365 Places: Berowra Waters

Day 58: Berowra Waters, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

When I lived in the northern suburbs of Sydney nearly 30 years ago, one of the places I loved to spend time was Berowra Waters.

I particularly loved to go on the Berowra Waters ferry: driving down the gorge on the Berowra side and then coming to the top of the gorge to drive through the pretty villages of Berrilee, Aracidia, Galston and Dural. These days I expect that these areas are now quite suburban, though back in the mid 1980s there were many hobby farms dotted along Bay and Galston Roads.

The Berowra Waters Inn is a famous landmark along the river, originally established in 1926 as a guest house and only accessible by boat or sea plane. The Edwardian style building had major engineering flaws and between 1976 and 1983, the architect Glenn Murcutt redesigned the property using a “distinctive Australian vernacular style: corrugated tin roof over glass louvre windows, on a Sydney sandstone base, set among eucalypts and angophoras”. (http://www.smh.com.au/news/restaurant-reviews/berowra-waters-inn/2007/12/18/1197740217182.html)

Some of the most special memories I have of living in this part of Sydney are of bushwalking and discovering many Aboriginal carvings in the rocks and middens. It was obviously a place of significance for many thousands of years for the people who first lived in this beautiful region.

If you would like to find out about the history of the area check out this post: Australia’s FIRST hire boat fleet.