Blackwattle Bay

My youngest season plays soccer over the winter months. His home ground is Wentworth Park in Glebe. The only thing that separates our home from the park is Blackwattle Bay and Anzac Bridge.

When the weather is fine, I like to walk to the game. 

It takes about 45mins if I go across the bridge and about an hour if I walk around the bay. 

Both are scenic and interesting and provide lots of photo opportunities! 

But I prefer the bay walk - less traffic and more greenery.

And plenty of different views of the Anzac Bridge!

Blackwattle Bay was a working harbour full of timber mills and ship-breaking yards. 

In 1969 the Glebe Society was formed to create access to the foreshore for local residents. It has taken them 40 years, but they now have four beautiful parks to their credit - Jubilee, Federal, Blackwattle Bay and Bicentennial parks.

They have kept a crane and some of the old machinery as memorials.

The old timber mills reclaimed mud flats and mangroves swamps to house their yards.

The mangrove swamps quickly became putrid - full of industrial waste and sewerage.

The current sea walls are far more lovely and make it much easier to enjoy the foreshore, but they (& the earlier pollution) have changed the ecosystem of the bay tremendously.

Two years ago, Sydney Uni devised a flowerpot system on the seawalls to encourage rockpool activity once again in the area. See my original post here.

The project has been so successful in re-introducing 28 species of marine life back into the bay, that they have continued the scheme around more Sydney seawalls, including those in Farm Cove and Elizabeth Bay.

Near the Blackwattle campus of Sydney Secondary College, they're also working to re-establish some saltwater mangrove trees. Eco-engineering is the new growth industry around the foreshore!

The Glebe foreshore is also trialling a new bee pollinator habitat.

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot