Rozelle Bay

Leaving the bifurcated suburb of Lilyfield behind the light rail plunges northeast towards the river before coming to its senses and taking a sharp right turn just before they would have had to work out how to float rails on water.  The water in question is Rozelle Bay which very kindly permitted a light rail station to use its moniker without charging royalties.

The station is balanced precariously over a small park close to where Whites Creek flows into the bay. The park is big enough to contain one enormous tree and just enough grass to provide a nice border for the bike paths that seem to occupy most of the surface area.  If you want to enjoy a picnic under the tree or go for a very brief bike ride you'd better hurry up.  The local council has put up signs warning that the latest piece of congestion busting infrastructure (yet another toll road because failure repeated over and over again is in itself a form of success) involves building over the park.  This, in the council's view, is a bad thing.  It might certainly be an issue for the light rail which currently has its exit in the park.  Walking off the platform into the middle of a six lane road could have its difficulties.

For the moment though you can trot down the stairs and immerse yourself in the wonders of nature as represented by a solitary tree.  Across the road from the park is Rozelle Bay itself, don't bother going across there, they've fenced it off to stop the water escaping.  Also there are docks and places for boats to tie up.  It is, in fact, a working harbour, home to many maritime industries and small and medium sized pleasure craft. Or to put it another way, its an ugly, aesthetically displeasing mess.

However if you hop off the other side of the light rail things improve somewhat if only because you can't see Rozelle Bay.  Here we are at the back end of Annandale.  I've already mentioned the predilection of the light rail to take you to the back end of places that you would normally only see if you lived in them.  Its actually quite pleasant with trees, bushes and of course Whites Creek cutting a path to the sea (well Rozelle Bay actually).  In the background is the reassuring hum of not too distant vehicle traffic to reassure you that you are actually in the middle of the city and not stuck out in some rural hell hole.

Whites Creek is another one of those watercourses like Hawthorn Canal.  Originally natural it was concreted in the nineteenth century because apparently it was easier to do that than persuade people not to shit in something they might like to drink from later.  The result of which is that Whites "Creek" is essentially an open air drain fringed by parks (of both the recreational and car variety).  I followed the concrete course of the creek for a little while because in a fit of completely uncharacteristic preparation I had actually identified something I wanted to see in the area before I arrived.

This was Whites Creek Wetlands.  Normally, of course, a creek would be considered pretty wet land but in the case of Whites Creek huge slabs of concrete now separate the wet from the land.  This is bad for all sorts of ecological reasons that I won't go into because I don't know them.  There were naturally occurring wetlands once upon a time but that was in pre concrete times.  These wetlands are artificial, they've been deliberately created to recreate a small patch of what used to be prevalent in the area.  Wetlands are an important way of cleansing the water (I'm reading this directly off the sign here) and the creek water is now pumped through this series of shallow ponds which semi naturally filters impurities before being released back into its concrete channel to continue its journey to the bay in somewhat less toxic form.  The wetlands are drained every so often to allow authorities to clean out the pollution laden soil that is the inevitable result of the water itself getting cleaner.

As a by product of this water treatment works a small piece of something that, to the untrained eye, is indistinguishable from nature has returned.  There are reeds, bushes, insects, fish,  frogs and generally biodiversity gone mad.  It's yet another example of how easy it can be to return at least a modicum of plant and animal life to an area.  All you basically have to do is stop actively killing them.  Here we built a handful of ponds which vaguely approximated the original environment and life exploded before you could say "turtle".

And speaking of turtles there are turtles in the wetland as well.  The creators didn't introduce them, they built the wetlands and apparently turtles turned up the next day and started unpacking their bags. Presumably up until this point they'd been living in homeless shelters and sleeping rough on railway stations.  I looked out for turtles but I didn't see any, I did hear a frog but it was being shy and didn't want to pose for photographs.

Having wandered around the wetlands I looked about the place and realised I had no idea where I was or how to get anywhere useful so I followed the creek back to Rozelle Bay where the light rail station was waiting patiently for my return.