Sydney Harbour History & Obelisk Discovery around Australia's Great North Walk

Writers’ Walk: follow the metal plaques, starting from the International Passenger Terminal on West Circular Quay around the walkway that runs between the ferry jetties and Circular Quay railway station, and then all the way along East Circular Quay to the side of the Sydney Opera House forecourt — on the Great North Walk.

You will see a plaque to Australia's most famous poet -- Henry Kendall. If you choose to explore the Great North Walk further you may wish to visit the Henry Kendall’s Cottage Museum (33° 25′ 46″S, 151° 19′ 0″E): a sandstone building dating back to 1836. There is also an obelisk on the Great North Walk which commemorates Henry Kendall. "Kendall Rock” Obelisk is located near Henry Kendall's cottage on the road back to the freeway, this has a verse of ‘Names Upon a Stone’

Another plaque is for May Gibbs. You can ferry to her harbour-side home: Nutcote located at 5 Wallaringa Avenue, Neutral Bay, NSW. About 20 minutes from the Great North Walk — 15 minute ferry ride from Circular Quay to Hayes Street Wharf, Neutral Bay and then a 5-minute walk.

The so-called ‘First Fleet’ was sent from Britain in 1787 to deliver convicts and British settlers to the newly claimed land of Australia. The plaque commemorates their landing in Sydney Harbour -- which was first called Port Jackson. The fleet actually first landed in Botany Bay, not here but Governor Arthur Phillip wanted a better and safer harbour for this settlement so he kept exploring. In fact, they went looking for a bay that Captain Cook had noticed eighteen years earlier and finally discovered Sydney Harbour -- one of the largest natural harbours in the world.

You can locate another obelisk in Botany Bay Park. The Discover’s Obelisk: (34° 0′ 17″S 151° 13′ 3″E ) the Captain Cook Memorial Obelisk was erected in 1870 in what is now the Botany Bay National Park at Kurnell (about 18 km from Circular Quay on the Great North Walk). It recognizes Captain Cook’s discovery, on the 29th of April 1770, of Botany Bay where he anchored the ‘Endeavour’ and made the first British landing on Australia to claim ‘the Great South Land’ for Britain.

The credit for the discovery of Port Jackson is given to Arthur Phillip who, on 21 January 1788, led a team of three boats from Botany Bay to explore what Cook had noted as merely an inlet or small bay and named to honour Sir George Jackson, then one of the Lord Commissioners of the British Admiralty. That Cook passed this wonderful harbour without recognizing its capacity is not too surprising if you envisage how it appears from the outside, the Pacific. The cliffs that guard the entrance are 100 metres high so that no view of the basin could be seen from the ‘Endeavour’’s masthead. Middle Head, which is opposite the entrance, acts to close it in so that Governor Phillip’s three boats had to enter the inlet and turn to the south, and then to the west before the heart of this beautiful harbour is revealed. Phillip was so delighted by what he saw that he moved his invasion (for this is what the First Fleet was) of eleven ships to “Sydney” on 26th January 1788. The ships had on board 717 convicts, together with 290 marines, women and children and their livestock, plus some equipment, pork and rum.

A magnificent replica of Captain James Cook's famous ship can be visited and explored at the Australian National Maritime Museum situated in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, about1.5 km from the start of the Great North Walk at Macquarie Place, Sydney.

Macquarie (or 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.
The inscription reads:
Principal Roads/ Distance from Sydney/ To Bathurst 137M
From Sydney to Windsor 35 / To Parramatta 15½/ To Liverpool 20
To Macquarie Tower / At the South Head 7/ To the North Head
Of Botany Bay ??

This is a tiny park. Its main claim to fame now is the Macquarie Obelisk designed and built by Francis Greenway. Governor Macquarie and Francis Greenway were a formidable team here in downtown Sydney. In 1816, Greenway had been commissioned by Macquarie to design an extension to the now elderly Governor Phillip‘s house and add a ballroom. You can view the foundations of Phillip’s first ‘government house’ in the Museum of Sydney. The extensions that Macquarie had in mind did not go ahead in the end because the British refused to fund Greenway’s plan- only one part was completed. The new stables, older sister to the Obelisk by a couple of years, look more like a small castle than a stable block. Now they form the rather splendid façade of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music

A visit to the Museum of Sydney is recommended to all. The Museum is on the site of the first Government House, at the corner of Phillip and Bridge Streets, Sydney, NSW, 100 m from Macquarie Place — the start of the Great North Walk. If you search a little you will locate another obelisk - pictured.

There is another Sydney obelisk which is well worth searching for- it s the only remaining 'matching pair' to the large obelisk in Macquarie Place. You can find it in Robertson Park in Watson's Bay. Its inscription reads:
"This road made by subscription was completed in ten weeks from the 25 March by 21 soldiers of His Majesty's 73rd regiment."

Smelliest Obelisk: (33° 52′ 29″S 151° 12′ 36″E ) referred to as Thornton’s Scent Bottle because it was designed as a vent for the Sydney city sewerage, this obelisk is a sight for visitors to Sydney’s Hyde Park. Modelled on Cleopatra’s Needle, the ancient Egyptian obelisk moved to the banks of London’s Thames River, this obelisk stands on a sandstone base over 6.5 metres high. Its ‘business end’ is the top which comprises a filigreed bronze pyramid through which the smells of the city rose for many years after its unveiling in 1857 by the Mayor, George Thornton. Even its location was based on the fact that the sewerage system was at its highest point at the corner of Elizabeth and Bathurst Streets. This is about 500 m south of the obelisk in Macquarie Place, at the start of the Great North Walk.