Editing Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve (section)

==History==

===Indigenous history===
[[File:Tidbinbilla from the air.jpg|thumb|Tidbinbilla with the [[Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex]] from the air]]
Aboriginal people have inhabited the Tidbinbilla area since antiquity. Archaeological digs at Birrigai, over the hill from Tidbinbilla, found the earliest evidence of the use of fire, [http://www.australia.com/en/places/act/act-nature-reserve.html dated at 20,000 years old]. This was at the time of the last ice age. Excavations at Hanging Rock has dated occupation of that site to some 16,000 years.

The name Tidbinbilla is derived from the Aboriginal word 'Jedbinbilla' meaning a place where boys become men. The last corroboree, an Australian Aboriginal dance ceremony, held at Tidbinbilla was circa 1904. There are aboriginal rock paintings to be found at Gibraltar Peak in a small cave.

===European history===
There are over 100 years of European occupancy within the nature reserve. ''Nil Desperandum'' and ''Rock Valley'' Homestead are both pise [[rammed earth]] buildings built in the 1890s. Both buildings were built by George Green and George Hatcliff. ''Nil Desperandum'' is a historic four-roomed residence alongside Hurdle Creek first occupied by Henry French Gillman. The remains of a commercial camellia plantation and the best preserved eucalyptus distillery in the ACT are also nearby.

The ''Rock Valley'' Homestead was occupied by the Green family. ''Nil Desperandum'' was later occupied by George Greens daughter Elsie Jane and her husband Eric Blewitt from the early 1930s to the early 1950s when Eric was killed drenching a horse.

Both ''Nil Desperandum'' and the ''Rock Valley Homestead'' buildings were severely damaged during the [[2003 Canberra bushfires]]. Nil Desperandum has since been rebuilt in its original condition and design with the kitchen extension but not the enclosed side verandah that the two brothers John Douglas (Doug) & Cyril Leslie (Ned) both slept in.