The day started badly. My car had been recalled to have a problem with the seatbelt locking mechanism corrected. With much planning ahead, I had booked it in to the local dealer, to begin and end the day there, with Walk #21 in the middle. The first step to go awry was finding the service department. Google had helpfully told me the dealer's address, on one side of Paramatta Rd. Sadly, the service department is on the other side, and getting your car to the other side of Paramatta Rd at peak hour is not for the faint-hearted.
Consequently, I was later leaving the dealer than I had expected, and I still had two buses to catch to my starting point. As I approached the first bus stop, a bus with my number on it pulled away. I consulted the timetable, and realised that it was not the bus I had planned to take anyway, but the earlier one, spectacularly late. So I settled in to wait for my bus, unconcerned by a short delay. I should at that point have realised that, when one bus is 16 minutes late, the next one is unlikely to be unaffected by the same delays. A pleasant if somewhat tedious wait in the sunshine on Great North Road ensued. My bus, true to form, was similarly late, and they only run every half hour. So of course I then missed my connecting bus, in a repeat of the scenario where it pulled away as I was almost at the bus stop, followed by another major delay in the arrival of the next bus. All of which meant that it took me almost ninety minutes to travel from Haberfield to the other side of the Gladesville Bridge at Hunters Hill. In hindsight, I could have walked that return trip instead and saved my Hunters Hill walk and bus fares for another day.
But finally I arrived at the start of the walk, at the top of Alexandra St in Hunters Hill. The walk is designed to be one way, ending at the wharf at the bottom of the peninsula, but I had elected to do the return trip, so about 10 kms all up. Make no mistake, this is at heart a very urban walk, with some lovely waterside parks and a bit of very famous bush thrown in. The Joubert brothers, after whom a street is named, built, in the second half of the 1800s, many of the beautiful sandstone mansions that grace Hunters Hill today. There is a Heritage Trail, with 40 plaques to be read, if you're a history buff. For myself, I would have just loved to see inside some of those gorgeous dwellings. I sneaked a couple of photos through a gate and down a driveway, the latter astonishing in its Italianate pretension.
But back to the walk itself. The Book recommended the stained glass in All Saints Anglican Church as being some of the finest in the country, so I was eager to look inside. But the doors were firmly closed against an unbeliever such as I so I walked on. And there, around the corner, was the true ecclesiastical delight of the St Peter Chanel Catholic Church. Only in the high end of town do you get your church blessed by the patron saint of haute couture. I sniffed the air for the telltale scent, but there was only mown grass to be had. The sunlight haloed over the rooftop confirmed I was indeed in exclusive company.
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works..." Matthew 5:16
of his house. I ducked under the tape, after a quick assessment that the rest of the tree looked unlikely to fall at that moment.
The last house you see before heading out of Mornington Reserve revels in this marvellous rotunda. Because it can. I think there were three gardeners all working there when I went past. It's not enough just to have money to buy the house, there's the upkeep to consider.
So, onwards and upwards to the famous Kelly's Bush.
In 1892, there was a smelting company established on the waterfront of the peninsula by one TH Kelly. He set up a buffer zone of preserved bushland to allow public access to the foreshore. Move on to 1967, when AV Jennings had other plans for the site after the smelting company relocated. I remember AV Jennings well from my childhood. It was a very prominent company that built a lot of new houses in the area where I grew up. Probably on reclaimed bushland, though I never gave that a second thought (or even a first) at that time. Anyway, AV Jennings wanted to build 147 units on the site, including three eight-storey tower blocks. The Hunters Hill council said no and asked to acquire the rest of the site. (It had already bought a small package for a park in 1956.) In an echo of current planning practices, the State Planning Authority refused the request.
An argument ensued. The Hunters Hill Trust was established in early 1968 but, after prolonged negotiation, the Council, no doubt controversially, rolled over and agreed to a modified proposal of 56 residences. The Trust marshalled its resources and succeeded in reducing that number to 25.
Enter the Battlers for Kelly's Bush, a group of local women - Liberal matrons who wouldn't look out of a place with a blue rinse.
They met with AV Jennings and Robert Askin, then NSW Premier, to no avail, and were supported by a number of conservation organisations. All to no avail. Mr Askin was about to sign the rezoning into law. At which point, they appealed to the Labor Council of NSW on 3 June, 1971. It must have been a difficult decision for many of them to run counter to all their political beliefs about the Labor Party and the unions. But it was the right one. Two weeks' later, the BLF, under the Communist leadership of Jack Mundey and others imposed the first example of what we now know as a Green Ban. An immediate stoush with AV Jennings erupted, which they ultimately lost. Within the next year, 42 other Green bans were imposed across Sydney, leading to the preservation of areas such as The Rocks.
Surprisingly, the skirmishes continued until 1983, when then-Premier Wran finally announced that the NSW government had purchased Kelly's Bush for open space for the community. The Battle for Kelly's Bush was finally won, 12 years after it commenced. My thanks to all of those women who defied convention and took a stand.
If you are taking this walk, it is not clear from the directions that, to find the entrance to the Lookout track through Kelly's Bush, you need to turn right at the end of Prince Edward Parade and head down the hill to the intersection with Tree Ave, where you will find the track. Or you could do what I did, ignore the 'track closed for maintenance' signs, go straight ahead at the end of Prince Edward Parade, and charm you way past the workmen who tell you the track is closed. But to do that, you miss the lookout, which I subsequently found when reversing my route on the way back up.
After a short pleasant walk downhill through the bush, with glimpses of the harbour views to come, you emerge (whichever path you have taken) at Clarke's Point reserve, a sweeping harbourside grassed reserve with spectacular views from the Iron Cove Bridge around to the Harbour Bridge. Here I stopped to eat my sandwich in the glorious sunshine and think of my office-bound colleagues-that-were. I decided I definitely had the better deal.
Refreshed in body and soul by the perfect combination of food, sunshine and sparkling water views, I meandered on around the water's edge, finally turning in to the cleft in the sandstone cliff that is the Woolwich Dock.
In 1898, the Morts Dock and Engineering Company (remembered in Balmain's Mort Bay) embarked on a massive engineering project on land purchased from the Clarke family. Sound familiar? Over the following three years, they excavated 85,000 cubic metres of sandstone to create what was then the biggest dry dock in Australia. It has been used continuously since then for ship repairs and was especially busy during the two world wars. It is a fascinating place to walk around. I stopped to watch a boat being lowered into the water by modern machinery, and marvelled at the ingenuity required to construct such an industrial site over 100 years ago.
From there, it's all downhill, once you've hiked up the hill through another park to emerge at the Woolwich Pier Hotel. An opportunity to stop for a cleansing ale, if you're in the mood. I headed down to turn around at the Woolwich wharf, where ironically a ferry that I didn't need was just pulling in. At this point, I must not forget to compliment the public toilet facilities at the wharf. Clean, working, with toilet paper, soap and even paper towel to dry your hands. Thank you to the Council for their efforts to keep the burghers of the Hunters Hill peninsula well serviced whilst they await the ferry.
From there, it was a matter of retracing my steps back up the fairly extensive hill, but for the diversion where I found the track through Kelly's Bush that I had missed on the way down. I had time for coffee before my infrequent bus, which was predictably very late. I alighted to change to my connecting bus and stood on the wrong side of a busy intersection watching it pull up. For the only time in my life, I was grateful for the disorganisation of a rabble of schoolchildren who took so long to board the bus that I was able to sprint up to its door just as the driver was about to close it and pull away. And so I arrived back to pick up my car in fading daylight, having completed the first of Part 2.
To finish, a gentle touch of Hunters Hill humour...
Consequently, I was later leaving the dealer than I had expected, and I still had two buses to catch to my starting point. As I approached the first bus stop, a bus with my number on it pulled away. I consulted the timetable, and realised that it was not the bus I had planned to take anyway, but the earlier one, spectacularly late. So I settled in to wait for my bus, unconcerned by a short delay. I should at that point have realised that, when one bus is 16 minutes late, the next one is unlikely to be unaffected by the same delays. A pleasant if somewhat tedious wait in the sunshine on Great North Road ensued. My bus, true to form, was similarly late, and they only run every half hour. So of course I then missed my connecting bus, in a repeat of the scenario where it pulled away as I was almost at the bus stop, followed by another major delay in the arrival of the next bus. All of which meant that it took me almost ninety minutes to travel from Haberfield to the other side of the Gladesville Bridge at Hunters Hill. In hindsight, I could have walked that return trip instead and saved my Hunters Hill walk and bus fares for another day.
But finally I arrived at the start of the walk, at the top of Alexandra St in Hunters Hill. The walk is designed to be one way, ending at the wharf at the bottom of the peninsula, but I had elected to do the return trip, so about 10 kms all up. Make no mistake, this is at heart a very urban walk, with some lovely waterside parks and a bit of very famous bush thrown in. The Joubert brothers, after whom a street is named, built, in the second half of the 1800s, many of the beautiful sandstone mansions that grace Hunters Hill today. There is a Heritage Trail, with 40 plaques to be read, if you're a history buff. For myself, I would have just loved to see inside some of those gorgeous dwellings. I sneaked a couple of photos through a gate and down a driveway, the latter astonishing in its Italianate pretension.But back to the walk itself. The Book recommended the stained glass in All Saints Anglican Church as being some of the finest in the country, so I was eager to look inside. But the doors were firmly closed against an unbeliever such as I so I walked on. And there, around the corner, was the true ecclesiastical delight of the St Peter Chanel Catholic Church. Only in the high end of town do you get your church blessed by the patron saint of haute couture. I sniffed the air for the telltale scent, but there was only mown grass to be had. The sunlight haloed over the rooftop confirmed I was indeed in exclusive company.
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works..." Matthew 5:16
On the way, I had skirted the grounds of Passy House, built by the ubiquitous Jouberts for the French consul in the mid-1800s. Coming back, I took a quick photo, through the gate, of the ornamental pond that graces its front driveway. I now know that I was photographing the residence of Eddie Obeid. I needn't have worried that he would be home. I understand he's currently gracing the courtroom of our NSW Supreme Court on a small matter of Misconduct in Public Office (alleged, of course). Poor Eddie, he lost a big conifer branch in the weekend storms, leading to the closure of the laneway down the side
 |
| Passy |
Leaving the Obeids to ponder the future of their lifestyle, I headed on down the hill, all the while considering that I would be coming up again later. A set of stone steps leads to the delightful Mornington Reserve, with beautiful views over the Lane Cove River, sparkling in the sun. Despite my public transport woes, it was still too early for lunch, although it would be a lovely north-facing spot for a picnic. It's very secluded, with the only entries being fairly inconspicuous and steep laneways at either end. Being there gives you an opportunity to see some of these magnificent mansions from the rear, and they are spectacular. A bit of a security nightmare though I would have thought, a thought clearly shared by a small but very persistently loud dog that sounded the alarm of my presence. Ignoring it and the attached resident, I paused for a while to drink in the view before moving on.
The last house you see before heading out of Mornington Reserve revels in this marvellous rotunda. Because it can. I think there were three gardeners all working there when I went past. It's not enough just to have money to buy the house, there's the upkeep to consider.
So, onwards and upwards to the famous Kelly's Bush.
In 1892, there was a smelting company established on the waterfront of the peninsula by one TH Kelly. He set up a buffer zone of preserved bushland to allow public access to the foreshore. Move on to 1967, when AV Jennings had other plans for the site after the smelting company relocated. I remember AV Jennings well from my childhood. It was a very prominent company that built a lot of new houses in the area where I grew up. Probably on reclaimed bushland, though I never gave that a second thought (or even a first) at that time. Anyway, AV Jennings wanted to build 147 units on the site, including three eight-storey tower blocks. The Hunters Hill council said no and asked to acquire the rest of the site. (It had already bought a small package for a park in 1956.) In an echo of current planning practices, the State Planning Authority refused the request.
An argument ensued. The Hunters Hill Trust was established in early 1968 but, after prolonged negotiation, the Council, no doubt controversially, rolled over and agreed to a modified proposal of 56 residences. The Trust marshalled its resources and succeeded in reducing that number to 25.
Enter the Battlers for Kelly's Bush, a group of local women - Liberal matrons who wouldn't look out of a place with a blue rinse.
 |
Surprisingly, the skirmishes continued until 1983, when then-Premier Wran finally announced that the NSW government had purchased Kelly's Bush for open space for the community. The Battle for Kelly's Bush was finally won, 12 years after it commenced. My thanks to all of those women who defied convention and took a stand.
If you are taking this walk, it is not clear from the directions that, to find the entrance to the Lookout track through Kelly's Bush, you need to turn right at the end of Prince Edward Parade and head down the hill to the intersection with Tree Ave, where you will find the track. Or you could do what I did, ignore the 'track closed for maintenance' signs, go straight ahead at the end of Prince Edward Parade, and charm you way past the workmen who tell you the track is closed. But to do that, you miss the lookout, which I subsequently found when reversing my route on the way back up.
After a short pleasant walk downhill through the bush, with glimpses of the harbour views to come, you emerge (whichever path you have taken) at Clarke's Point reserve, a sweeping harbourside grassed reserve with spectacular views from the Iron Cove Bridge around to the Harbour Bridge. Here I stopped to eat my sandwich in the glorious sunshine and think of my office-bound colleagues-that-were. I decided I definitely had the better deal.
 |
| View from my seat at the water's edge |
In 1898, the Morts Dock and Engineering Company (remembered in Balmain's Mort Bay) embarked on a massive engineering project on land purchased from the Clarke family. Sound familiar? Over the following three years, they excavated 85,000 cubic metres of sandstone to create what was then the biggest dry dock in Australia. It has been used continuously since then for ship repairs and was especially busy during the two world wars. It is a fascinating place to walk around. I stopped to watch a boat being lowered into the water by modern machinery, and marvelled at the ingenuity required to construct such an industrial site over 100 years ago.
From there, it's all downhill, once you've hiked up the hill through another park to emerge at the Woolwich Pier Hotel. An opportunity to stop for a cleansing ale, if you're in the mood. I headed down to turn around at the Woolwich wharf, where ironically a ferry that I didn't need was just pulling in. At this point, I must not forget to compliment the public toilet facilities at the wharf. Clean, working, with toilet paper, soap and even paper towel to dry your hands. Thank you to the Council for their efforts to keep the burghers of the Hunters Hill peninsula well serviced whilst they await the ferry.
From there, it was a matter of retracing my steps back up the fairly extensive hill, but for the diversion where I found the track through Kelly's Bush that I had missed on the way down. I had time for coffee before my infrequent bus, which was predictably very late. I alighted to change to my connecting bus and stood on the wrong side of a busy intersection watching it pull up. For the only time in my life, I was grateful for the disorganisation of a rabble of schoolchildren who took so long to board the bus that I was able to sprint up to its door just as the driver was about to close it and pull away. And so I arrived back to pick up my car in fading daylight, having completed the first of Part 2.
To finish, a gentle touch of Hunters Hill humour...
With thanks to the Dictionary of Sydney and the Sydney Harborside Trust for the historical insights, and special thanks to the Battlers of Hunters Hill.
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