The Harbour Read online

  Bennelong had grown up on the southern bank of the Parramatta River as a member of the Wangal people, whose territory stretched to what would become Darling Harbour. In 1789, Bennelong would meet the leader of the new arrivals, Governor Arthur Phillip. Keen to learn more about the Aboriginal people, Phillip’s noble intentions fell apart in the practice; he had Bennelong and another man snatched and brought to him. In spite of that brutal beginning, Bennelong and Phillip became friends, to the extent that the Wangal man sailed with the Englishman when he returned home in 1792. Bennelong and another young Aboriginal man, Yemmerrawannie, who travelled with Phillip were, as the renowned human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson is fond of proclaiming, Australia’s first expatriates in Britain. The pair dressed in fashionable clothes, met with high society, perhaps even the King, and attended the theatre. Yemmerrawannie died in Britain and was buried in a churchyard in the village of Eltham, now on the outskirts of London. Homesick, Bennelong returned to Sydney in 1795. As he wrote to a friend in Britain, ‘Not me go to England no more. I am at home now.’ But it wasn’t an entirely peaceful homecoming; he struggled with alcohol use. In the final years of his life, Bennelong lived around Kissing Point and came to know James Squire. Bennelong died in 1813 where his life had begun, by the Parramatta River, only on the opposite bank. Bennelong was buried on Squire’s property, but exactly where became vague with time, until an investigation and announcement in 2011. Bennelong’s grave was on a suburban street corner, which was once Squire’s orchard.

  Even the oranges grown around Kissing Point were reputed to be historically significant. Australia’s first Anglican minister, the Reverend Richard Johnson, had saved seeds from oranges he had bought in Rio de Janeiro on the voyage out on the First Fleet. In Sydney, he planted those seeds, which grew into trees. Reverend Johnson’s fruit trees also made their way to Kissing Point, perhaps by the hand of the clergyman himself, since he used to be rowed to Parramatta to hold church services. In what seems like symmetry, the Kissing Point oranges became so popular they would be transported by water down to Sydney, where shipmasters would buy them for long sea voyages. As the orchards spread across the paddocks of Kissing Point, at least an early 20th century poet, David McKee Wright, remembered what was first planted here:

  Some common fruits are grown out here

  Where once were fields of waving beer!

  RUMBLING AND grumbling over my head is an incessant line of traffic crawling to somewhere. I’m paddling under the Ryde road bridges. As I look up, I’m grateful I’m down here on the water, taking it slowly. For a river teaches you it really is about the journey, not the destination. The reason that lesson has been lost in the rush looms above me.

  The first Ryde road bridge was opened in 1935, effectively replacing a punt service that had been operating for about 135 years. Finally, motorists could just cross the river, with barely a glance at the water. That sturdy construction of steel and concrete is still in heavy use but shares the load of traffic with a newer bridge, built in 1986, just downriver. At least the older structure is a reminder of how relevant the river once was for transportation and commerce. It had an opening span that lifted to allow through ships heading to industries upriver.

  The original road bridge is also a headstone on the grave of the sailing ship trade that once extended as far as the Kissing Point and Ryde stretch of the river. Ships unloaded goods at wharves and jetties along the bank, and took on produce from the area’s farms. Beyond here, the river became too shallow for most vessels, and they risked doing more than ‘kissing’ the bottom.

  A few hundred metres on from where the traffic crosses the river are the rail bridges. Trains have been trundling over the river since the 1880s. In between the road and railway bridges, the land is being recolonised and reshaped. The suburb on the river’s northern bank may have a bucolic name – Meadowbank – but there is no meadow to be seen. Instead, on that wedge of land, there is block upon block of apartments, progressively shoving off the warehouses and factories.

  Before there were apartments, before the industries, there were actually meadows around here. The land was originally granted to a naval surgeon whose name was given to another harbourside suburb, William Balmain. By the end of the 1820s, that stretch of land supported not just a farm but also affairs of the sea. The property owner William Bennett was a ship’s captain who sailed in the Pacific. When his vessel needed an overhaul, he would bring it ashore at Meadowbank, and his crews, including men from the Pacific islands, would camp on the bank.

  Beyond the railway bridges, the bank is gradually being covered by mangroves. Apart from a smattering of litter, the bank looks untouched by humans. The light amid the mangroves is dim, the mud smells ancient, and there is an incessant deep thrum. Only that sound is not prehistoric; it is industrial. Paddling further way from the bank and looking over the shaggy heads of the mangroves, I can see the roofs of light industry and storage sheds, and high tension power-lines stitch the sky over Ermington Bay.

  Paddling around a gentle bend, a view of the future further dilutes the primeval effect of the mangroves. A couple of kilometres upriver is the Silverwater Road Bridge, beyond that are a few industrial stacks and in the distance, reaching ever higher, are the commercial and residential towers of Parramatta.

  If only Arthur Phillip could see this view. Just as I’m doing, the Governor would have traced the thick, forbidding bank up the river. He was looking for possibilities, and he was confident that the river would lead him to them. Phillip had discovered his own potential on the banks of another river, the Thames. In Heart of Darkness, that extraordinary novel about a river journey deep into a country and the soul of man, author Joseph Conrad had his narrator observe of the Thames, ‘What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires’. Arthur Phillip had floated down that river many times. He had been educated by the Thames, at Greenwich, for a life at sea. And here he was in 1788, up a river marked on no map, deep in the mystery of an unknown earth, at least unknown to the British. In accepting the job of leading the First Fleet and founding the colony in New South Wales, Arthur may have planted the seeds of a commonwealth nation, but first, he had to find somewhere to sow the seeds of grain to help ensure the infant settlement didn’t wither and die on the shores of Sydney Cove.

  The river evidently held promise for Arthur Phillip, or stoked his determination to find out where it led. During his first exploratory journey in mid-February, he reached a junction. He followed what he thought was the main river for about six kilometres before it was blocked by fallen timber. Phillip returned to the junction in April and on foot roughly followed the other watercourse. After a couple of days, the exploration party reached a spot where, as Surgeon John White detailed, ‘the tide ceased to flow; and all further progress for boats was stopped by a flat space of large broad stones, over which a fresh-water stream ran’. Phillip and his party had found a tidal limit of the harbour. In the countryside around here, they found what they had been looking for.

  To the Aboriginal people, this was the place of eels, or Burramatta, so it was a rich source of food. Such was the importance of this place, the local people were known as the Burramattagal. Initially named Rose Hill by the British, Burramatta would become known as Parramatta and a source of food for the new arrivals as well. As Phillip wrote to Lord Sydney, the Home Secretary and his great supporter back in London, he now knew there was good country near the harbour settlement, that he intended to cultivate in the spring. True to his word, in November 1788, Phillip sent a man with substantial farming experience, Henry Dodd, upriver with a detachment of marines and a hundred convicts to plant grains. After a couple of precarious years and, at times, reduced rations for everyone, including the Governor, the farm overseen by Dodd helped ensure the colony could survive. Some of the seeds of a commonwealth had taken hold in Parramatta. The dreams of men would be realised.

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nbsp; JUST BEFORE the Silverwater Road Bridge, the mangroves peter out and a new residential development has been taking shape. The site was once a navy stores depot, and it stretches along more than 700 metres of the river’s northern bank. The development is called Royal Shores, and those behind it assert the architecture celebrates the Ermington area’s naval history. Although the development is about thirty kilometres by kayak from the sea, the marketing proclaims the landscaping will tantalise the senses with ocean scents. That would be somewhat different to the scents that wafted over from the plant producing gas, solvents and tar, which used to be on the other side of the river.

  I paddle up to the Silverwater Road Bridge, only to be confronted by a sign that warns beyond here, ‘Access to RiverCats and Authorised Vessels Only’. A bloke in a tinny putters up behind me, reads the sign and, in a disappointed tone, mutters, ‘I was hoping to go to Parramatta.’ He looks at my kayak and adds, ‘You probably can though.’

  Actually, I can’t. Kayaks are classified as vessels in New South Wales, so I can’t go to Parramatta by water.

  But I figure I can paddle just a couple of hundred metres further to see the junction of Parramatta and Duck rivers. This was where Arthur Phillip mistook Duck River for the main waterway in February 1788, and it was where he and his party left their boats a couple of months later when they trekked over the countryside and came across Burramatta.

  Duck River, as John White indicated in his journal, was filled with birds, which the party wanted to hunt but couldn’t get close enough to shoot. In the years since, someone or something got to the birds. I see no ducks on Duck River, just a couple of industrial-looking bridges straddling the water, when I paddle to its mouth on the southern side of Parramatta River. While it may not have led Arthur Phillip to what he sought, Duck River has nurtured huge wealth. On the land bordered by the two rivers, the colony learnt to ride on the sheep’s back. On one side of Duck River, Captain Henry Waterhouse established a merino stud with a small flock he had brought out from South Africa in 1797. On the other side of the river, army-officer-turned-entrepreneur and thorn in the side of a succession of governors, John Macarthur, along with his wife Elizabeth, built a fortune on fleece, expanding his landholdings and spearheading the export of wool to England in the early 1800s. A century or so later, on that same land along Duck River, a large oil refinery was established. The water was integral to the refinery; barges carried the crude oil upriver from a terminal at Gore Cove in the main harbour, and millions of litres of water were pumped out of the river each day to cool the facility.

  Through the years, the demands and expectations heaped on the land and water by the sum of development and competition took its toll. Signs at the Silverwater boat ramp near the river junction warn those fishing to not eat what they catch. One sign prohibits fishing of any sort in Duck River because of the high levels of industrial pollutants found in the marine life. Before heavy industry arrived, the rivers were already suffering, with farming along the banks. Parramatta River progressively silted until, by the end of the 19th century, the ferry service had to be moved downstream. A terminal was built near the confluence of the rivers, with a connecting tramway to Parramatta. These days, the ferries can once more reach Parramatta. The river was dredged, and the RiverCats have a shallow draught. At low tide, however, the service has to terminate one stop downriver from Parramatta, at Rydalmere. But for me, just as it once was for the ferries, my Parramatta River journey has to end just beyond the junction of Parramatta and Duck rivers. Even if the law didn’t forbid me from going further, the reality of sharing a narrow, shallow waterway with a RiverCat soon stops me anyway.

  I am sitting out of the channel, just near a sign that points out this is as far as unauthorised vessels can go. I study the river’s languid course towards Parramatta, less than five kilometres upstream. The waterway is progressively constricting, as the banks press ever closer. Just then, a RiverCat rumbles around the bend towards me. I’m confident I’m well out of its way, and it is cruising slowly, less than seven knots. However, just before it reaches me, the RiverCat accelerates and it pushes out a larger wake, which balloons into a set of waves up to half a metre high. I glance at the advancing waves, then peer into the river underneath the kayak. I realise I’m in shallow water. It also dawns on me that I’m in deep trouble. I paddle frantically towards the waves, to try and ride over them before they break. For Pulbah Raider is not designed to surf RiverCat-generated waves. I ride over the first of the waves, just as it breaks, timing it perfectly to have the second one pour into the cockpit.

  Pulbah Raider is swamped and I’m saturated. I head to the bank, empty the kayak, and continue my journey – downriver.

  2

  DOWN PARRAMATTA RIVER

  IN A country settled by the British to serve as both a human dumping ground and the land of a second chance, perhaps no patch of dirt is more representative of Australia’s origins than Sydney Olympic Park.

  For this stretch along the southern bank of Parramatta River was for decades a dumping ground for all manner of waste, as well as hosting industries, before the area was given a new life as parklands, homes, and fields of dreams for the world’s best athletes.

  Yet it took years and hundreds of millions of dollars to remediate the site. And the clean-up is not finished. Before remediation began, the land was so polluted in places, it oozed toxins, while what had been poured and leached into the river created a poisonous brew that killed marine life, along with any desire to engage with the water. You could well have been paddling the River Styx.

  But here I am paddling down Parramatta River, trying to picture how the bank on my right was once a wasteland. To the eyes, at least, the pall over a dead shoreline has been lifted and the land has been resuscitated with trees, shrubs and a walking track. Clumps of mangroves are sprouting on the water’s edge. As for the water itself, it is an olive-brown colour, but there are no psychedelic swirls from oil or chemicals visible on the surface.

  Virtually since the British arrived, this land had endured enormous demands being heaped upon it, and so much being extracted from it.

  In the early 1800s, it was part of the large Newington Estate of John Blaxland. The entrepreneur and politician created an array of industries on his property. He set up saltpans near the river, shipping about eight tonnes of salt to Sydney each week. He bred cattle and created a bone-crushing mill. He felled trees for logs, he built a lime kiln, to help feed the colony’s appetite for building materials, and he dug for coal. A census in 1828 indicated Blaxland’s property was the largest ‘household’ in the district, with ninety-seven people.

  In the 1880s, an eastern portion of Newington was bought by the Colonial Government to set up a storage depot for armaments and gunpowder. The site was chosen not just because it was well away from the heart of the city but also because it could be accessed by the river. A large wharf was built for the delicate loading and unloading of products that could obliterate the area, if something went horribly wrong. Not that anything did. According to maritime historian Graeme Andrews, in 150 years of munitions being transported around the harbour to here and other sites, there was never an explosion. The land later came under the control of the navy. As the demands and requirements of the navy increased in the course of two world wars, so did the land set aside for the armaments depot. The site ate up about 250 hectares, the armaments hidden away in magazines hunkering behind earthen mounds and blast walls.

  Much of the land that was strictly out of bounds and run by military rules is now open to the public to walk and cycle at leisure. A few tracts of Newington Armory are still no-go areas, but that is due not so much to the military’s obsession with keeping secrets but to give the wildlife somewhere to call their own in a city where housing is a growing issue for all creatures. Those restricted areas are marked as nature reserves.

  Paddling towards the armoury, I see the old wharf valiantly holding the weight of two large cranes standing guard by the river. I
clamber onto a bird poo-spattered pontoon and head to a wharfside café, which looks a little like a bunker, only one that is aesthetically pleasing. The terrace wears a veil of retro military chic; it’s covered with camouflage nets. The sun filters through the camo, creating shadows that flutter like butterflies on the ground etched with old rail lines; trains used to carry the munitions to and from the wharf.

  Back in the kayak and tracing the bank, I can see regeneration and reinvention flourishing across the flats. A gleaming symbol of that regeneration juts into the water near Wentworth Point. It is the Sydney Olympic Park ferry wharf, looking vaguely futuristic. Near the terminal are residential complexes seemingly growing by the day, increasingly obscuring the view to what signalled the transformation of this area, the arenas and stadiums built for the Olympic Games in 2000.

  The possibility of the Homebush Bay area becoming a major sports hub was considered as early as the 1970s. In the 1980s a regional environmental plan was made for the site to be remediated and sports and recreation facilities built. Within a few years, that was realised, to an extent, with the opening of the State Sports Centre and the Bicentennial Park. But once the International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch announced in 1993 that the city to host the 2000 Games was Sydney, plans and hopes for Homebush Bay accelerated and turned into a massive works project.

  One of the Sydney bid’s key points was that this would be a ‘green Olympics’, with the latest ideas on ecological sustainability applied to the site’s development. While the venues were designed to include initiatives such as solar energy and recycled water, the biggest obstacles to a clean, green Olympics still lay under everyone’s feet. The site had to be remediated. It was estimated that by 1988, there were nine million cubic metres of waste and contaminated earth on the site. A strategy for cleaning up the Homebush Bay area had been put in place even before Sydney lodged its bid. Waste had to be removed, leachate controlled and collected, and contaminants contained and capped. The mountainous clean-up task is symbolised by a series of artificial hills that serve as lookouts around the site. What visitors stand on as they gaze over the transformed landscape is a great mound of waste materials.