Great North Walk: Australia's best bushwalk

Built in 1850 this obelisk replaced a flour-grinding windmill demolished in 1847. The mill had become a crucial navigation aid for ships’ captains entering the tricky harbour of Newcastle and its removal posed serious hazard to shipping of the era. Positioned on a prominent hill overlooking this busy harbour this historic obelisk is in many ways a ‘more fitting’ end (or beginning) marker of Australia’s Great North Walk (http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com ) even though the official start/end point is Queen’s Wharf near the main Newcastle railway station.

The oldest swimming baths in NSW date from around 1820 when a natural pool was enlarged by convict labour under the direction of soldiers and on the orders of Major James Thomas Morisset, Commandant of the Newcastle settlement from 1819 to 1822. Its original size is estimated as 15 feet (about 5m) long, seven feet (2.2m) wide and six feet (2m) deep. These baths originally served as Morisset's private bathing pool giving rise to their other name: the Commandant's Bath. Following this, the bathing facilities were reserved for military use becoming a public pool in 1863.

The terrain north of the new British settlement of Sydney rises rapidly to a high sandstone plateau on the northern bank of the Hawkesbury River falls away into the Hunter River Valley still further north. This high terrain posed an impenetrable barrier to establishing a land route from Sydney to Newcastle. Heaton Gap or simply “the Gap”, named for Richard Heaton, an English convict who became a timber cutter in the area, is geological formation that was first known as Brunkerville Gap, Broken-back Gap and remains to today an important saddle between the Watagan Mountains and the Awaba Forests.

Originally named Catchaboy Swamp by early European settlers, this small lake also has links to indigenous history. The lagoon’s early name may indeed have arisen from the belief that it was haunted. The name could have come form ‘catch a boy’ as the 'rainbow serpent' in Aboriginal mythology rested in deep waterholes and lagoons that were therefore taboo as bathing places. European settlers told of a 'weird, frightening sound of calling' that came from the area, particularly at night. Travellers on the Great North Road from Wollombi to Maitland, were enjoyed to look out for this water feature as early as 1832. The two versions of the lake’s creation dispute whether is was already a small or occasional lake before the pioneers began road-building or whether building the road between Ellalong and Congewai created a bank of earth that formed a weir. Either way, the great flood of 1857, formed a permanent lagoon to become deeper, more extensive over the years of coal mining in the Paxton region. A later explanation for the lagoon noises was the presence of a bird, the Australian Brown Bittern, a rarely seen bird that betrays its presence by a low, booming call something like the lowing of a cow, or a foghorn resounding through the night from the depths of a lonely marsh. Today the lagoon is home to at least four endangered ecological communities and to over 170 species of bird, 17 threatened animal species and 250 different types of plant, some of which are unique to Ellalong

The Watagans provide an important habitat for over 150 native animal species including wallabies, gliders, brush and ring-tailed possums, amphibians and reptiles and more than 130 species of birds. Echidnas, although rare, can be frequently seen foraging on the verges of the forest tracks. The Watagan Mountains has been a NSW state forest for many years, but part of the area is now in the new Watagan National Park. Walking off-track in the valleys is challenging due to the thick rainforest vegetation, and leeches. However, there is a good network of roads and walking trails. Lookouts offer stunning views to the north down into the Hunter Valley west towards Paxton and east towards Newcastle. From here you can view the new industrial life of Newcastle – built on coal and powering the state. Mines and power stations with their linear power-lines criss-cross and undermine the area. In 2008, this region became the centre of an anti-coal, pro-greenhouse action protest in Australia. Interestingly, the state forest here was the first in the world to realize the potential to sell to a carbon trading market the benefits provided by capturing carbon in new planted trees.

Mount Warrawolong (33° 2′ 39″S, 151° 15′ 50″E) was seen by Captain Cook on his round-the-world voyage on the ‘Endeavour’ in 1770 not long after he left Botany Bay. He noted it in his official ship’s log. Although called a ‘Mount’, it could only be thought a mountain in the uniquely low-lying continent of Australia where even our highest peak, Mount Kosciusko, is only a very modest 2,228 metres (7,310 feet). And, the highest point on The Great North Walk, Mt Warrawolong is much lower than this, squatting, rather than towering, only 641 metres (2,100 feet) above mean sea-level. The short sidetrack to the top commands a glorious view of the surrounding forest and countryside. On a clear day, you can see to the Pacific Ocean and, perhaps, to the route where the ‘Endeavour’ skirted the coast of New South Wales in May 1770, heading north after noting, but failing to explore, Port Jackson at the mouth of what is now called Sydney Harbour. Of course, you may wonder whether the indigenous Australians – say an Awabakal elder, could have seen Captain Cook’s famous ship. The direct distance from Mt Warrawolong to the Pacific coast is only about 40 km as the eye stares. So the famous circumnavigator and explorer’s ship was well within the visual range of Australia’s indigenous people if they were atop the neighbourhood’s highest peak and Mt Warrawolong was, and is, used for many ceremonies by Aboriginal Australians. The claimed record for seeing a distant object unaided by extra illumina

St Barnabas’ Church, Yarramalong: the oldest remaining church in Wyong Shire is tended by volunteers. Visit the pioneer churchyard (round the back) to view the grave of William Bevan and other early settlers. Located on Ravensdale Road, Yarramalong on the Great North Walk less than 1 km north out of the centre of Yarramalong. Watch the video (http://vimeo.com/10971506 ).

Seventy-five of the known 76 Banksia species occur naturally only in Australia. These strange plants are named to honour Banksias Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), who, in 1770 while travelling with James Cook on the Endeavour, was the first European to collect specimens. A number of Banksia cultivars have also been developed. The flowers occur in cylindrical spikes between 50 mm to 100 mm long. The seeds are enclosed in follicles attached to a woody cone and are generally retained within the cone until burnt. Many Australians first learn about Banksias from May Gibbs delightful children’s stories of Old Man Banksia in the tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

From Woy Woy Road (near Staples Lookout) you walk into the bush for about 500 m — as far as the rock ledges continue — this takes you to the last engravings and from here you can find the others by back-tracking to the road. There are a number of groups of engravings all of which are worth locating. The furthest from the road could be termed the best carvings and include an outstanding male figure, a fish, a shield together with an eel and a kangaroo. Nearer the road is the famous line of ‘rabbits’; the ‘mundoe man’, a fish and an emu; a many ‘cupmarks’. The site is about 2 km from the Great North Walk. [Chapter 18] - http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com/Companion

These impressive waterfalls are a short (but tough) 3 km diversion off the Great North Walk proper takes you to this area. Observation platforms provide excellent views of the 8 metre falls and the rainforest. After a steep track with many steps, the Falls Walking Track descends to Floods Creek past two stages of waterfalls and ends at the base of the falls. There is evidence of tool grinding grooves in the rocks.

Mooney Mooney Creek Bridge that carries the F3 Freeway which now runs between Sydney to Newcastle. The Great North Walk trail actually takes you so you can stand beneath the towering arches of this impressive construction. The bridge, nearly half a kilometre long and standing 76 m above your head and the adjacent the river is the highest road bridge in Australia. It was completed in 1988 and opened in December of that year: just in time for the Bicentennial celebrations. This beautiful bridge has been the site of some tragic accidents and a few early suicides causing a side fence to be erected in 2003. Further south along the Great North Walk is the ‘Old’ Mooney Mooney Bridge, built in 1930, which was the only conduit for vehicles crossing Mooney Mooney Creek on the Pacific Highway before the Freeway opened.

Mount Wondabyne is a short spur off the Great North Walk and a worthwhile scramble for the view over the Hawkesbury estuary. Wondabyne Station (a possible point of access to the Great North Walk) is near to the longest railway tunnel in Australia. Nearly two kilometres in length, this tunnel was completed in 1888 and forms part of the local railway history which was the last crucial rail link between Newcastle and Sydney. . In addition this station, which is a ‘stop-only-on request’ railway junction, was constructed to carry out quarried sandstone. Interestingly the nearby quarry was re-opened especially to access matching sandstone in order to complete the towers of Saint Mary’s Cathedral in central Sydney prior to the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Read Chapter 4 of The Great North Walk Companion book - http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com/Companion

Brooklyn Obelisk: if you spend much time around Brooklyn Wharf, you are almost bound to find the obelisk on today’s walk. It commemorates the discovery and naming of the Hawkesbury River in 1789 by the earliest European explorer in Australia, Governor Arthur Phillip. It also recognizes the importance of the railways to this area being erected just before World War II and unveiled by the NSW Commissioner for Railways, T. J. Hartigan, on 17 June 1939. On the Great North Walk.

Berowra Waters Engraving: just 200 m from an easy-to-reach car park and on the Great North Walk track itself, this rock is often overlooked even by those who know this trail well. From the F3 Freeway take the Berowra turning and go down Berowra Waters Road to the ferry. Walk north along the track by the side of the creek past the car park and look for a large rock next to the path on your right. The engravings are a little tricky to decipher but include a man in a head-dress, an animal (perhaps a koala) and another figure.

Steeles Bridge This bridge is an old military bridge that crosses Berowra Creek along the Quarry Road Track. This bridge appears to be an Australian adaptation of the Bailey Design Bridge.
Ginger Meggs Park is a few hundred metres off the Great North Walk. The Park, so named in July 1997 to commemorate Jimmy Bancks (1889-1952), creator of Meggs, and an associated short walk commemorates Australia's longest running cartoon strip character and Ginger’s various cartoonists: Ron Vivian, then Lloyd Piper, James Kemsley (honoured by the Queen for this work) and Jason Chatfield. Brancks lived in this area from 1892 when his father, a railway worker was moved to a railway cottage near Hornsby - between the present Main and North Shore rail lines. During Brancks’ twenty odd years ranging throughout Old Mans Valley and the Fishponds on Berowra Creek he was inspired by the (often wicked) escapades of the recalcitrant Ginger

The famous Fairyland Tea Gardens, also called Pleasure Gardens, was – for 1910s Sydney – a bit like Disneyland. It comprised around 17 acres of flat land covered in ti-trees, paperbarks, swamp oaks and brackens, with a small creek running across the site to the Lane Cove River. Robert Swan, who served as an alderman on Ryde Municipal Council from 1895 to 1900, developed this business from market gardening at ‘The Rest’ into purely recreational facilities that blossomed with the large number of visitors brought to Fairyland by charter boats between 1908 and 1918. Some of these boats were larger launches, with up to 60 or 70 passengers, and there were many, many rowboats as well. Swan acquired novel pleasure-ground equipment — six boat-swings were brought from Putney Park and the White City Pleasure Grounds at Rushcutters Bay supplied a razzle-dazzle, a flying fox and several ticket boxes. As well as the swings and slides, a big-wheel, shelters for picnics and a dance hall were all built.
After admiring what remains of the Fairyland site and imagining it in the 1910s to 1930s, the Great North Walk leads on to the Field of Mars, passing under the busy Epping Road but then having to walk alongside it for a couple of hundred metres, and then back across the river on a narrow bridge emerging in Magdala Park with its picnic tables and soccer fields.
read more about this are and the whole Walk at http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com

To build Woolwich Dock they dug out more than 20,000 tonnes of stone to create the deep docking and build up the sea-wall. There are a series of signs in the Goat Paddock garden (opposite the Woolwich Pier Hotel). A 15–20 minute tour of the Goat Paddock rewards the walker with a brief history of the remarkable Mort’s Dock. The Atlas Engineering Company established their first ship repair workshops here at Clarkes Point in 1884. Four years later, the workshops were taken over by Mort’s Dock Co that dug out this very impressive 188 m by 27 m dry dock. When it opened in December 1901, it was the largest and longest dry dock in Australia: a title sustained (partly as a result of enlargement to 260 m) until finally overtaken by the Captain Cook Graving Dock completed at Garden Island in 1945.

Road Builders’ Obelisk: Macquarie’s Obelisk is located in the oldest planned town square and urban park in Australia: the tiny Macquarie Place on Bridge Street in central Sydney. It marks the start of the Great North Walk and is the oldest true obelisk on this journey dating to 1818. Built of locally quarried white sandstone, this elongated pyramid has a geographical purpose: it is the milestone for the measurement of road lengths in New South Wales. Read the book about the whole history of the Great North Walk - http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com/Companion