My name is Ruth Simms and I come from the upper south coast
the Shoalhaven area, Nowra and also lived at La Peruse.
My Mum very, very strong in the cookery culture in the bush.
We used to go to the bush when I was probably about five years old
or four could just walk, she'd make us a little billy can 
out of a powdered milk tin and we'd go for 'five corners'
or any kind of berries that grew in the bush.
She could tell you what was medicines and what to use
for sores and what you could drink. And on the rocks there was 
no better champion rock woman than my mother.
She could teach you how to jump across them pink boulders
and how to get a mutton fish. You never had scuba gear then,
never had spear guns you just had a little iron, go to the 
rocks and for any of those that know a mutton fish the
non-Aboriginal people call it abalone and it's very, very  
well camouflaged and if you don't know what you're looking for on 
the rocks and I'm going back, I'm sixty four,
we'd go to the rocks at Cape Banks and she'd show you how to
get the mutton fish, low tide, clean 'em on the rocks,
then we'd have our cuppa tea, we'd have just whatever we had.
Water would come from down this spring, down a hill and then 
she'd eat and then she'd have a lay down and before that sun 
had gone down she'd say 'Come on we've got to start home now'.