.
I am often startled by a roo or two that may bound across my path as I am out walking the National Park.
Photography by Tobi Murray.

ORIGINAL SET OF SKIPPY THE BUSH KANGAROO