by Susan Duncan
About the book
Welcome to Pittwater, an idyllic waterside community where there are no roads, streetlights or traffic. Here, where the larrikin spirit of times long gone lives on, everyone commutes by boat or ferry, and life revolves around the water, bush and a vibrant social life.
It’s a place where neighbours have time for a chat across tinnies on the open water or over a cup of tea with a slice of homemade fruit cake. It’s where the untamed Australian bush is an ever-changing miracle of light, texture and colour. A Life on Pittwater: The Story describes the richness of this special place with great passion and warmth. It resonates with a love for the bush, the water and, above all, the community.
CONTENTS
COVER
ABOUT THE BOOK
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
FINDING PITTWATER
THE POINT
BELONGING
THE POET
TARRANGAUA
THE SPIRIT
THE PLEDGE
THE BOATS
THE BUSH
THE BARGES
PICNICS & COOKS
YACHTS & PUTT PUTTS
ARTISTS & ACTORS
THE DOG RACE
LAST WORD
PREVIEW OF GONE FISHING
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CONTACTS
COPYRIGHT PAGE
MORE AT RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA
For the Pittwater offshore community – past,
present and future
Finding Pittwater
They say … when the wild beauty of Pittwater gets hold of your heart, it never lets go and you are seduced forever.
It is said that places find you – but only when the time is right. That was certainly true for me. The first time I saw Pittwater – a time I had all but forgotten – was in the early 1980s. I had recently returned from nearly a decade of living and working in New York as a journalist for Kerry Packer’s Australian Consolidated Press. At the time, Sydney was new to me. I was born in country Victoria, raised mostly near Melbourne and had spent much of my adult life living and working abroad. The geography of Sydney’s eastern and western suburbs was slowly becoming familiar but anywhere north of the Harbour Bridge was still downright foreign. I didn’t have the faintest inkling a paradise such as Pittwater existed just a forty-five-minute drive from Sydney’s CBD.
Journalist and author Neal Travis, who’d once been part of our small group of Australian expatriates working as foreign correspondents in the Big Apple, owned a basic fibro shack in Towlers Bay where a group of us were to stay for a weekend.
So we set off on an early spring Saturday morning, happy to have cast off the seedy, pressured claustrophobia of Manhattan for blazing blue skies, open spaces and the dry sting of a hot summer westerly. We were to meet four others at our destination. They had a boat to carry us on the last leg of our journey.
I must admit, I had very little interest in where we were going. I was thirty years old, madly in love with the man I soon married and I’d begun a job as a feature writer on a daily newspaper. Weekends were for food, fun and sleeping late. Where it happened didn’t matter much.
I have hazy memories of that weekend: stepping on the gunnel of a rocky aluminium dinghy and nearly going overboard; nervously chugging through the water in a coughing, under-powered boat so over-burdened with people, wine and groceries, it’s a miracle we didn’t sink. I remember finally reaching an olive-green house with the dainty white flowers of potato vine spilling over the deck, thinking why would anyone want to live here where the only way in and out is in a small, unreliable tinny? I remember, too, the look of horror on my partner’s face when he realised no-one had thought to bring potatoes.
‘Someone will have to go back and get some,’ he announced firmly and in a way that would have made his Irish ancestors proud. ‘You can’t have dinner without a few spuds.’
There was a collective sigh of relief moments later when a sack of rice was found in a kitchen cupboard. Yes, rice would do instead of potatoes, he nodded, as though a potential disaster of amazing proportions had narrowly been averted. No need for another perilous voyage.
But why, I wondered, would you want to live where even shopping for potatoes is a hassle? Looking back, I suspect I also felt threatened by the isolation and quiet, the ancient ochre escarpments that loomed behind us, the prickly bush, the deep green water. The reality of the bush, with its snakes, spiders, ticks, leeches, vicious scrub and every kind of unseen and lurking predator, actually scared me to death. I had grown accustomed to cities – taxis, restaurants, supermarkets, street lights. Even a dangerous town like New York, where nuts, bums and con men roamed the streets looking for prey, seemed a lesser menace than this wild shore from where there was no easy escape.
That night, as I lay in bed listening to the sound of water flopping on the shore in lazy breaking waves, I wondered about the emotional tug that had brought me home after so many years abroad.
A tug, I believed, that was a desire to be back amongst the red, blue, green, grey and gold landscape of my childhood.
But nostalgia was really the reason for my return, a dreamy and romantic yearning for the clean white light of summer days and softer winters without snow, sleet and slush.
A desire, too, to be back in a familiar world where there was no need to explain Bradman, Phar Lap, Bondi or Vegemite.
None of us ventured much further than the deck of Neal’s shack that weekend and we left for the city after a long Sunday lunch and too many glasses of wine. Back where there were roads, cars and crowds. I crawled out of the tinny with relief.
My lingering impression of the weekend was the thought that I’d like to grow the tough little creeper that emblazoned the crude shack with a delicate prettiness in a yard of my own one day. I didn’t even bother to remember that the area was called Pittwater. And it was years before I learned that in the bush, potato vine (solanum tuberosum) was considered a weed.
I didn’t return to Pittwater again until the mid-1990s, when I was invited to a friend’s birthday party. I was newly widowed, retired and struggling to work out where I fitted in now that I was no longer anchored by a marriage or a career. This time I fell in love with the place and understood its unique beauty. I visited countless times over the next few years, arriving with joy for a weekend and leaving with a hankering to be back before I’d even stepped ashore. On gloomy city days, I found myself daydreaming of yachts under sail on glittering water, a great yellow moon brighter than dawn, the silvery softness of a flannel flower.
One traffic-filled, stressed day I asked myself a question: If I could do anything I wanted, what would it be? And the answer roared back: Return to Pittwater and stay.
PITTWATER IS THE SOUTHERN ARM of a vast waterway that stretches from Broken Bay at the mouth of the Pacific Ocean, to end in a hand-spread of five bays reaching out from Scotland Island. The bays – McCarrs Creek, Elvina, Lovett, Little Lovett and Towlers (also referred to as Morning Bay) – are known as the Western Foreshores and are backed by the rugged Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Since European settlement, the area has been home to convicts, rum smugglers, madams, loggers and farmers. There was once a thriving salt business on Scotland Island and Aboriginal middens were burned to supply lime for the fast-growing colony of Sydney.
If it hadn’t been for the foresight of an Englishman with the improbable name of Frederick Eccleston du Faur, the whole area would have succumbed to urban development long ago and one of the most pristine areas of native bush in Australia would have been lost forever.
Du Faur was a foundation member and trustee of what later became the National Gallery of NSW. He was so passionate about the natural world he
joined the committee of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, which helped to raise funds for Douglas Mawson’s expedition to Antarctica. He was also a keen conservationist, long before it became fashionable or even an issue in most people’s minds, and he could see Pittwater was under threat. In a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, dated 18 December 1894, he wrote:
‘The last tree ferns were being cut down, the rock lillies torn away by their roots and hundreds of Christmas bush trees of 50 years growth and upwards were being felled, merely to lop off branches for decoration of butcher’s shops and other.’
Instead of allowing the area to be destroyed, du Faur believed it should be turned into a park on the same scale as Yellowstone in the US. He succeeded in pressuring the state government to set aside 35,300 acres from Hornsby to Pittwater, and bordering the waters of Cowan Creek and Broken Bay. Walking tracks, wharves and even a cottage at Towlers Bay were built to attract holiday-makers. All but the cottage still exists.
Over the decades, blocks of land along the shoreline were sold off to private owners for holiday homes. By the 1920s, a few grand houses were slowly appearing on the landscape. It wasn’t until power was connected in late 1962 and phone lines hooked into individual homes instead of a single party line, though, that a few intrepid souls with a burning love for boats and water, for the freedom and isolation of the bush – as well as a desire to escape the confines of Sydney’s cramped suburbs – began to live here permanently.
By the time I arrived in 1999 to rent a house near Bell Wharf on the western shore of Scotland Island, the area was a melting pot of artists, writers, publishers, engineers, architects, electricians, cooks, stonemasons, shipwrights, nurses, doctors, film makers, musicians, journalists, cleaners, builders, ferry drivers, odd-jobbers, retirees and an odd high-flyer or two.
I settled into a simple timber home so close to the water that it was wise to roll up the rugs on a king tide. It was a five-minute ferry trip from Church Point, the pick-up and drop-off point for most of the offshore community. Within weeks, I began searching for a home of my own.
The Point
Entering Pittwater, on the edge of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, is like stepping back in time. In this ancient landscape, people commute by boat, wallabies graze on lawns, and goannas sneak in to steal a chicken off your kitchen table where you’ve left it to cool a little, before carving. There’s often a python curled in the barbecue or a black snake lurking at your back door. Kookaburras swoop to lift a whole steak from your plate, and no-one finds it strange when you chase sulphur-crested cockatoos off your lemon trees at dawn, naked except for a tea towel.
For close to 200 years, the Western Foreshores were too isolated for any but the most adventurous – or the most reclusive – people to live, which is perhaps one of the reasons why such a strong sense of community remains today. On Pittwater, we are all interdependent. If you run out of petrol in a storm when you’re crossing the bays, the first person passing stops to help. Otherwise, if the wind’s blowing in the right direction, you could find yourself bobbing towards the great Pacific Ocean.
The central meeting place is Church Point, which is the ferry pick-up and drop-off point. It is shabby rather than swank, with a ramshackle general store that hangs over the water on crooked piles, a bottle shop, a few tables with bench seats and a scattering of shade trees.
Nearly all we residents pass through regularly to pick up the mail, catch the ferry or on our way from the car park to our tinnies. It is a wonderfully successful and useful community gathering spot, perhaps because it has gently evolved since the earliest days of European settlement.
I think of it as our piazza or village square and can’t help imagining, occasionally, that the spirits of long-dead residents still linger there with an occasional beer in hand and an ear cocked to hear any gossip.
At almost any time of the day, and sometimes late in the evening, you can find a kindred spirit for a chat and a catch-up. You can also organise an electrician, trade your lemon cake for homemade marmalade, talk through any issue before it escalates into a problem, or check out upcoming community events that are chalked on a nearby blackboard.
The General Store has a few gaping holes in the walls, salt-air damp has changed the shape of the windows so they barely close, and the floor never seems to be quite level. Inside, there’s a mish-mash of odd, tacked-on corners for assorted uses. Fruit and vegetables along one wall. An alcove for washing dishes. A post office crammed into a space not much larger than a cupboard. Some dusty old shelves with sugar, flour, canned soup, detergent, dish cloths and a few other staples. There’s a sign saying you can buy fishing bait but I never have.
A blackboard high on the wall above the takeaway food bar lists a menu of hamburgers, bacon and egg rolls, pies, sandwiches, cakes, tea and coffee. It’s generally agreed that the hot chips are the best in Sydney and the crisp, fatty smell of them deep-frying on a chill winter evening weakens the resolve of even the strictest dieter. A scratched and ill-fitting rear door leads to a deck with tables, chairs and colourful umbrellas. Tourists and hordes of lycra-svelte weekend cyclists who find the challenge of steep and winding McCarrs Creek Road irresistible mostly use this area, and enjoy drinking coffee here while the ferry comes and goes at the wharf alongside it. Most locals, though, opt for cheaper takeaway prices and carry their food to the square to eat with their legs hanging over the seawall while they throw a stick for their dogs.
Near the ferry office, which is no more than a timber shed with a desk, a chair and a phone, there’s a tap with a huge water bowl so no dog ever goes thirsty. When a gorgeous old dog called Zeus was battling lung cancer and couldn’t find enough breath to lap, someone attached a hose so water could be trickled down his throat. When Zeus died, there was universal sadness. Around Pittwater, dogs are as much a part of The Point – and life – as people.
It took a long time for his owner to finally find the heart to bring home a new puppy to keep him company on work sites around the bays.
A puppy that would ride the bow of his tinny and never stray more than a few feet from his side. Of course, the silky little tan and white pup was a ringer for Zeus.
Sometimes, if there’s a rush on for coffee and hamburgers, the shy but genial postmaster, who remembers all our names and post boxes so even mail addressed to only a person and a bay finds the right home, can be found clearing tables or doing dishes. On frigid mornings, the water-taxi drivers slide behind the counter to warm their hands on the espresso machine. If anyone finds a set of keys, it’s almost certain they’ll be handed in. It is endlessly reassuring that these old-fashioned habits and values rarely falter.
A sprig of rosemary, a bugle call and the community remembers fallen heroes at the Anzac Day ceremony.
A large, plain building on one of the most beautiful slices of real estate in Sydney, dominates the eastern side of the square. Called the Pasadena, it was built in the 1920s as a Spanish-style hotel and restaurant. Now it’s a popular spot for weddings and I’ve seen brides fly in by seaplane, or move slowly and regally by barge to the somewhat dodgy pontoon before walking along the jetty to take their vows on the lawn.
From the deck of my Scotland Island home, I sometimes watched the weddings through a telescope. I remember seeing one bride wearing a vivid orange wedding dress with glossy black feather trims at the hem and neckline. Her groom wore an equally iridescent orange suit and a black fedora.
Pittwater traditions, such as the Anzac Day ceremony and the shambolic but iconic Scotland Island to Church Point Dog Race, have sprung up around the erratically shaped little reserve with its seawall, sandy beach at low tide and views across the water. There is no better place to stand and sell tickets to community fundraisers, no better place to saunter when your own company begins to pall and you need to be reminded the world is bigger than whatever is bothering you. The Point has its own, inimitable spirit. It strengthens the links between the five bays and Scotland Island
and ties us even more firmly together as a community.
The routine for most of us is to pull into the drop-off bay at Commuter Dock to unload our shopping, which we stack neatly to one side at the end of the wharf. Then we leave it there while we park the car. The car park for offshore residents is located beyond the Pasadena. It is one of the few constant irritations in our idyllic life. Too many cars and not enough spaces sum it up. On weekends, you can circle for hours waiting for someone to give up a spot. Long weekends and public holidays are a nightmare. Tempers, normally sunny, fray and occasionally shatter if the day is sweltering, the chicken’s going off, the ice-cream’s melting and there’s not a single damn spot left in the car park. It’s amazing, though, how you can find ways to squeeze into the smallest space. I’ve seen people slam in their side mirrors, park within inches of the cars on either side, and then crawl out the back hatch in triumph.
Finding your car the next time you come ashore can be another problem. Did you park in McCarrs Creek Road or the car park? Or even up the hill behind the Church Point houses? It is quite common to see people wandering as though lost, I could’ve sworn the car was here, or did David park it last? Losing the car is not as ditzy as it sounds. If you plan well or don’t have to commute to work, you can spend two or even three weeks without having to go ashore for supplies. That’s when onshore life becomes a hazy memory while the reality of offshore living flows languidly along. Slow boat trips. Dinner with the neighbours. A bit of fishing if they’re biting. A swim. A kayak. A yacht race. Whatever takes your fancy.