Floodplain forest was located adjacent to the Cooks River within what is now Marrickville Golf Course, Steel Park and Mackey Park. The forest would have contained Casuarina glauca from which bark could be obtained to make canoes.

The forest also contained plants with edible roots and tubers as well as rushes and reeds suitable for extracting fibers to weave.

Periodic flooding of this area probably meant that Aboriginal people would have generally occupied higher ground on the Hawkesbury Sandstone slopes further from the floodplain. The area would have been traversed to get to the banks of the river where marine resources were exploited.