 Before the First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson in 1788 , what is now known as Summer Hill was part of a larger area where people of the Wangal and Cadigal tribes hunted , fought , and lived . There is research to show in the greater Sydney region 8000 - 10000 aborigines were resident , fluctuating on seasons and during tribal conflicts . What is now called the Hawthorne Canal ( originally Long Cove Creek ) appears to have been the boundary between the Cadigal and Wangal aboriginal group lands . Today there is a small park in Summer Hill , called Cadigal Reserve , located at 1 @-@ 4 Grosvenor Crescent . A bronze plaque placed by Ashfield Council names the reserve after the Cadigal ( Eora ) group of Koori people . Iron Cove and the mangrove @-@ lined estuaries of the Long Cove and Iron Cove Creeks would have provided a good source of fish and molluscs , the most common food of the coastal tribes in the Sydney basin . 
