Atlas Page 14
By Andrew Garran,
Francis Meyers and F. J. Broomfield

Beyond the point lies Elizabeth Bay, with its sandy beach —the old family mansion of the estate just showing its dome above the surrounding trees. Then comes Elizabeth Bay Point, with another cluster of waterside houses, and then the open sweep of Rushcutter’s Bay, where the foreshore has been reclaimed and is now a public park. The flat ground in front is surrounded by an amphitheatre of higher ground, on the ridges of which are the thickly-clustered houses of Darlinghurst, Paddington, and Woollahra. Darling Point flanks the bay on the east, and on its heights may be seen one of the most picturesque churches of Sydney, St. Mark’s, whose graceful spire rises from the dense hanging foliage which crowns a verdant sloping lea. On this promontory the beauties of Elizabeth Bay are repeated with equal effectiveness, though with many variations. It is a lovely and favourite suburb, and contains many magnificent mansions, castellated, turreted, mimic citadels of peace, surrounded by grassy lawns and well-kept gardens.

Almost directly opposite the point, and separated from it by a strait about a quarter of a mile in width, is Clark’s Island, dedicated as a reserve for public recreation. The high ground of Darling Point overlooks on the eastern side the beautiful inlet of Double Bay —its white beach a public reserve, while the flat behind is fairly built upon. Behind the streets of Double Bay a few houses dot the hill-slopes and merge into one of Sydney’s most beautiful suburbs, the populous and fast-spreading suburb of Woollahra, studded with handsome mansions, many of which are not inferior to the harbour homes that cluster along the water’s edge.

The promontory on the eastern side of Double Bay is known by the name of Point Piper —so called after an early settler —and on its eastern point stands a palatial structure reared by an Australian millionaire. The grounds of this mansion occupy nearly the whole extent of the point. Its noble facade looks out upon the harbour over broad sweeps of lawn, in which the native trees have been carefully preserved, their sombre hue being broken and relieved by the intermingling of trees of European and tropic growth. Viewed from the water, the point glows with a variety of tints and shades —from rich emerald to subdued olive, lovely contrasts are presented in masses of lustrous green. The sea about the rocks and tiny beaches is of crystal clearness, and all sights and sounds of the busy city are curtained off by the abrupt western rise of the hill.

Where the rocks of Point Piper end, the white beach of Rose Bay begins, and sweeps in a broken crescent —a mile and a half in extent —round to the white sand of Milk Beach and the battery reserve of Shark’s Point. From Rose Bay to Bondi Bay on the ocean beach was once an old harbour mouth, which has been gradually filled and choked up by the slow washings of ocean sand.

Near the snowy span of Milk Beach is an old house possessing an historic interest; its builder having been no other than that renowned Australian to whom the colony owes its constitution —Wentworth. He is buried close at hand, and the little mausoleum that marks his resting-place is a spot much visited by all who take an interest in Australian history. About the entrance of the harbour the traveller will have continual remembrances of names familiar in the annals of the colony, for a number of her statesmen have settled on the various reaches of the port. It would seem as though the country’s truest sons came down to keep the gate of that city which they loved so well.

Returning to the little town of Watson’s Bay, which nestles about the slopes behind the curved stretch of sandy beach, the traveller again embarks, and sailing across the mouth of the port, with its long, lazy roll, gets under the lee of the bold North Head, and finds himself in front of the Quarantine Station. This establishment monopolises one of the finest sites in the harbour —an appropriation, however, which, considering its importance, cannot be quarrelled with. All the requirements of a quarantine station are fulfilled here. The locality is six miles from the city, and easily accessible. The area is superabundant for all the claims that can be made upon it; the position is breezy and healthy, and the swampy crown of the hill furnishes an ample supply of fresh water. Recent events have led to great improvements in the appliances of the establishment. Small-pox, though frequently imported, has never yet obtained a footing in Australia, having been always stamped out by the most vigorous measures. Passengers arrive now in such large steamers that a single case of infectious disease means the sending of several hundreds of people to the quarantine ground. Thanks to the liberality of the Government and the energy of the Health Department, every facility for dealing with the largest passenger-ship has been provided. A steam laundry has been built capable of washing the whole of the linen in twenty-four hours; fumigating chambers for disinfecting all woollen garments are provided, while cottages and pavilion hospitals are, scattered about in sufficient numbers, and with a degree of isolation equal to any probable emergency. The ground for infected passengers is specially marked off, and the whole station is enclosed by a fence extending across the peninsula from the harbour to the sea. It is at all times annoying to passengers to be detained at the end of a long voyage, but everything possible has been done to make a forced residence agreeable. From the summit of the hill there is a grand panorama of the ocean and the main entrance to Port Jackson; while the view up the harbour is singularly lovely, and a man might lie and look at it for days if he were not fretting to get away. The discomforts and nuisances too often inseparable from a compulsory detention in a lazaretto are happily absent here.

At the head of North Harbour lies the village of Manly, situated on a flat between the North Head on the one side and the Manly Heights on the other. This flat is really an old harbour mouth, which has been slowly barred by the sand washed in by centuries of billows. The Corso, as the level street is named, which runs from the landing-jetty to the beach, is only a few hundred yards in length. Manly, therefore, has this special peculiarity as a watering-place —that it is a harbour-side and a sea-side village all in one, and in a walk of a few minutes the visitor can pass from a land-locked sheet of water, smooth and transparent as a lake, to the ocean beach, fretted with the long roll of the Pacific. Standing on a magnificently commanding site on the north-east point of the North Head, is the Cardinal’s palace, and by its side a Roman Catholic seminary. The village of Manly, which originally nestled on the flats, is now creeping up the heights, and the line of cottages is extending all along the road to Middle Harbour. Of all the waterside resorts, Manly is the most frequented. Well-appointed steamers maintain a constant communication with the City. Many merchants have their homes here, while the tired workers from the town flock down on holidays to get a stroll on the beach and to fill their lungs with the fresh sea breeze. In summer time the beach is a promenade gay with colour and vocal with the laughter of children. But the great fete of the village is the wild flower show which takes place in the month of September, And which has now become an institution. It had its origin in an effort to pay off a church debt —a happy inspiration suggesting it as an improvement on the ordinary bazaar. Flowers fill all the bush about Manly in the spring. Heath-like epacrids of many varieties carpet the table-lands; wattles, of various shades of yellow, bloom in the scrub on the flats, waratahs or native tulips shine like crimson cones in the gullies; the aromatic native roses and other boroneas grow in profusion; the gold and silver stars of Bethlehem lie thickly tufted on the ground, and on many rocky faces of the coast ravines are beautiful orchids called rock-lilies. The suggestion was to blend these beauties of the bush together. The idea was eagerly taken up, and was by tasteful hands made a reality. The old pavilion, in the little park was transformed into a gay green bower, in which flowers and ferns were artistically interwoven; palms took the place of ordinary pillars; the berries of the bush made harmonies with dark-green leaves; fountains splashed and cascades danced over mimic falls and grottoes, which in the evening were illuminated by a well-directed play of the electric beam. The fairy scene became an immense attraction, and the flowers paid the church debt.

Coasting from Manly up the harbour, the first great headland passed is Dobroyd, a bold cliff exposed to the full force of south-easterly gales. The navigation here for small craft is somewhat dangerous, for at times the Bumborah rises suddenly when the ground-swell from the ocean touches the ledge of rocks that reaches out from the foot of the cliff, and the slow-rolling wave becomes then an angry breaker, which has brought disaster on many an unwary boat’s crew. After rounding Dobroyd, the entrance into Middle Harbour opens out. This is a long, many-armed estuary, stretching from the entrance fully five miles into the heart of the hills. The weather side of this entrance is exposed to the sea rolling in from the Heads, but the eastern side is protected, and here on the tranquil shore, holiday-seekers by the thousand are landed, for at the foot of the rocky hill spreads out a large, well-grassed flat, and a smooth white beach, that seems made by Nature for picnics. So roomy a playground, and one so easily accessible, does not often lie close to a great city. Opposite Clontarf runs out a long sand-spit, making a natural breakwater and narrowing the channel. Between its point and. the opposite shore is a punt, which forms a connecting link in the overland route to Manly. Round the spit the waters divide into the South Arm and Middle Harbour proper. The latter, after throwing off one or two bays, ceases to be navigable except for small boats, as it narrows and shallows between steep, rocky, timber-covered banks. At present Middle Harbour is almost untouched by commerce, and the houses on its overlooking ridges are not many, but it is a favourite cruising-ground on account of its lake-like beauty —the headlands overlapping each other, producing some thing of the appearance of a Scotch loch. No more tranquil retreat than these solitudes afford could be desired, and that a busy city lies only a few miles off seems impossible.

The south arm of this estuary runs westward for some distance, making of Middle Head a broad, bold peninsula.

On the point of this, looking straight out to sea, stands the greatest fortification of Sydney. The gun-carriages are placed in shallow, circular wells; the rock is caverned with magazines, and the powerful guns sweep all the water’s face in front. To this point come the artillery, professional and volunteer, to practice marksmanship, and to learn with accuracy the distance of any point that could be occupied by an invading foe. Often on a Saturday afternoon the headlands are alive with spectators, watching the practice. Here, too, the scientific manoeuvres of the Easter encampment are elaborately gone through, while a detachment of infantry occupies an entrenched camp on the summit, and rehearses the operations necessary to prevent a landing on either of the Middle Harbour bays, and an attempt to take the forts in the rear. At the foot of the cliff at St. George’s Head are embrasures reached by tunnels, in which are Guns that command the line of the bar intended to protect any boom which might constructed, or sweep the area of the torpedo field.

West of George’s Head lies Chowder Bay, another favourite picnic haunt, where a large hotel, a dancing pavilion, lawns and promenades are provided for holiday-seekers. Beyond Taylor’s Bay, much visited by boating parties and botanisers, Bradley’s Head runs out due South, and forms, with the opposite headland of Point Piper, the entrance to the Inner Harbour. Past these are a series of coves, deeply indenting the shore. Little Sirius Cove, Mossman’s Bay, Shell Cove, Neutral Harbour, and Careening Cove. It is hard to say which of these is the most beautiful. They have a general resemblance, yet each has its own special characteristics; and they are all deserved favourites with boating parties. The large water-space in front of them, between Bradley’s and Kiarabilli, is Neutral Bay, the anchorage for outward-bound ships, which can lie here in the shelter and out of the fair-way. Past Kiarabilli Point is Milson’s Point, important as being the terminus of the principal North Shore ferry and one of the starting points of the great North Road. Then comes the deep recess of Lavender Bay, the street from the wharf at the head of which is a long flight of steps cut in the solid rock, leading picturesquely, if somewhat toilsomely, to the streets above. MacMahon’s Point is another ferry landing, the road running at a stiff gradient up to the higher land.

Then come Berry’s Bay and Ball’s Head Bay, both deeply recessed, and the entrance to Lane Cove, an estuary running up a considerable distance into the hills, though only navigable for a few miles. This northern side of Sydney Harbour has as deep a water frontage as the southern, but the rise from the shore is steeper, and the high ground is scored by the deep gorges of Middle Harbour and Lane Cove, and the many lateral valleys running down to them. The surface is thus broken tip into ridges and gullies, the main road running along the summit. The soil on the high ground has been found admirably adapted to orangeries and orchards, and market gardens abound for many miles inland. This orchard cultivation characterises all the district westward as far as Parramatta — indeed, the line of the river may almost be said to be the line of orange culture, the lower land on the south being more exposed to frosts and mists than the warm ridges on the northern side.

Hunter’s Hill occupies the peninsula between Lane Cove and the Parramatta River, affording a large water frontage to the waterside residences. The hill is covered with villas not less picturesque, though less imposing than those found about the foreshores nearer the city. The soil here is loamy, and being set a little inland from the salt sea breezes, rich and delicate vegetation makes a more luxuriant display. The houses are mostly built of the fine sandstone which lies a few feet beneath the surface, and gorgeous and glorious creepers are trained wherever balcony or trellis-work affords an opportunity. It is a richly floral district, and it is almost impossible to exaggerate the beauty and splendour of the rich masses of Bougainvillaea which cover a whole house-side in the earliest days of spring, or of the climbing rose that makes a veritable "field of cloth of gold" over a hundred square feet of trellis in every spring and autumn. Nowhere else along the river or by the sea can be seen finer contrasts of colour and foliage —bananas and plantains by the water’s edge, cedars drooping on the slopes, hibiscus and flame-trees putting out their crimson and scarlet blooms, the tender green of the budding vine prophetic of the purple show of autumn, and the dark glossy leaves of the orange trees rich wit their golden fruit. At Gladesville, a little higher up the river, is one of the large asylums for the mentally diseased, where the thoughtful care of the superintendent has done everything possible to veil the sombre aspects of the place, and alleviate inevitable confinement by surrounding it with a glory of flowers. Steamers go up the river within a short distance of Parramatta, and as far as Ryde the scenery on either side is charming. Two bridges are thrown across —one for the road connecting Fivedock with Gladesville, and the other at Concord for the Great Northern Railway to Newcastle.

Returning to the mouth of Lane Cove, the conspicuous feature in the river, after passing the magazine at Spectacle Island, is Cockatoo Island, the site of one of the earliest prisons in the colony. Out of its rocky side a graving dock was hewn many years ago large enough for the ships of that day; and here the "Galatea" was docked. But a still larger one is wanted for the ironclads of the present time, and accordingly another large excavation is in course of construction which will accommodate any vessel not more than six hundred feet long. From Cockatoo there is a beautiful view up Iron Cove, over which is a bridge connecting the peninsula of Fivedock with that of Balmain. On the heights of the latter is the large lunatic asylum at Callan Park, built on the pavilion principal at a cost of more than a quarter of a million, and capable of receiving six hundred patients. After passing Goat Island, the site of another powder magazine, the eastern side of the Balmain peninsula comes into view, and a busy industry makes itself seen and heard. On one of its subsidiary bays are Mort’s Dock and Engineering Works, where vessels of all sizes are repaired, and where the clang of hammers and the whirr of machinery make perpetual din. Other industrial establishments have also pitched their quarters here, and, as a large number of artisans like to live near their work, Balmain claims the reputation of being pre-eminently the engineering suburb. Between Balmain and the older parts of the city lies Pyrmont, another of those peninsulas which stretch like the fingers of a hand into the harbour. Here is the patent slip for the Australasian Steam Navigation Company, and various other industrial establishments haunt this locality. But the specialty of Pyrmont is its quarry. The sandstone here is of finer grain and more uniform colour than that found anywhere else around Sydney. All the finest of the new buildings are constructed or faced with this stone, and the original hill of Pyrmont is fast disappearing under the active labours of the quarrymen. Pyrmont, which is in the city limit, is connected with the eastern side of Darling Harbour by a wooden bridge, which opens in the centre to allow the passage of ships. The western shore of this harbour is occupied by a Government railway wharf. The opposite side is crowded with wharves and jetties. Several of the steamboat companies have their headquarters there, although the access by steep and narrow streets is very inconvenient.

On the highest point of the Sydney ridge is the Fort Phillip reserve, on which is built the Observatory, and here, terminating our imaginary cruise, we may stand and take a general survey of the route traversed. There is, indeed, no one point from which Sydney Harbour can be entirely commanded, for its special characteristic is that it is not a bay, but a series of bays —bays on the north and bays on the south. Any one of its principal coves would make an ordinary haven, while their multiplicity gives a superabundance of accommodation let Sydney grow ever so great. The shoreline is more than a hundred miles in length. This harbour, over which the citizens are naturally so enthusiastic, is to them and their heirs a perpetual possession; it is a reserve that can never be built upon; it is a playground that can never be worn out; a training ground for all aquatic sports; a school of seamanship that will count its pupils by the thousand. It gives to naval defence all that it can need, and to commerce more than it can use, while from childhood to old age, and from generation to generation, it is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever.

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