by Susan Duncan
‘Then we saw a tiny ad in The Sydney Morning Herald announcing the ferry service was for sale and it was a case of “why not?”’ she said. ‘Providing public transport fulfilled our criteria for being green.’
Within a year, Penny had her coxswain’s ticket and a growing knowledge of fuel lines, starter motors, big ends (part of the engine), propeller shafts and the day-to-day idiosyncrasies of their three-strong fleet.
‘When I was a kid, I used to joke that when I grew up, I wanted to be a lighthouse keeper or a ferry driver. Be careful what you wish for!’ she laughed.
At the end of a summer’s day, impromptu parties spring up on the open rear deck as commuters – most of them friends and neighbours – head home, groceries piled around their feet or shoved loosely on the roof of the cabin, a cool drink in hand.
The Curlew (originally named Gloria) is a 14-metre timber ferry that was built near Wyong on the Central Coast in the 1920s. She is painted navy and white with touches of fire-engine red and slices through the water with matronly efficiency.
The Amelia K, an almost-12-metre ferry, is often unkindly referred to as either the ‘Tin Can’ or the ‘Grey Ghost’. She was built in 1996 and named after the daughter of Jack Kirkpatrick, who owned the ferry service at the time. Our timber boat-worshipping community finds little endearing about her clunky metal body and utilitarian lines but she is a good, reliable workhorse. The much smaller timber ferry, Elvina, which hangs off a mooring at the mouth of Lovett Bay, is as pretty as a storybook boat, and was built in Palm Beach in the 1920s. She is used if one of the larger ferries is being serviced or is out of action. Often, small groups pack a picnic, a thermos and a bottle of wine and climb on board the Elvina for a 45-minute (or longer) charter that sweeps around The Island and the Bays in old-world style.
The ferry drivers are a vital and integral part of the community. Beginning with the first morning run from Bell Wharf to Church Point at 6.20 am, they are the link between the offshore community and the onshore world. They keep an eye on fractious young kids heading to and from school and deliver the mail and newspapers.
And they offer a hand with the shopping bags, art works, lamps, building materials or equipment, vacuum cleaners and any – sometimes bizarre – bits and pieces that make their way across the water.
Carrie Towers, an island mum, was a deckhand on the chaotic and noisy school run prior to Penny and Simon taking over the business. Now Carrie drives the ferry at the helm in the wheelhouse and brings the vessel alongside the wharf with an expert feather-light touch. Along with shy Rick Peipman, whose six-year-old son, Cooper, is already a fine deckhand, Carrie is now part of the core team of four captains, including Tim Byrne and Michael Ramsay. A few locals, who also have tickets, fill in from time to time, and the ‘old masters’ – many who have gone on to drive bigger boats – still enjoy returning to do an occasional run. It keeps them in touch with a community they love.
‘Can you imagine what it’s like to take on a completely new business and have everyone on your side from the beginning?’ Penny asked. ‘People I’ve never met before give me a pat and tell me, “You’re doing a marvellous job”. That goodwill and kindness inspires you. As for the school ferry – well, it’s hysterical. Noisy kids everywhere. In summer, they board dripping wet because they’ve plunged into the water at The Point in their school uniforms. They’re full on. Funny. Innocent. Full of subterfuge and honesty at the same time. And wicked. They keep you smiling for the rest of the day.’
Baby-pink water taxis scoot around the Bays all day and night, providing a vital link for the off shore community.
THE 24-HOUR WATER-TAXI service runs from a houseboat moored at the mouth of McCarrs Creek and within eyesight of Church Point. When business is slow, and all three taxis are nestled closely, it looks like a mother duck with her ducklings. There’s a courtesy phone at The Point that direct dials the service.
Not long after I moved to the Tin Shed, I bought two naughty Jack Russell terrier pups that thought the bush was their personal playground. In the pre-dawn hours, one of them staggered into the bedroom, wheezing so loudly she woke me. I turned on the light, saw her paralysed back legs and realised immediately that she had tick poisoning. Frantic, I called the water taxi. Geoff, a capable and quiet man with a dry sense of humour, arrived in minutes and gently took the puppy out of my arms so I could climb on board.
‘The dog will be fine,’ he said, passing her back to me like a precious, fragile thing. ‘But you’d better calm down or you’ll have an accident on the way to the vet.’ His words jerked me out of a rising hysteria.
Nothing ever seems to be too much trouble for the drivers. They’ll help you to deliver a new dishwasher to your jetty or a case of wine to your door if you are too old or unwell to manage yourself. They’ll cheerfully grab and stow twenty pieces of baggage to take on holiday then help you unload at the other end. They’ll tow you home if your engine breaks down in the middle of the Bays or give you a friendly pat if they see you are too tired to even speak at the end of a long day. They’ll also give you a (still polite) serve if they have to wait a long time at the end of a dock on a busy day while you linger over goodbyes at the end of a boozy lunch or a late party.
Water taxis mean that none of us is ever alone or without help at any time of the day or night.
The Bush
When the rains fall steadily in early spring, the bush erupts in waves of pink, gold, blue, yellow and orange and the scent of wildflowers hangs seductively in the air.
It is the dream of glittering bays and waves breaking like soft sighs at the foot of the garden that lures most of us to Pittwater. Sitting for hours at a time, breathing damp sea air scented with oysters, seagrass and mangroves. Watching the water. The same and yet never the same; blue, gold, green, copper, pink, silver and red. The background canvas for night and day, wind and rain, storms with gunfire thunder and jagged lightning, leaping fish, courting sea eagles, a lumbering pelican or two.
In time, I learned to interpret the sounds of the tides. An incoming swallow. An outgoing wheeze. The shadow dance of air darkening the surface of the water. The fizz of a school of baitfish racing ahead of a sharp-toothed predator. But I avoided and felt threatened by the thousands of bristly acres of hostile bush that stretched behind the Tin Shed.
It took a while before I began to explore and finally understand I was living in one of the most diverse and culturally fascinating areas of Sydney. Aboriginal middens rise like tiny temples under sandstone overhangs. Rock carvings of mythical beings from The Dreaming, such as Daramulan – half-man, half-animal – splay in weathered grooves high on the escarpment.
Wallabies, whales, fish and, I am sure, many more still-undiscovered images are chipped into the landscape. Ancient homage to the Aboriginal creed of the beginning of creation.
Rough fire tracks for emergency vehicles crisscross the Bays although, thankfully, they are mostly used as walking tracks. Locals or tourists who come to stay at the Youth Hostel in Towlers Bay often bring a picnic in a rucksack because there are no coffee shops or restaurants here. What could be more delicious, anyway, than scooping a handful of cool, sweet-tasting water out of any of the creeks that cascade into the bays?
In the early morning or so late in the afternoon it is almost dusk, rusty-chested swamp wallabies stand and stare intently and bounce off in sudden flight only if you pass too closely. In seasons when the rain falls steadily and the bush unfolds in layers of green, cheeky joeys peek from pouches or stand hesitantly alongside their mothers until they grow in size and courage. At first they beguile. Then I tried to grow a garden. And it was war.
At night, they thumped and rampaged, stripping new growth from tender young plants until they withered and died. They reached up to grab the boughs of my lemon trees and dragged them down until they fractured. They snapped off flower heads before they had a chance to bloom. My small vegetable patch became their personal salad bowl until nothing survived. I ranted and raved
. Then stopped. I lived in the bush. I had to adjust. To twist it to my will would be to lose its integrity. Where would shy lyrebirds with their stolen songs hide? Or clumsy brush turkeys build their nesting mounds? Where would wild orchids, pink and delicate, or tiny vanilla lillies with their fragile mauve throats, grow? Would the leopard moths that salsa through the bush survive? And the black cockatoos with red sirens under their tails – what would happen to them if the casuarinas disappeared and there were no nuts for them to feed on? How easy it is to chip away without noticing what gets lost – until one day there is nothing left.
Of all the walks – and there are many – in what I eventually came to understand was a truly wondrous backyard, Flagstaff is my favourite. It begins a little way beyond the Lovett Bay ferry wharf, where there’s a thorny tunnel through a copse of baby cabbage palms. No wider than a wallaby’s track, after high winds or raging storms it is often strewn with fallen trees. It crosses a creek with a tiny waterfall in wet weather, then razorbacks up a steep hillside to a rocky outcrop at the summit. From here you can see Lovett Bay, Scotland Island and the crammed armadas of yachts at Newport – so distant they look like flocks of seagulls resting on the water. Beyond lies the pale blue line of the Pacific Ocean.
It is called Flagstaff because it is the highest point in the area and someone, at some time, hammered a socket for a flagpole and strong steel hooks to tie guy ropes into the rocks. There is a timber seat there, too, which Bob repairs from time to time. During the days of Eccleston du Faur’s grand plans, sandstone steps, which still remain, were set into the steepest parts of the pathway. A cool cave just a few feet from the top became a welcome shady shelter for walkers to boil a billy and eat their sandwiches or cake. The bush, as dense as it seems to be when you battle through it, is more bony than shady.
When we are lucky enough to have a wet spring, the landscape erupts. Banksia trees alight with flower cones like golden candles. Xanthorrhoeas sprout long, sap-laden spears from their grassy skirts. Mauve grevillea flowers curl in spidery fists. Pink-skinned apple gums (angophora costata) fizz with creamy flowers and wattles (acacias) create clouds of honeyed perfume so strong it makes you dizzy. Wildflowers are prolific. Boronia, wax flowers, flannel flowers, dianella, hardenbergia, ti-tree and many, many more, some so tiny only an expert eye picks them out.
Sometimes, as I make my way back down to the shore, I remember being told that there are more plant species between Sydney and Newcastle than in the whole of Europe. And I send a silent thank-you to Eccleston du Faur.
The bush is constantly under threat from invasive plant species. The dreaded lantana, asparagus fern, crofton weed, bamboo, mother-of-millions, and many more. Without the effort and diligence of members of the bush regeneration groups, infestations would threaten the plant diversity of the area.
Volunteers meet on designated Saturdays, Sundays or Mondays, leather tool bags slung around their hips, ready to attack one small area at a time. (Clearing large areas can create even bigger problems, providing spaces for weeds to take hold again.) Huge white bags, supplied by the council, are filled with weeds, then left alongside the fire trails to be collected and disposed of by the National Parks.
Joining a bush regeneration group is a great way to enter into community life on Pittwater. You meet the neighbours, learn about good and bad plants, and the species – if there are any – that wallabies leave alone. Although experience suggests that while wallabies may not eat grevilleas at one house they will devour them at another. The work is as hard or as easy as you can manage and the simple act of spending slow time in the bush opens your eyes to its magic. It is an easy and pleasant way to learn the names of local plants, their seasons and their perfumes, and to see the damage that happens if noxious weeds are allowed to run wild.
It is work of passion and commitment, undertaken by people who do not want to hear their children or grandchildren asking: ‘Why didn’t you do something about it before it was too late?’
There is a salt marsh at the end of Towlers Bay, lush with mangroves and reeds. A freshwater creek runs into the tidal flats. Without many of us noticing it, buffalo grass crept to the edges of the reeds and grew so thickly it formed a bank. The tide isn’t always high enough to flood over it to replenish the marsh. I think of the marsh whenever I feel tempted to succumb to laziness and selective blindness as I pass a cluster of crofton weed. Who could guess that a single rogue runner of buffalo grass could, in time, silently change the landscape? And what about the bamboo? Planted for a quick privacy screen or an Asian look, some types are rampant from the moment the first root sinks into the ground and thunders into the bush like a conquering army. It takes two bush ‘regen’ volunteers to stop the spread – one to cut the cane, the other to paste on poison within ten seconds of cutting. Even then, it only slows growth and each plant has to be dug out, roots and all, one by one.
Typically, on Pittwater, bush regeneration turns into a social get-together. Especially on Asparagus Fern Out Day. That’s when Penny gives free ferry transport to onshore weeders who come to help for the day, and the locals provide a picnic lunch. Mostly, though, the work is done by neighbours, their backsides flat on the ground in the middle of bushland, quietly attacking a small patch of weeds; a white bag alongside, gently easing plants out of the ground so that not a single root is broken and left to regrow.
It doesn’t take long to develop an eye for foreign invaders. On morning walks we’ll stop to pull out a lantana seedling that’s suddenly struck. Or dive off the track to ease out a new pocket of crofton weed. Once, my neighbour and I stood in front of a vine neither of us recognised. She pinched a leaf to identify it from her botanical books. It was morning glory – a plant that’s so tough and invasive it threatens bushland from one end of Australia to the other. We dug it out the next day.
Someone (nearly always Ann and Nick from Little Lovett Bay, who do a couple of hours work very early in the morning) has begun to eradicate, limb by limb, one of the strong lantana infestations in the Bays. When the thick growth has been whittled to the ground, they carefully excavate around the roots until they can be removed without even a tear. Within weeks the native bush erupts to reclaim its territory.
The Barges
Early in the morning the working barges begin their day, timing their schedules with the tides and chugging through the Bays with their heavy loads.
The water, a deeper blue than the sky in the heat of summer, is a highway for yachts, launches, speed boats, commuter tinnies, and the services that keep offshore life running smoothly. Garbage-collection barges, pile-driving barges, barges that deliver building or landscaping materials and barges, too, for shipping your furniture in and out.
In small communities such as ours, there is always a natural curiosity about newcomers. Will they fit in? Will they love, cherish and protect? Are they weekenders or here to stay? Although we are quick to welcome, people are not immediately embraced. In communities, you earn your place over time and takers are quickly sussed out. We watch closely for a while … as I was watched when I first came here. I’d let my wildly exuberant Jack Russell terriers run wild. They acted as though they’d been let loose in their own private game reserve and I saw no harm until Bob and Barbara quietly took me aside. ‘The puppies will grow and they will hunt,’ they explained. ‘You must keep them under control.’
Now that I know and understand so much more, I, too, gently suggest what’s acceptable behaviour or what will incite ire. It’s personal choice whether to respond or ignore local advice. I have only heard of one case, decades ago, when a man so affronted local values, community pressure forced him to leave.
RUSS IS A QUIETLY spoken bloke with a tranquil black and white border collie called Max. The two of them cruise the Bays like master and commander, although it’s hard to tell which is which. Max stretches out on the barge with the cattle-crossing warning sign like he’s a canine god. Russ pushes from behind in a tiny tinny with an outboard motor.
R
uss is the local removalist. He transports fridges, sofas, washing machines, tables, boxes, armchairs and pot plants. Even, bizarrely, a zebra and a giraffe (live ones hired for children’s birthday parties at nearby Palm Beach).
‘It’s all about balance,’ Russ says, as though it’s no big deal. ‘You learn to judge the wakes from passing boats and adjust your angle to suit.’
Household goods are piled high without even a cord to tie them tight, until you feel that surely, they must topple overboard.
Russ tries to organise his schedule to coincide with high tide so the truck and the boat are level at Cargo Wharf. At low tide, there’s a deep drop from land to water and the job is much harder. It takes perfect balance, brute strength and an understanding of the movement of the water to make it all work successfully.
There are apocryphal stories about moving days, some so old and retold so often they have become lore. I have heard of a woman who shipped all her worldly goods into her new home on Scotland Island and within two hours, decided it was a dreadful mistake.
She left immediately and never returned. I have heard that once long, long ago an entire cargo of household goods went overboard never to be retrieved. I even heard of one removalist who liked to arrange a sofa, a pot plant, a coffee table and a cool drink on the bow of the barge. Then he’d invite the owners aboard so they could ride to their new home in Pittwater-style comfort.
TOBY JAY AND DAVE SHIRLEY own a beautiful, elegant, 40-foot scow called the Laurel Mae. Designed and built in 1990 by local shipwright Mick Cardiff and his partner, Graham Botham (who died in 2007), she is a jewel. Made from the carefully hewn timber of grey ironbarks and spotted gums, the towering eucalypts indigenous to this part of Pittwater, she and the skippers hold the firm affection of the community. On Clean-Up Australia Day, volunteers clamber aboard to glide from bay to bay, ferry wharf to ferry wharf, gathering unclaimed (or unacknowledged) junk. Old tinnies. Discarded building material. Timber pallets. Ruptured kayaks. Dead stoves. The ugly and untidy clutter that accumulates when the effort and organisation of removing it to the tip is fraught with expense and difficulty.
