Day 7: Chester Hill to Parramatta via Toongabbie
Sydney Harbour Saunter: Chester Hill to Parramatta via Toongabbie (stepping stones crossing of the Harbour) | 28km, 7 hours
Day 7 of my #WarraneWanderings . Happy to be back a- sauntering after a long holiday break. Also chuffed to have crossed Sydney Harbour from south to north at a little known set of rocky stepping stones on Toongabbie Creek. I'm sure some locals do it often, but it was new (and unknown) to me. So I'm now officially on the northern side of the harbour and on the way back to the coast!
It was a cool, breezy day for exploring the upper reaches of the Parramatta River and Toongabbie Creek, its westernmost tributary. A plethora of connected tracks - well overdue to turn them all into part of a cohesive marked 'great' harbour walk methinks.
A bit of a trudge to start through industrial Camellia, between the mouth of the Duck River and the Alfred St Bridge but from Parramatta westwards it is a delight.
After Parramatta Park and Wisteria Gardens, I headed onto the Redbank Track in Yana Yirabana (3.5km one way) before the serenely wonderful Pemulwuy Loop. What an underrated section of urban bushland! Bellbirds galore and a lovely undulating 9km walk beside Toongabbie Creek.
As a 'rob from the rich and give to the poor' folk tale tragic, I enjoyed Robin Hood Park and the nearby streets such as Sherwood and Nottingham - a developer with a sense of humour perhaps, given the luxury housing. Note that a small section of track below the park is currently being rebuilt - with some serious equipment reconfiguring the banks of the creek.
There is a fine rocky waterfall near Backhousia Reserve which then made for a perfect 'official' crossing of the harbour south to north. I continued a little further up the creek to the actual headwater at McCoy Park. On the way back, Palestine Park was quiet, peaceful and deserted today - so poignantly different to its namesake.
I then returned to Parramatta around the northern side of the Pemulwuy Loop to finish off a great day's sauntering.
Highly recommend reading up on early settler history and the indigenous resistance in the area if you're planning to do this walk. Pemulwuy was a great leader of the Bidjigal clan. He led a heroic, guerilla war style resistance to settlement in the 1790s. His death, and beheading, is yet another stain on colonial history in this part of the world.
Convict labour in Toongabbie was equally brutal - 800 died in a single six month period clearing the land - with dingoes gnawing nightly on the bodies of the dead. The brutality led to the battle of Vinegar Hill and more doomed resistance. If you’re a historical empathiser like me, this is a sombre walk. You can give yourself over to feeling the anguish of the many souls who suffered way back when. And then... be immensely grateful for all that we lucky descendants now have.
I am positive that one day soon we will get our act together to link up the full 200 mile/300 km circuit of Sydney Harbour. It will be the finest urban walk in the world by a country mile. And this, at present, almost unloved stretch from Parramatta to Old Toongabbie - from the 2nd to the 3rd Settlement in colonial history will be a particularly engaging section. It combines intriguing, creekside bushland tracks with the heroism of Indigenous resistance in Pemulwuy, the horrors of convict labour, the doomed resistance of the uprising at Vinegar Hill, the early tragedies of colonial settlement as well as then walking across 'the finest harbour in the world' on a few stepping stones. Who could ask for more on a day's walk?