Woy Woy to Cowan: Hawkesbury on Great North Walk

There is walkers' access to the side of the main gate to this facility. There is car parking here too.

This is nearer to the track up to Mount Wondabyne -- look out for it around there.

Broken Bay has three distinct arms: to the west is the Hawkesbury River estuary, Brisbane Water lies to the north with Pittwater towards the south. These three arms are in fact ‘rias’ that were river valleys many, many years ago when sea level was significantly lower than today. As sea level rose, these were flooded to give the expansive, watery arms of the bay you see today. The bay officially lies between the northern Box Head and Barrenjoey Head to the south. The ‘BJ’ lighthouse dates back to 1881 and was built to help ships avoid the prominent headland. The Aboriginal inhabitants knew the Hawkesbury River as ‘Deerabin’.

Many of the high points of the trail (which winds up & down around here) offer stunning views out over the ocean or down over Broken Bay and the Hawkesbury Estuary.

This holiday home seems now to be unused but is indicative of the dual nature of life in this region -- holiday-making and fishing. Many of the creeks opening onto Broken Bay are where Aboriginal Australians searched for shellfish at least 10,000 years ago. Around 1902 locals begin what is now a very large area of oyster beds around the mouth of Mullet Creek where there is no foreshore development. Even today there are less than a dozen private houses along the entire length of Mullet Creek with most being houses and cottages near Wondabyne.

This beach is a great place for lunch -- especially as there is a convenient and very good fish and chip shop right here. Watch out for the local fishermen tidying and mending nets and for the pelicans who frequent the shallow water hoping for a snack too.

Hawkesbury River Islands include: Lion Island that’s famous for not having a World War II submarine sunk near it, Spectacle Island, Dangar Island and Long Island (like the New York one — only ours had its name first

Australia’s Last Riverboat Postman Trips: Postman, All-day and Coffee cruises with Hawkesbury River Ferries: Brooklyn Wharf (+61 2 9985 7566); and
Dangar Ferry Service: Pre-booked trips between Brooklyn and Patonga, opposite Hawkesbury River Marina, Brooklyn (+61 41527 4020). Both en route on the Great North Walk.
Dangar Island is the only one of the Broken Bay islands that is not a national park. That means you can visit it and, of course, that you can build on it. The island was named for Henry Carey Dangar, who bought it in 1864, and whose father was also called Henry Dangar — a surveyor and noted politician. The family leased the island to an American company, the Union Bridge Company, as, from New York, which had been contracted to build the first Brooklyn Bridge.

The ferry across the Hawkesbury between Patonga and Brooklyn is not the only way to cross Broken Bay but it is certainly the most interesting. Alternatives are taking a car over the Brooklyn Bridge (itself an historic landmark) or a train ride that involves just as much history.

Brooklyn (or Explorers’) 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.

As you climb up above the Hawkesbury on its southern side you cannot miss the Brooklyn Dam. In season it is resplendent with a host of bright yellow water lilies.

Jerusalem Bay offers a lovely picnic location -- but beware of ticks in wet conditions. Once -- before Canberra existed -- there was a plan to build a capital city for Australia around here-- and name it Pacifica. In 1889, there were plans for a specially created capital of the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia between Cowan Creek and Smiths Creek. Not far from here is Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park which has many Aboriginal rock engraving sites worthy of visits.

Cowan is another place that takes its name from one or more Aboriginal languages. There is a choice of three: ’opposite’ or ’other side’, a word meaning ‘big water’ or even perhaps the Aboriginal word for mountain (cowa). The railway station there was opened in 1890 and the platform, shorter than present-day trains, added in 1901. There is car parking here but its more fun to arrive by train.

The original Hawkesbury River Rail Bridge was constructed between 1886 and 1889. The current bridge was rebuilt in 1946, after the Second World War. But the first Hawkesbury Railway, or Brooklyn, Bridge was the largest such civil engineering construction in the Southern Hemisphere at a phenomenal 862 metres. It was even the topic of a paper at the Institution of Civil Engineering in London in 1890. One of its piers, at 162 feet below water level, was, at the time of its construction, the lowest depth ever attained for a bridge foundation. The cost was over 327,000 pounds just to replace the ferry crossing, previously the only means of travellers from Sydney reaching Woy Woy, Gosford, Newcastle and indeed Brisbane. The bridge made the last really tough rail section complete and the Hawkesbury River to Mullet Creek (Wondabyne) rail line opened in 1889
Woy Woy tunnel was thought likely to be the major hold-up on the Sydney to Newcastle line. It was certainly a massive undertaking back in the 1880s. It is nearly 1.8 km, over a mile long, and needed nearly 95,000 cubic metres of rock excavating which took 110 tons of blasting powder and 10 tons of dynamite. The 800 construction workers had to lay 10,000,000 bricks using 10,000 casks of cement. Construction commenced on 8th March 1884 and finished on 17th July 1886. So in the end, the tunnel was finished a year before the Brooklyn Bridge entered service on the 16th of January 1888.