40,000 years prior to Flinders' appearance off the South Australian coast. Ethnohistory In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Waterfall Gully and the surrounding Mount Lofty Ranges are part of the story of the ancestor-creator Nganno. Travelling across the land of the native Kaurna people, Nganno was wounded in a battle and laid down to die, forming the Mount Lofty Ranges. The ears of Nganno formed the peaks of Mount Lofty and Mount Bonython, and the region was referred to as Yur-e-billa, or "the place of the ears". The name of the Greater Mount Lofty Parklands, Yurrebilla, was derived from this term, while the nearby town of Uraidla employs a more corrupted form. Although Hardy states that the Kaurna people did not live in the ranges themselves, they did live on the lower slopes. An early settler of the neighbouring suburb of Beaumont, James Milne Young, described the local Kaurnas: "At every creek and gully you would see their wurlies [simple Aboriginal homes made out of twigs and grass] and their fires at night ... often as many as 500 to 600 would be camped in various places ... some behind the Botanic Gardens on the banks of the river; some toward the Ranges; some on the Waterfall Gully." Their main presence, demarcated by the use of fire against purchasers of land, was on the River Torrens and the creeks that flowed into it, including Waterfall Gully's First Creek. The land around Waterfall Gully provided the original inhabitants with a number of resources. The bark from the local stringybark trees (Eucalyptus obliqua) was used in the construction of winter huts, and stones and native timbers were used to form tools. Food was also present, and cossid moth larvae along with other species of plants and animals were collected. Nevertheless, there were only a few resources that could only be found on the slopes, and "both hunting and food gathering would in general have been easier on the rich plains". Early colonial exploration One of the earliest accounts of Waterfall Gully comes from a "Mr Kent" who, along with Captain Collet Barker and Barker's servant, Miles, climbed Mount Lofty in 1831. In making their ascent the party skirted a ravine—described by Mr Kent as possessing "smooth and grassy sides"—which is believed by Anne Hardy to have been Waterfall Gully. Subsequent to Barker's ascent, the first settlers who were recorded as having climbed Mount Lofty