After I emerged from the Lane Cover River valley covered in glory (and not leeches as some predicted) I decided for a more modest achievement for my next walk. I gazed at the map of Sydney and realised I had given scant attention to the southern shore of the harbour. There were good reasons for this. Much of the southern shore of the harbour is occupied by the dwellings of those with the money to afford a dwelling on the southern shore of the harbour. Such dwellings had not left much space for bushland however if I zoomed in on the map and squinted closely it did seem that there might be a shred of greenery not completely built over between Rose Bay and Watsons Bay. Indeed there seemed to be a walking track of sorts.
"That's it!" I announced to a collection of disinterested plush toys. "I shall walk from Rose Bay to Watsons Bay."
"You do know there's a perfectly good ferry?" asked the platypus.
I did indeed know there was a perfectly good ferry. I caught the perfectly good ferry to Rose Bay to commence my walk. The journey across Sydney Harbour was enlivened by my discovery that Sydney ferries now have the sort of welcoming speech one normally encounters on aircraft. Welcoming you aboard, wishing you a pleasant journey and informing you of what to do in the unlikely event that the ferry's journey becomes more downward than onward. When it got to the part detailing the emergency exits I stopped listening. It's a ferry for gods sake. The emergency exits are the entire sides of the vessel. I doubt if the crew are going to order me back on board if I hurl myself into the sea from the wrong spot.
With a specific part of the ferry's side committed to memory should the worst happen I sat back to enjoy the trip. I had picked a good day, ie hot and cloudless which meant that the harbour was at its best. Whether this would be ideal for walking was another matter. Rose Bay emerged blinking from the harbour and attempted to look its best as I approached. Rose Bay is famous for two things; a golf course which occupies about half of the suburb and its status as Australia's oldest international airport.
Back in the early days of international air travel the cost of laying down concrete runways of sufficient length for international aircraft was considered prohibitive. It was much cheaper to land the aircraft on water which didn't need much in the way of construction work. In the 1930s flying boats from BEA (proud ancestor of its wretched offspring British Airways) and PanAm's famous clippers would carry passengers and mail from the world to Sydney and back again. And they landed at Rose Bay. The whole thing came to an end after the
Second World War. During that time so many long concrete runways had
been built to facilitate bomber fleets that the world came out of the
conflict with an almost embarrassing oversupply of land based
international quality airports.
Still Rose Bay airport still exists as the home for a seaplane tour company. Another good thing about a water airport is the lack of maintenance needed on the runways.
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| Seaplane parking at Rose Bay |
Having alighted at Rose Bay and turned my back with barely concealed contempt on the golf course I peered at the map on my phone and set out on my journey. I was sensibly dressed for walking in sturdy shoes and long pants. However the first thing I walked across was Rose Bay beach for which I was completely unsuited both sartorially and psychologically. When I reached the end of the beach I discovered that I wasn't going any further. Some extra frantic peering at the map told me I would actually have to leave the sea and walk through Rose Bay shops and reunite with the foreshore a little further on. I didn't actually get lost but I did go down a couple of wrong streets before I found the right one. To show willing I did take a photo of the harbour from Rose Bay before plunging into the suburb itself.
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| Like I said, it was a nice day |
Having struggled through the traffic choked main street of Rose Bay I emerged out the other side and pointed myself back towards the foreshore with a very impressive church staring down at me. Specifically what was impressive about the church was the church's ability to snaffle the best real estate wherever they turn up. This one managed to give an almost medieval look to what is a very modern suburb.
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| The worshipers of some grim, dark god look down upon the villagers with disdain |
And Rose Bay is a modern suburb and getting more modern by the second. The reason for this is because it is quite old (by Sydney standards) that means that most of the ground was built on yea these many years ago. What that means in turn is that if you want to build anything you pretty much have to knock something else down. Virtually the entire suburb seems to be in a permanent state of renovation. Fortunately I left the scafffolding and discreet notices indicating that somebody had paid off the local council and finally made my way to a modest piece of bush.
Here's the thing, there isn't very much bush here. As noted before people have been living here since some of the colonists decided that a water view was worth being the first to be looted if the French invaded. However clinging to the very edge of the water a small shred of bushland survives (an oversight I suspect). This glorified nature strip revels in the name of Sydney Harbour National Park (to be fair there's more in other spots) and much of it has walking platforms so that you don't sully the earth with your tread. Essentially we are walking along the cliffs which fringe the harbour and which turned out to be slightly more trouble to put houses on that it was worth. I was rarely more than a hundred metres from somebody's house and frequently much less. But the day was warm and the little patch of bush was doing its very best to be properly bush like and if you turned your head away from the houses you could see the harbour through the trees and you realised that this tiny strip was worth preserving after all.
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| Houses to the right of me but this was to my left |
I thought that this wouldn't be a particularly strenuous bushwalk and I was right but it was a little more difficult than I anticipated as there was a fair bit of climbing up and down the cliff. From time to time branch lines of the walking path struck off to take you down to some secluded beach and on a couple of occasions the path itself wandered down there before climbing up the other side. There were plenty of people on the path but they weren't bushwalkers for the most part, they were people who had parked their cars and were now wandering down to this beach or that. The difference was noticeable. For the most part people I have encountered on my bushwalks have offered a greeting varying between formally polite and overtly cheerful. The people I passed today gave the impression they would stab me if I spoke to them. So I didn't and this seemed to please both of us.
In welcoming nature lovers or at least people not inherently opposed to nature per se the sign had waxed lyrical about the flora and fauna that frolicked unmolested in this tiny patch of pseudo wilderness. I have my doubts about the fauna side of that. There were some birds it is true but there didn't seem to be much of anything else, even lizards were in short supply. Perhaps most telling of all was the complete absence of signs indicating that fox baits had been laid. This tells me that even a fox has difficulty finding good eating here. My attempts to find the Clare McIntyre memorial fungus went almost unrewarded and I'm not sure if the one I did see was a fungus or some sort of tree disease.
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| The Clare McIntyre memorial fungus, possibly |
Fortunately for my scalp there were sufficient trees to more or less protect me from the sun which was useful as I had foolishly forgotten my hat. As if to deny my previous comments about the inadequacy of the National Park a sign proudly proclaimed that a brand new species of tree had been discovered here only a few years ago. It was discovered and promptly labelled as endangered which isn't surprising as there isn't space for more than about three of them. I wish them luck.
At one point I passed by a cemetery or rather what I suspect used to be a cemetery back in the day. A sturdy fence had been erected to prevent the dead from hurling themselves into the sea. If you want a viking funeral you really have to put in your will. Once you're in a box floating you out on a longship becomes a little problematic.
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| No need to fear the walking dead, they've been fenced off |
After the cemetery the path decided I had enjoyed enough altitude for a while and swooped down to sea level to intersect with a beach whose name I don't know and have no intention of looking up. It was quite compact as beaches go and would have looked very nice if it wasn't covered in people. If they were whales this would have been a mass beaching event. I had to restrain the impulse to drag them out to sea. Those parts of the geography not covered by humans were quite picturesque however.
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| Definitely picturesque |
Once I had picked my way carefully through the beach denizens and started climbing up the other side I encountered a truly enormous tree. No wonder those other trees are endangered, this one was taking up enough space for a forest.
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| This is one tree |
Giving the tree as wide a berth as possible I continued heading up. Having flirted with the waterline the path was now apparently intent on seducing the cliff top. In return for separating me from the water the path repaid me with spectacular views out over the water I could no longer touch.
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| That's the area I walked through and you have to admit it does look authentically bushlike |
Despite the idyllic nature of the surroundings terrors lurked around every corner. I wouldn't have realised this if signs didn't go out of their way to tell me. I encountered the sign below at the top of a cliff. They seem to be keen to include every warning on the one sign I'm surprised they didn't include something about meteor strikes.
For the record I was standing on the top of the cliff with the apparently unstable edges. The shallow water didn't bother me because it was at the bottom of the cliff but the threatened appearance of "slippery areas" held out the threat that I could travel from the top of the crumbling cliff to the disturbingly shallow water in an unpleasantly short period of time. Somehow I survived the journey and lit a candle for those before me who hadn't made it (I presume they number in the thousands) may the God of Futile Endeavours look kindly up their sacrifice.
I was now coming to the end of the bushwalk part of my bushwalk having arrived at Nielsen Park which is apparently a "heritage listed historic site and park". Why? No idea but there was a decent amount of it. I followed it until I ran out of bush. Along the way I came across Shark Beach which was closed for renovations. Who in the name of a sweet and merciful god names a recreation area Shark Beach? It might be accurate but come on, a little discretion please. You don't see chemical works calling themselves the "Mutated Children Chemical Plant" do you?
Before I left Nielsen Park I did manage a semi satisfactory bird photograph. Cindy Parker, if you're reading this I would appreciate an identification. I'm really hoping its a shag on a rock because I have the maturity of a thirteen year old.
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| An unidentified bird |
From the park I could see my destination laid out before me.
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| My destination, somewhat obscured by an inconveniently placed rock |
Unfortunately to get there would involve walking through Vaucluse. From now on my journey would be down suburban streets albeit somewhat high rent ones and therefore isn't particularly interesting. I did walk through the grounds of Vaucluse House, not for any specific reason, they were just in my way. Eventually I wound up in Watsons Bay where a ferry was very kindly waiting to cart me back to Circular Quay and my journey home.
