Taking advantage of the recently lifted restrictions on moving about I decided to celebrate by strolling through the less concrete intensive parts of my city's eastern suburbs. This is actually harder that it sounds because if you see a patch of open greenery it's usually a golf course. In fact there are so many golf courses I'm surprised they have room for houses. The appeal factor of a golf course to someone who doesn't play golf is on the low side.
However I, dear reader, had a plan. There is a thin strip of greenery devoid of sand traps and officious people asking if you're a member in the vicinity of Bellevue Hill, a rather upmarket section of the city's dwelling quarters. I would make my way to said greenery and inflict my presence on it for an indeterminate period of time.
My journey began with a trip on Sydney's newest light rail (aka the one that hasn't broken down). This monstrous beast of a vehicle makes up for its lack of speed with sheer inexorable mass. One gets the impression that if the driver kept his foot off the brake it wouldn't stop until doomsday. The gargantuan metal box dropped me off at Royal Randwick, home of Sydney's horse torturing elite, and trundled onwards possibly heading for Auckland.
I have no interest in Randwick royal or otherwise but if one turns ones back on the horse tracks one finds one self facing Centennial Park. Before colonisation Centennial Park was a swamp, water supply and food source for the local inhabitants. After colonisation it served as water supply, impromptu dump and general low rent embarrassment until in the lead up towards Federation it was decided to create a grand park in the area. Fortunately there was a bit of an economic crisis at the time and labour was cheap even by the standards of the day. Swamps were drained, pesky native vegetation was encouraged to move elsewhere and more visually pleasing vegetation was planted in its stead. The place is not exactly a triumph of environmentalism but it is at least an acknowledgement that green spaces are nice to have.
Eager to leave the prevailing smell of horse shit behind I abandoned Randwick and headed into the park. Imposing gates welcomed me and once through them I encountered my first problem. Centennial Park is really rather big. I gazed around a little helplessly until a helpful sign pointed me in the direction of Lachlan Swamp.
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| A first glimpse at Centennial Park |
This swamp is apparently the only one that survived the entire gentrification process and since it was roughly on my way north I pointed myself in its direction. Along the way there would be ponds and birds. Quite a few birds actually. I wasn't particularly interested in birds but since they were there and paused helpfully for photos I took quite a few pictures of them. What I was hoping to see was eels. Some years ago I went on a bit of an eel frenzy and discovered that eels live in Centennial Park (specifically the wetter bits). In actual fact the eels have always been there, they used to live in the swamps and when we got rid of the swamps they just hopped into the ornamental ponds and challenged us to evict them. We never succeeded.
Unfortunately the eels were not in a visitor receptive mood and eel sightings were thin on the ground. The birds attempted to make up for it by posing ever more enthusiastically for my camera but it was a sad second best.
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| In this pond there are probably eels |
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| But there are definitely ducks |
The disappointing absence of eels notwithstanding it was pleasant to wander from one pond to another, photographing birds slowly and not particularly coherently making my way towards the swamp I had been promised. I just had to get through all of the ponds and open grassland first.
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| I'm not sure whether he was posing for the camera or contemplating mugging me |
Still ponds and open grasslands have their appeal. Specifically they appeal to people with dogs and small children. Despite this it was an enjoyable walk punctuated by pauses to move the birds out of my way. My quest for eels took me to one pond after another but sadly all I saw were the damn birds.
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| Birds |
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| More birds |
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| OK the pelican was worth it |
Eventually to give the birds a hint I studiously photographed some flowers that were lurking modestly beside one of the ponds just to prove that the birds weren't the only game in town. There were signs up saying don't feed the birds but I'm pretty sure I saw a group of birds surreptitiously pulling one down.
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| Finally, enough with the birds already |
Despite being waylaid by roaming avian gangs I did finally make it to Lachlan Swamp. This is a timbered swamp and is sufficiently delicate that visitors had to stick to the paths lest the presence of an unexpected footmark make the whole thing curl up and die.
It was quite a small swamp really but in contrast to the well manicured parklands it was engagingly messy. Nature doesn't really do neat and tidy. If you see neat and tidy you're almost certainly looking at something man made. The swamp had trees (and water of course although that was little difficult to find) and undergrowth and bushes and general natural mess. Signs warned you not to touch the bats. Since the bats were at the tops of the trees the signs would probably have done better to warn you of the constant steam of bat guano descending from the heavens.
That's right, I said bats. Lachlan Swamp is home to a colony of bats. They're not native either, they just turned up one day decided they liked the place and stayed. Now the trees groan under the weight of bats. Bats of course usually come out at night. Evidence would suggest that these particular bats are insomniacs.
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| More bat than tree really |
They swooped, they chittered and generally did the sort of things one expects bats to do at night. I made my way through the swamp (more of a swampette really) while the bats provided close air support, and guano. I made my way out of the swamp to find a group of people setting up music systems for what was apparently an open air party. I turned around and plunged back into the swamp.
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| Swamp |
With the amusement value of the swamp largely exhausted (and the bats getting cockier by the second) I struck roughly north in the general direction of my ultimate destination. A sign warned of swooping birds but apparently they were camera shy (I was more concerned about swooping bats) and I continued my journey unmolested.
Parks are pretty enough but a park is a park even if it covers over 190 acres so I plodded through the grass and occasional Moreton Bay fig (the designer of the park had a fetish for them apparently) heading towards housing and busy roads. Along the way I took a photo of a random piece of architecture stuck in the middle of the park. It might have been a mausoleum or a sewage pumping station.
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| Oh look, architecture! |
Forced to reenter the inhabited part of Sydney I crossed a couple of the busiest roads in the country and wandered through some quite expensive suburban streets. As I trudged up one of said streets I encountered what must be one of the most wretched memorials I have ever seen. A tiny triangle of land on a street corner had been somewhat grandiloquently named Raoul Wallenberg Garden. Raoul Wallenburg Nature Strip would have been more accurate but still overstating the case.
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| Two trees do not a garden make |
For the record Raoul Wallenberg was a wealthy Swedish businessman and diplomat attached to his country's embassy in Hungary during the Second World War. During that time he managed to save a large number of Hungary's Jewish population from being exterminated in the Holocaust. He was taken by the Soviets when they captured Budapest and never seen again.
Leaving the disappointing garden behind I headed towards my actual destination for this days walk which makes all of the preceding an overly verbose and rather tedious prologue.
Cooper Park was my destination. The park straddles the border between Woollahra and Bellevue Hill and thus has a vital role in preventing violent clashes between the two suburbs street gangs. It is essentially a gully with a creek running through it. Whether the creek caused the gully or just found it and thought this was an easy way to flow I'm not entirely sure. At the western end where I entered there is just enough room to squeeze in some cricket nets, a couple of tennis courts and some open space for dogs to crap in.
Most of Cooper Park, however, is a tiny remnant of natural bushland in one of Sydney's wealthiest and most built up areas. Walking trails snake through the area allowing one to stroll through the trees and pretend for a short while that there aren't houses and cars a stone throw's distance from where you're standing.
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| Entrance to the less tennis court intensive part of Cooper Park |
I did indeed walk along the trails and, being possessed of an immense capacity for self deception, I did pretend that there weren't houses and cars a stone's throw away. The illusion was shattered briefly when the top of the Bondi Junction Westfield loomed above the trees but I averted my eyes and hurried away.
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| A brief and visually displeasing reminder of reality |
The park started off as essentially someone's backyard albeit someone considerably wealthier than I. Given the difficulties of building on something near vertical with a watercourse in the basement the native flora was graciously permitted to remain. Taking the hint some of the native fauna hung around as well. If you think this is a segue to more bird photos you would be right.
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| Yet another bird photo |
The presence of the creek added a little flavour to the tangle of trees and the occasional bird. I got a lot of mileage out of the park to be honest. I wandered up and down its trails, taking pictures of the more photogenic bits of scenery (yes, another segue) and enjoying the occasions when birdsong drowned out the noise from Syd Einfeld Drive just across the way.
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| Not a large waterfall but not exactly what you expect in Bellevue Hill either |
The park wasn't big enough to completely muffle the sounds coming from the real world outside but it was calming and enjoyable nonetheless. Once I had wandered around the sides of the park I descended to the gully floor and followed creek a kilometre or so upstream until I ran out of park and the creek ran out of freedom disappearing into a pipe.
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| An impressive bridge for a modest creek |
I stared for a while at an algae covered pond just prior to the vanishing. I wasn't just gawking, I was looking for turtles. A sign had warned me that intruder turtles were in the area. A description was given and a request that any sightings be reported to the appropriate authorities. I've got to admit that when I think of invasive species turtles of any stripe are pretty low on my list. However these are the dreaded Red Eared Slider Turtles who rampage around the planet causing carnage whenever they show up.
Actually the reason they're so prevalent is because they're a popular pet and like a lot of popular pets their owners periodically demonstrate their popularity by dumping them in the wild to fend for themselves. It turns out that the Red Eared Sliders are somewhat better at fending for themselves than native turtles who have been living here for millennia. This has spurred our state government to undertake a few half hearted countermeasures (such as putting up signs) which so far don't seem to be doing the trick. Possibly because turtles can't read.
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| This is actually a pond. It looks solid because its full of invading turtles |
Having done my turn on turtle watch (nothing to report sergeant) I strolled downriver (well, downcreek) pausing to photograph another bird along the way. The birds sang, the traffic rumbled and it was cool and pleasant beneath the trees but I did need to get on if only because my appreciation of nature doesn't extend to spending the night in it. It was time to leave.
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| Yes, another bird |
So leave I did, reluctantly heading back out onto the suburban streets (only getting slightly lost) and eventually making my way north until Sydney Harbour blocked my path. Having just missed a ferry I promptly spent an hour wandering about Double Bay (maximum interest time five minutes) until my watery steed arrived to take me home.
Naturally I filled in the time by taking pictures of a group of small birds hanging out on a pier.
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| I promise this is the final bird picture |
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