In fact, if the correspondence flooding my inbox following this column's recent exposé on the bush cubby at Mt Ainslie (Who is building stick houses on Mt Ainslie?, April 14) is a reflection of community sentiment, more than 90 per cent of Canberrans support our kids building them.

Carroll Hurst remembers "building bush cubbies as kids", adding "they are a rite of passage for Canberrans". Meanwhile, Sally Ann Fridemanis not only builds stick cubbies with her children during mountain walks, but also "often returns to rebuild or extend them".

One reader who feels especially strongly about today's generation of children having the opportunity to build bush cubbies in Canberra Nature Park and surrounds is Corrine Little of Bywong who believes "some adults seem to forget their exciting younger years of creative imaginations".

"As kids (in the 1960s) we had secret holes in fences and hidden tracks through the Royal Canberra Golf Course, and the Governor General's (GGs)," Little, who grew up in Yarralumla, recalls.

"We built cubbies amongst the pines … fallen branches and huge amounts of pine needles became igloos," recalls Little, who also "played Tom Sawyer adventures, dodged golf balls and GG staff and sometimes sneaked our pushbikes through the fences so we could ride across Scrivener Dam to Black Mountain".

"It was a fantastic childhood," Little says, pleading, "let's allow our kids the same freedom in our amazing bush capital … they should be free to imagine, explore and learn (and thus appreciate) our nature reserves".

Little, who studied ecology and natural resources and has worked as a ranger, has a word of advice for the those who oppose the cubbies on environmental grounds: "Just fence off sensitive areas like where endangered orchid grows and explain to the kids what will bloom there."

One school so supportive of the benefits of children immersing themselves in the Canberra Nature Park is the Narrabundah Early Childhood School (an ACT public pre-school to year 2) which offers a Bush School Program where students spend one day a week for a term in the bush.

"We find that hands-on experiences in nature translate into shared experiences in the classroom and build children's resilience and problem-solving skills," explains Bernadette Hayes, the school principal.

"I know they build basic stick houses on Red Hill and Mt Ainslie as part of the program," Richelle Hilton, one of several parents to rave about the program, says, adding, "sometimes the cubbies remain between sessions and different groups enjoy rediscovering other's creations."

However, the recent resurgence in the bush cubbies isn't confined to central Canberra, with readers reporting them popping up in just about every nature reserve around the ACT.

"There's a great one in Coombs down by the Molonglo River," Alexandra Craig says, while John Cunningham reports "there's a big one at Wanniassa Hills".

Arguably the most visited is the innovative creation, carefully crafted from fallen branches, and hidden in the Himalayan Cedar forest at the National Arboretum Canberra.

Anne Porombka, who stumbled on the covert cubby during a recent 'Autumn Colours Walk', says "it prompted robust discussion as to its origins".

"Some of our group which included three children and several adults thought it could be used as a ghost house, others a bear house, and others simply a play house," she says.

A spokesperson for the arboretum says "similar transient structures also pop up in our Cork Oak forest from time to time, and we ask visitors to use found material from the forest floor and not to break branches from the trees".

My arboretum insider further reports, "it's always positive to see children experiencing outdoor play with natural materials," but warns that management keeps a close eye on the cubbies as they come and go, taking into account both "safety for visitors" and "the amount of combustible material they contain during bushfire season".

Meanwhile, in another of Canberra's exotic plantations, the Pialligo Redwood Forest (well-worth the three-kilometre stroll, a delight at this time of year, take a picnic), Cass Atkinson and Josh Mooney report not only the existence of bush cubbies but also a curved stick fort. Quite appropriate really, given the site is managed by the Department of Defence on behalf of the Commonwealth.

Earlier this week after a visit to the arboretum cubby, I enticed my two kids Sarah (10) and Emily (7) to the curved fort (sorry, I won't give away the exact location, part of the fun is searching for it) which is an impressive ten metres long and almost a metre high.

With their iPads purposefully left at home we played for hours at the fort, everything from games of cops and robbers to hide 'n seek. Heck, they even delved into the world of forensic science after they found a bone (it's ok, it looked like just a kangaroo tibia) hidden amongs the maze of fallen branches.

Not all correspondence was pro bush cubbies, with one missive from the Friends of the ACT Grasslands reporting that in the grassy woodlands in Stirling Park in Yarralumla, their members "often destroy and scatter stick constructions".

"Unfortunately, most of these have been built against or in eucalypt trees that are over a hundred years old and are important wildlife habitat," reports Dr Jamie Pittock a spokesperson for the group, adding, "stacking a big heap of firewood against significant trees in a fire prone landscape is really daft."

"We welcome the efforts of the National Capital Authority and Rural Fire Service in undertaking patch burns at Stirling Park for ecological regeneration and to reduce fire risk," Pittock says, warning potential cubby builders, "we will continue to dismantle stick constructions to protect old trees".

Barnsey in the slammer

While the macabre story of Lucretia Dunkley, who was first woman hanged in Australia, at Berrima Gaol , was a surprise to many readers, it wasn't for Mark Hilder who reports that a few years ago, aging rocker Jimmy Barnes co-wrote a song about the sorry saga called All Hell Broke Luc for Cold Chisel's 2015 album, The Perfect Crime.

"Barnes apparently penned the song after visiting Berrima Gaol, near his Southern Highland's home", Hilder explains.

For those who missed the original column, in 1843 Lucretia Dunkley was hanged at the Southern Highland's gaol alongside her lover, Martin Beech, for the gruesome axe murder of her husband on a farm near Gunning.

If you haven't seen it already, nature lovers should beat a path to the knockout photographic exhibition on show at the CSIRO Discovery Centre (Black Mountain) until May 16.

The exhibition, which features 52 winning images from the 2017 Wild Eye and 2018 Canberra Nature Map photographic competitions, celebrates our region's wildlife in all its glory and wonder. All the photos, from platypus to pixie parasols, clown fish to glowing ghost mushroom and breaching whales to spiky beetles, have been recorded using the cloud-based NatureMapr reporting tool.

My favourite is Alison Milton's close-up of a blue banded bee (Amegilla cingulate), one of our most beautiful native bees.

Did You Know? According to Michael Bedingfield, volunteer administrator of the Canberra Nature Map website, "through NatureMapr, citizen scientists and naturalist groups have built up an amazing record of the region's wildlife with over 1.2 million records of over 7000 local species and in excess of 250,000 images". Heck, that's a lot.

While recently following in this column's muddy footsteps to view the sunken house on the bed of Lake George (Honey, Who Shrunk the House, March 17), Bill Crowle noticed this tree stump 'peering back at him'. Can you see the 'feline face'? It's about half-way up, looking left.

Clue: Seven children (not dwarfs!) lived here in the late 1890s

Degree of difficulty: Medium to hard

Last week:Congratulations to Viv Rolfe of Dickson who was the first reader to correctly identify last week's photo (inset), as 'George' the elephant, located adjacent to the Nimmitabel Bakery.

Riding atop George are two 'steam punks' who are preparing for the 'Steampunk @ Altitude' extravaganza in Nimmitabel on the weekend of May 5 and 6 that will feature fashion parades, theatrical performances, music, dancing, parasol duelling (really!), tea pot races and amusements galore. For the uninitiated, Steampunk celebrates a fictionalised version of history based in Victorian and Wild West times, with futuristic but steam-powered technology.

While driving through Nimmitabel during the corresponding weekend last year, your Akubra-clad columnist's bus was bailed up by a steampunk resplendent in a pith helmet. He jumped on the bus and had my guests in stitches. What fun. Nimmitabel is located on the Monaro Highway between Cooma and Bega. For more information, check out @steampunkaltitude on Facebook.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am, Saturday, April 28, 2018 will win a double pass to Dendy.