Up The Lazy River

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday January 24, 1998

DAVID LOCKWOOD

The Hawkesbury River has sustained farmers and fishermen for almost two centuries, and has become one of Sydney's most popular recreational venues. But this beautiful waterway is under threat.

THERE'S something irresistible about a big river: the way it moves, the country it crosses, the people and the places it touches and, especially, the journey it takes you on. From the mountains to sea, a big river is an adventure waiting to happen. The Hawkesbury, with a catchment area of 22,000 square kilometres, is an astonishingly big river. It rises near Goulburn as the Nepean, is checked at Warragamba Dam before carving its way through sandtsone gorges, then flows languidly on toward Windsor and a different name. You appreciate just how big it is only when you attempt to travel the best part of it in a day.

From the foot of the Blue Mountains to Broken Bay the Hawkesbury offers more than 100 kilometres of deep, wide, easily navigable river. The scenery is as engaging now as it was when the novelist Anthony Trollope described it in 1872:

The Hawkesbury has neither castles nor islands, nor has it bright, clear water like the Rhine, but the headlands are higher, the bluffs bolder, and the turns and manoeuvres of the course which the waters have made for themselves, are grander, and to me more enchanting.

The inspiration for these words is what I seek when I cast off from Bayview in a trailer boat with 200 litres of fuel under the floor - barely enough for a journey lasting seven hours and covering 260 kilometres, all the way to the upper freshwater reaches and back.

It doesn't take long for the entertainment to begin. In Pittwater, a fairy or little penguin announces its presence with a baby-like cry. They are common in Pittwater and Broken Bay, where they hunt for fish in the clear green water.

But the Hawkesbury turns a turbid brown, the colour of most big coastal rivers, just moments later. You need to keep alert at speed. Logs big enough to hole a boat aren't uncommon and after big floods, you can bump into anything from water-melons and lettuce to cows and cats ... or so the stories go.

The last big flood of 1990 covered the roof of the general store in Dargle, which is at least 10 metres above river level when we stop for a meat pie and sauce and to gaze at the photos of the 1990 flood on the wall.

Today, the Hawkesbury flows quietly. At Brooklyn, the falling tide exposes the oyster leases dotting every available bay. Boats and trains clatter past, and a series of large sandstone pillars stands as a memory of the first rail bridge built at Brooklyn in 1889.

Above the road bridge is Peats Island, with its hospital. Opposite, the narrow passage between Milson Island and the shores is well worth touring.

The water gushes past quaint houses as pelicans perch on wooden piles, swallows swing on mooring ropes, and a lady in a frock stands at her doorstep ready to sell bait, petrol . . . ammo?

The riverboat postman, a white ferry aboard which you can book a cruise, delivers supplies to this and many other remote communities along the river.

From Milson Island to Wisemans Ferry, the Hawkesbury is lined by giant bluffs, just as Trollope described it.

Fishing for bream, flathead and jewfish is popular at Bar and Pumpkin points, both of which have figures in floppy hats hunched over fishing rods, waiting patiently in little boats bobbing in the tide. One reels something in - an ugly, whisker-faced catfish.

The wreck of HMAS Parramatta, Australia's first warship, lies in muddy Cascade Gully. On the opposing shore a houseboat is dwarfed by the giant sandstone bluff against which it shelters.

Spencer, a sleepy village beneath the sandstone cliffs, has been described as home to a few hundred people and many more mangroves and mozzies. A group of reclusive artists has made Spencer its home. Sip a cold beer in the shade of the Dunkirk Hotel and you might be persuaded to join them.

Above Spencer the flood plains begin to form and, by the time I reach Wisemans Ferry, the lush green cover of mangroves succumbs to stands of bulrushes. The water is brackish. Within sight of the two car ferries crossing the river, I see lone men standing by the wheels of their prawn trawlers, scouring the river for a living.

Then, WHAM! A new culture takes over as we pass a collection of mobile homes and caravans parked on the levees along the river. Skiboats with big inboard motors and names like Eat My Wake and Agitator rumble into life and carry anyone who wants a ride, on anything ridable, along the river.

By Leets Vale, the water is fresh and the shores are lined with well-manicured lawns, weeping willows and poplar plantations. Every bend reveals a new skipark where families sit on folding chairs by the banks of the brown river in varying levels of comfort. One clan, I note, has even brought a full-sized clothesline.

Past Dargle, around Sackville, historic Port Erringhi and Ebenezer, there are white-sand beaches, tall cliffs, deep water and bends of river less often buzzed by skiers.

Cows wade in up to their udders and graze on the bulrushes as sheep bleat across the beach and climb the banks in search of greener pastures.

I stop for lunch under the shade of a big tree. This is rural Australia and I could be anywhere from the Manning to the Macleay. But, no, I'm on the Hawkesbury, Sydney's most significant river, with a story behind every bend and bite.

But it is also a river with big problems.

Sand and gravel extractions, stormwater run-off, unsewered residential areas, over-fishing by prawners, unchecked agricultaral effluence, bank erosion by livestock and the wash of speeding powerboats - all are a severe threat to the fragile ecology of a river, even one as big as the Hawkesbury.

Travel the river and see it for yourself. Then, as I did, you'll come away convinced that a river of this magnitude and splendour deserves better treatment.

Cruising the Hawkesbury

Where to go: Along the big river between Windsor and Broken Bay and up the tributaries, including the Colo and Macdonald rivers, Webbs, Mangrove, Berowra, Mooney Mooney, Mullet and Cowan creeks. It takes at least a weekend of cruising to do the river justice.

What to do: Fish for Australian bass in the freshwater reaches in a small boat or with Hawkesbury River Bass Fishing Tours (02) 4576 3318. Learn to water ski with Jack Ellison Water Ski Resort in Pitt Town (02) 4572 3733. Take your own skiboat and stay with Ko Veda Ski Gardens, Carinya Ski Ranch, Del Rio Resort, Torrens Water Ski Park or Cliftonville Ski Lodge. Take the family on a houseboat with Holidays-A-Float (02) 9985 7368, Ripples (02) 9985 7333 or Clipper Cruiser Holidays (02) 9450 0000. Day tours from Brooklyn with Australia's last riverboat postman (02) 9985 7566.

Provisions: Don't misjudge the tide, as I did, or you will use significantly more fuel to get around. The tides are 2.5 hours later than Fort Denison at Wisemans Ferry and 5 to 7 hours later at Windsor. Though fuel is available at many ski parks and gardens, it isn't cheap. And you may be required to lug it to your boat. Waterside food is nothing to write home about, so pack the picnic lunch.

Hazards: Floods, bushfires, blue-green algae, septic water. Swim in the tidal reaches below Wisemans Ferry if upstream looks questionable. Lots of water skiers aren't necessarily an indication that the water is clean; after rain it is often of poor quality. Check with the Hawkesbury Council or EPA for a river report.

Further Information: Cruising Guide to the Hawkesbury River and Cowan, Broken Bay, Pittwater. John and Jocelyn Powell, Deerubin Press, $18. Cruising the NSW Coast, self-published by Alan Lucas, $52. 1998 Hawkesbury Boating Directory, Australian Environmental Publications, by post only (02) 9810 5990. Hawkesbury River Tourist Information Centre, (02) 9985 7947, for an accommodation and holiday guide.

© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald

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