Isn't it amazing how rapidly one's options narrow? Normally when I take some leave I like to travel. Unfortunately at the moment a trip to my letter box seems like an expedition. With a few days to spare I decided to see what the city of Sydney could offer me that didn't involve being around loads of people. Hanging out at an oversized poisonous drain seemed like the perfect choice.
I've mentioned the Alexandra Canal before in this blog. It was dug late in the nineteenth century, messing up a perfectly functional creek in the process. It was intended to allow ships to make their way to the factories and warehouses of Alexandria. That's the official story anyway, in actual fact it was never really a success (too shallow and too sandy) and the only real benefits it produced were a certain amount of employment (there was a recession happening at the time) and to facilitate the dumping of toxic waste by the aforementioned factories and warehouses.
Eventually such shipping as did use the canal petered out and it became a largely forgotten stretch of somewhat noxious water hidden from public view by all of the industries that lined its banks. A few decades ago our state government decided that the canal should be cleaned up and transformed into a glittering waterfront showcase with fine shops, restaurants and all of the urban renewal bells and whistles. At which point the Department of the Environment stepped in and pointed out that the canal bed was so toxic that even breaking the surface of the water was liable to create an environmental disaster. Some things are just so polluted that the only sensible thing you can do is leave them alone and hope for the best. Somewhat to my surprise the state government did precisely that and the canal remains a largely forgotten stretch of somewhat noxious water.
For reasons I can't begin to explain I've long wanted to take a look at this ribbon of liquid death so fearsome that it could even scare our state government into making a sensible decision. Now, due to a complete absence of other options I got my chance. I did a little research (I looked it up on google maps) and found that the creek which flowed into the canal was convenient to Green Square railway station. I decided I would go along to Green Square, find the creek and follow it to the canal. Then I would walk down said canal until it came to its junction with the Cooks River (another poisonous waterway) in the general vicinity of Sydney Airport. If I had done more than a little research I would have known that this was impossible.
Things started well though, I got to Green Square and without getting lost so much as once I found my way to Shea's Creek which flows into the canal. Unfortunately most of Shea's Creek is now covered over and I didn't so much follow it as use it as a general reference point. Still I made it to the start of the canal. The canal might not have been deep enough for ocean going shipping but its certainly broad with a thin fringe of trees that don't quite conceal the various industrial enterprises that still line its banks. There was a pathway along the side of the canal and I strode along it congratulating myself on my organisational skills.
These congratulations came to an abupt halt shortly afterwards along with the path which petered out and eventually wound up in the carpark of one of the aforementioned businesses, downstream (or downcanal I guess) I could see that other businesses stretched right up to the edge of the canal and that walking alongside it was impossible unless I wanted to risk dogs and security guards. After some careful thought I decided that I didn't.
Still my parents didn't raise a quitter (which is why I'm still smoking at the age of 51 when I should really know better) and I kept up the hope that possibly just down the canal there would be an opportunity to rejoin the waterline so I strolled down a parallel road instead. Business after business passed by my eyes and every one of them felt it was important to inform me that trespassing would be treated with the utmost severity and that the canal water was only the second most dangerous thing I would encounter if I dared set foot on their property.
Occasionally a narrow pathway would lead down to the canal giving me the opportunity to admire the warning signs that proliferated at the water's edge. The signs pointed out that the canal was highly toxic and that fishing, disturbing the sediment or even breathing heavily in the general vicinity were to be avoided at all costs. Strangely they didn't say "don't drink the water" possibly they thought that terms like "highly toxic" and "contaminated" should be enough of a hint for most people.
By this time I was getting a little discouraged, I was well along the canal's route and had actually seen the canal for about five percent of my journey. When the road I was walking down ended in a quarry I should really have taken the hint. Instead I checked my phone and it seemed that if I persevered there would be a walking trail a bit further along. I persevered and then I persevered some more. Then the new road that I was walking down ended in a container terminal which at least told me I was getting near the airport. Something else that told me I was getting near the airport was the plane which passed a couple of hundred feet over my head on its approach path.
Retracing my weary steps I persevered even more. Basically I was walking down the Princes Highway which is not a particularly aesthetically pleasing environment to be sightseeing in. Just before Tempe however my patience was rewarded when a side street petered out into a narrow path, walking; for the purposes of. Suddenly I was in bushland. I still wasn't at the canal but at least I didn't need to worry about being run over by container lorries. And if the canal eluded me there was at least some water. The area was what environmentalists call "wetland" and what a plumber would call "poorly drained" There was a largely invisible stream and a couple of shallow ponds in which a small handful of birds risked life and beak by fossicking in the sediment despite the warning signs. I stood on a small bridge and looked at a sign warning against diving and swimming a little superfluously in my opinion since whatever stream existed was doing its best to go unnoticed and diving would involve bouncing off several large rocks. If you were lucky your unconscious body might inadvertently roll into the stream post impact.
Then I hit a golf range. There wasn't sufficient room to squeeze an entire golf course into the strip of land between where I was standing and the canal but they had stuffed in what they could. I skirted the range and there it was; the object of my desires, the Alexandra canal in all its toxic glory. Feeling triumphant I strolled through a pleasant park with the canal on my left and felt slightly silly when it connected with the Cooks River about five minutes further on. I had managed to walk from one end of the canal to the other a distance of approximately four and a half kilometres and I had seen the canal for perhaps a couple of hundred metres of that. All the rest of the time I had been seeing traffic, container terminals and industrial sites. Ironically given the condition of the canal a lot of them seem involved in waste disposal and recycling.
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