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

Seven Bridges Walk

The Cancer Council Seven Bridges Walk is an annual event in Sydney. 

This year was it's 10th anniversary.

 It's a 27 km walk around the bays, coves and by-ways of Sydney Harbour. 

'Villages' are set up near each bridge.

You can start your walk at any of these points.

You simply collect your 'passport' to be stamped after you cross each bridge and visit every village.

We picked up our passports at Rozelle Village around 7:30am and started off across the Iron Cove Bridge. It was a lovely 21℃.

The Iron Cove Bridge is a steel truss bridge designed in the Art Deco style of the early 50's.

In 2011 a second bridge was placed next to it to ease traffic congestion on Victoria Rd.

It's this new section that the walkway is on.

 The Gladesville Bridge was the longest single span concrete arch ever constructed in its time (1964).

The bridge was hot, open and dusty.

But the views of Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River through the palings were glorious.

Tarban Creek Bridge, which spans the waters from Huntley's Point to Hunters Hill, was opened in 1965.

Fig Tree Bridge spans the Iron Cover River from Hunters Hill to Linley Point.

It opened in 1963.

From here, it was a LONG walk to the next bridge.

Fortunately it was through some of the most beautiful parks, reserves and waterways.

Burns Bay

Burns Bay Reserve Aquaduct

Tambourine Bay

Tambourine Bay wetlands

Gore Creek Reserve Suspension Bridge (not counted as one of the 7 though)

 After a long hot hike through Lane Cove, Greenwich, Wollstonecraft and North Sydney we finally reached the Sydney Harbour Bridge around midday.

Underneath the Harbour Bridge is a lovely old pub called the Australian Heritage Hotel.

We felt we had earned a beer or two and a plate of hot, salty chips!

Underneath the Pyrmont Bridge at Darling Harbour.

Spanning Cockle Bay, this steel swing-span bridge was once one of the main ways out of the city into the inner west suburbs (along with the old Glebe Island Bridge). It was closed to traffic in 1981 and is now only a pedestrian bridge.

Escalators took us up onto the Pyrmont Bridge

Last but not least, was the Anzac Bridge.

It is the longest cable-stayed span bridge in Australia.

It replaced the old Glebe Island swing Bridge in 1995. You can still see the old bridge permanently open for water traffic, but closed to cars and pedestrians, underneath the walkway as you cross the Anzac bridge.

I could almost see home from here!

27 km's, 7 bridges, 2 nature reserves, 1 wetlands, 2 aquaducts and 1 pub & it only took 7 hours.

I was a little teddy tired by the time I got home and gratefully soaked in a warm radox bath!

But it was worth every step (and aching muscles the next day).
I hope to do it again next year.

The walk!

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot

New Views

Our recent move finds us still living in the same suburb. 

We have simply moved over the hill to the other side of the peninsula.

Which means we have new views to explore!

A brief walk around our new 'hood, revealed these lovely views of the Anzac Bridge and the city.

The city bathed in afternoon light from Cameron's Cove

White Bay and Anzac Bridge

Local graffiti

International Cruise ship terminal in White Bay

 More local street art.

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot

Walking the Anzac Bridge

A recent walk across the Anzac Bridge allowed me to take some pics of the bridge from different angles (different that is, to the usual quick snaps through the windscreen of the car!)

I never tire of its simple beauty & soaring struts.

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot.