Those of you who have followed my blog over the years will be aware that there are a number of recurring themes. There are birthday greetings to various emperors, war games write ups, travel journals and the doings of a group of psychologically disturbed plush toys. Something else that crops up from time to time is eels. I have developed an unnatural fondness for what is basically a fish that was too lazy to grow fins. Despite this I go out of my way to find eels whenever I can. This isn't exactly difficult as eels seem to be everywhere. If you spill a glass of water in Sydney an eel will turn up before you have time to fetch a mop. Once they develop a chlorine tolerance no backyard swimming pool will be safe.
My obsession with interest in eels began in 2014 when a friend and I walked through a bit of Sydney Park. They were still in the process of constructing the wetlands and my friend told me there were eels although we didn't see any that day. I sought out and discovered eels in various other wet (or at least damp) places around Sydney but yesterday having run out of conveniently available bushland to walk through I decided to drop down to Sydney Park and see if I could encounter eels.
Sydney Park stretches over some 40 plus hectares of former garbage tip and brickworks and it has to be said that it's probably a bit more aesthetically pleasing now than it was then. There are paths, wide open grassy bits, hilly bits and tree covered bits. There are also wetlands. These wetlands aren't natural, rather they're a water recycling system that takes storm water, filters out the mucky bits (most of it I would suspect) and then uses the newly clean water to water the park. Along the way a series of ponds provide a home for a variety of plants and animals that like hanging out in close proximity to water. It is possible the eels were introduced but I suspect its far more likely that they simply turned up one day and have proved impossible to evict.
Despite the presence of wetlands, trees and other nature stuff Sydney Park isn't the usual sort of place I would go for a walk. For starters its full of people. For second its full of dogs. I don't dislike dogs (and I'm at least ambivalent about people) but I don't like encountering large numbers of them when I'm out for a walk (or at any other time to be fair). Still the siren call of eels overwhelmed my latent misanthropy and I set forth under cloudless skies to sample the delights of Sydney Park. When I arrived it was obvious that half the population of Sydney (both human and canine) had had the same idea. I did my best not to photograph any of them.
I passed by surviving brick works buildings on my way into the park, preserved as a monument to the days when we had a manufacturing sector and headed in the general direction of the wetlands.
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| Brickworks remnants |
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| Chimneys are an integral part of brickworks |
I was met with a vast horde of dogs many of whom had humans attached to them by a leash. Skirting around and sometimes over the exuberant canine horde I headed away from the trimmed, well groomed part of the park towards soggier environs (which to be fair were equally well groomed but they had gone for the designer messy look). Along the way I took the opportunity presented by occasional breaks in the people to take photos.
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| Ah the untamed wilderness (with disabled access) |
I encountered my first piece of wetland when the path I was following ended at a fence. On the other side of the fence was more wet than land. A broad pond presented itself and I looked eagerly into its depths but no eels presented themselves. A series of terracotta pipes did present themselves, I thought they were part of the drainage system but apparently they were an art installation designed to symbolise, well something to do with terracotta and water I suppose.
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| A wetland with terracotta pipes |
Although no eels had paraded before my eager eyes lots of quite minute life did so. Loads of what were either tadpoles or very small fish swam through the water in front of me and dragon flies hovered over various bits of waterlogged plant life. I was unreasonably pleased at seeing dragon flies as I simply don't seem to encounter them that often nowadays, I was glad to see there are some left.
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| No eels but a rather handsome dragon fly |
Eventually having satiated an unknown desire for dragon flies I headed on to the next pond circling left as a sign had promised me a frog pond. Apparently four different types of frogs make their home in the wetlands and while the signs made no explicit promise I assumed that the frog pond would be the place to see them. There were mini cascades running between pond one and pond two (they have names which I didn't bother learning) to provide an environment for the sorts of plants that like to hang around cascades.
Enough of cascades, the frog pond beckoned. I arrived at the frog pond or, to be more accurate, I arrived at a sign that informed me the frog pond was directly behind it. All I could see was rushes and grass. There were certainly no frogs disporting themselves for the amusement of the general public. Now that I had arrived the sign confessed that one might not see frogs (you could have hidden a gorilla in those rushes) but you might hear them. I listened, I didn't hear them. Mind you it was difficult to hear anything except enthusiastic barking. And dogs.
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| The frog pond. Presumably the frogs, and the pond, are in there somewhere |
Feeling just a little cheated frogwise I headed back to the wetlands proper. I didn't know it yet but things were about to look up. The principal drawcard of the wetlands is the birdlife they attract but up until now birdlife had been a little thin on the ground, or water. There were hardly great flocks of birds hanging around but as I approached the next piece of reed clogged water definite signs of avian life presented themselves. There were ibis because there always are, the one below manages to look a little less scraggy and desperate than they usually do.
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| An uncharacteristically impressive ibis |
When I arrived at the viewing platform a coot presented itself for my photographic delectation. I know it was a coot because I outsource my bird identifying to a friend who knows about this stuff.
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| The top one is a coot, apparently |
I leant against the rail and watched the coot for a while and an eel swam by. I fumbled for my camera but it was gone. Displaying a level of patience I exhibit in no other part of my life I hung around waiting for it to return. Return it did and indeed it seemed quite happy to pose for photographs. I took lots of photographs. They were not particularly successful. If you're wandering through the bush and you encounter bigfoot I am definitely not the person you want holding the camera. The trouble is the water was brown and green and eels are also brown and green. Also of course the eels are under said water and I am not.
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| The best of the eel shots. I have many more which are worse |
Despite the photographic issues I was delighted with my day. There had been birds, dragon flies and eels. I skipped out of the park and trotted through Newtown for coffee. Along the way I met a friend and boasted about my eel success.
"Did you see the turtles?" she asked?
Crap!
So the next day I went back to the damn park to see if I could see some turtles. More hordes of people, more packs of dogs, about the same number of dragon flies and an equal lack of frogs. Fortunately my friend had been able to tell me which pond the turtles normally hung out in. I went there trying not to get my expectations up too high. There was more birdlife on the water, specifically in the shape of a pair of handsome black swans with an incredibly gorgeous little baby cygnet. The parents (I presume they were parents) kept close to the cygnet which was wise as there were eels in the water. I saw one lurking with intent but I'm pretty sure the pond had the same number of cygnets when I left as when I arrived.
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| Two and a half swans |
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| Because its too cute not to have another photo |
Delightful though they were the swans were not the reason for my visit. Neither was a tree full of ibis. I still can't believe they roost in trees. I always thought they slept under a urine stained blanket at a railway station. Even the eel disporting itself in the water didn't hold my attention for more than fifteen minutes or so. Instead I scanned the water for turtles without success. Then I took a closer look at the end of a log sticking into the water. The end of the log was occupied by a turtle. Pretty soon the end of the log was occupied by two turtles. I took a photo until I realised what they were doing at which point I felt embarrassed for invading their privacy. I'm still going to post the photo though. How often do you get the opportunity to see some hot testudine porn?
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| Introductions are made |
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| Insert your own wildly inappropriate sound effects here |
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| I'm presuming this is the female as the other one seems to have buggered off the moment they were finished |
The turtles, quite cleverly, were in the most difficult to access part of the pond. The photos above were taken at the very edge of my camera's zoom function and I'm amazed they turned out so well. My cup ranneth over. There had been eels, dragon flies, swans and turtles fucking. What more can you ask for from a day out?
I strolled out of the park and promptly got lost. On my way back to finding myself I passed a cement works. Naturally I didn't take a photo of that. Oh wait a minute, yes I did.
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