by Scott Bevan
At least one kayak has made it onto this island. There’s a black canvas model, one that could be folded up, just like the one used in Operation Jaywick, the secret raid by commandos on Japanese ships in Singapore Harbour in September 1943.
Bells are stacked on shelves, and on the walls are name plates and life-rings from decommissioned ships, which have slid off the sea, or below it, and out of our memory.
‘Every time a ship is decommissioned, the P, R & T (presentations, relics and trophies) come here,’ Lindsey says, before pointing to HMAS Betano name plates. ‘So if we get another Betano, for example, they [the ship’s company] can come here and get this.’
Lindsey opens a cupboard to reveal a small wooden box. She opens the hinged lid, and I’m confronted with a face. It is the face of someone I have never seen, but he is part of the reason I have been spending so much time on the harbour. It is the death mask of Commodore James Goodenough. The mask is cradled under a folded Union Jack. I’m surprised not so much by seeing a death mask in the cupboard (although that’s a fair shock), but by a sense of familiarity. I’ve lived near where Goodenough lies. He is buried at St Thomas’ Rest Park, which I used to walk through each day and night. Having stood in front of his grave and read the explanation about his death from arrow wounds in 1875, I always imagined the Commodore would look older, gruffer, more worn by a life at sea and in action. He was forty-four when he died. But I’m face to face with someone who looks younger. The absence of hair, and of blemishes, perhaps restores youth to the face. In any case, I’m glad to be able to put a face to the man whose connection to the harbour and the sea had indirectly encouraged me to improve mine.
The collection on Spectacle Island continues to grow. On the way back to the wharf, we pass a building with its doors open, and I see the honour boards from the recently decommissioned HMAS Sydney. Sprinkled around the grounds are old armaments, including a mortar system that is roughly facing the Drummoyne shoreline.
‘It’s an anti-submarine system,’ Lindsey explains.
‘Or anti-Drummoyne,’ I add.
‘Yes, but they tend to behave themselves.’
As I’m taken back to the Drummoyne shore in the launch, I’m trying to process the experience I’ve just had. To be in the midst of so much of this country’s naval history for a couple of hours has been extraordinary and overwhelming. Which is perhaps why I keep thinking of a hydrangea. I saw the plant blooming below a rock overhang and near an old ‘whaler’ on the island’s south-western side. I was wondering who planted it, bringing a soft blush of colour to a place of machines and warfare. The hydrangea reminded me of a naval man and artist I had spoken with a few times. Ray Parkin was serving on HMAS Perth when it was sunk in a ferocious battle against Japanese warships off Java in 1942. He survived the sinking but was captured by the Japanese. Mr Parkin (for I never called him Ray and was never invited to) ended up on the Burma–Thailand Railway as a prisoner of war. Despite the cruelty of his captors and the ravages of Mother Nature, Mr Parkin secretly continued drawing and watercolour painting. To Mr Parkin, this was the most effective medicine for what he considered the biggest threat to a man in his situation: self-pity. Miraculously, a lot of his artwork survived, smuggled out of the jungle by another POW, Lieutenant Colonel Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop, who returned them to Mr Parkin after the war. When Mr Parkin showed me the drawings, I remember being stunned by not just the attention to detail in each image but the subject matter; they were mostly of little plants and insects. He particularly loved depicting butterflies. These were meticulous studies of natural beauty. I asked him why he drew these things, rather than capturing the adversity he was stuck in, and he replied beauty made you feel better. What’s more, he advised, no matter where you were, you could always find beauty – if you looked. As a POW, Mr Parkin was once enchanted by the sight of toadstools growing out of elephant dung. Most of us would see the dung; Ray Parkin saw the toadstools. An eye for beauty helped Ray Parkin survive the war and shaped how he viewed life.
On and around Sydney Harbour, even the laziest observer can’t miss its beauty. However, it is on such a grand and intoxicating scale, you can be blind to the small and subtle moments of beauty – unless you look for them. And so when I saw that hydrangea on Spectacle Island, I thought of Mr Parkin, and his lessons in beauty. He has helped me see this harbour for what it is.
IN THE years since the removal of the potential powder keg on the water, the only thing exploding along the Drummoyne shores are property prices. The paddle west takes me past a mix of apartment blocks and restored older homes, along with a few new creations, including one with a glass-fronted pool right on the harbour’s edge. So a swimmer could be underwater and still enjoy harbour views, even if they’re wobbling and warping.
At the western end of Drummoyne Bay, on Wright’s Point, is an old landing stage. The steps themselves are armoured in oysters, and the stone balustrade ripples as it drunkenly stumbles along the edge of the point. From the water, it is obvious the steps are all that is left of something grand. A plaque set into one of the sandstone posts by the local council and historical society explains this was once the landing stage for Drummoyne House, built by William Wright in 1853. Wright had made his fortune trading across the Tasman, importing New Zealand kauri pine. When his mansion was being built, Wright was apparently obsessive about its quality, inspecting every block of stone and smashing any that he considered defective. In 1971, Wright’s carefully constructed home was demolished. These days, just beyond the remains of the stone landing stage, is a sleek creation in steel and glass. The modern mansion is both beautiful and severe, like the look a supermodel gives whenever a camera lens is pointed in her direction.
As I paddle around the point, that imposing piece of architecture and almighty pile of concrete, Gladesville Bridge, vaults into view. Yet it is something more modest moored just in front of me that politely asks for my attention. It is a 28-foot yacht called Pandora. The boat is owned by a friend, David Pettett. Pandora is moored at the marina which huddles under the bridge. The Gladesville Bridge Marina’s catchphrases on its promotional material are ‘The answer to all your prayers’ and ‘Have faith in us’, which makes it all the more appropriate that David moors his Pandora here. David is a man of God. He has worked as a chaplain for the navy, in prisons, and as a missionary in Japan. My meeting him was almost providential. It was certainly very 21st century. While kayaking on Middle Harbour, I photographed a little yacht that passed me. The sailor said, ‘Good morning’ and ploughed on. A day later, I received a message on social media from this bloke, David Pettett, asking for a copy of the photo. Which told me two things: David was internet savvy, and that he was an observant gentleman. The good news for me was a picture was worth not only a thousand words but an invitation to go sailing.
Seeing Pandora at her mooring reminds of the first time I sailed with David, along with his friend Jacqui. It was a sulky day, with the sky on the verge of tears and the water a succulent olive colour, but I was feeling a lightness that resembled liberation. I had just resigned from my job and had decided to spend some time kayaking around the harbour.
The little yacht quickly gobbled up the breeze and we ripped across the water, as Pandora zig-zagged east.
‘The winds get fluky in this river and around the headlands,’ David explained, looking every bit a skipper, with his neatly trimmed beard, and his eyes constantly scanning around, looking for trouble.
We sailed under the Bridge and into a busier harbour, with the Saturday sailing traffic. David took us to the southern side of Fort Denison, explaining there was a current that carried you more quickly. Like that current, David had a deep knowledge of the harbour that lay just under the surface, and it bobbed up in anecdotes and snippets as we sailed. David is a Sydney Harbour boy. He grew up at Balgowlah on North Harbour and sailed on those waters through his teenage years. He swam in Manly Cove and caught the ferry to the city for work. The harbour shaped him then, and it continues
to do so. David later told me the harbour both energised him and provided calmness. Above all, the harbour was ‘home’.
The south-easterly pushed us to 6 knots, which was as fast as Pandora wanted to go. David looked for somewhere to moor along the northern shore. But the wind was ruffling those coves, so we moored near Watsons Bay. I could see Our Lady Star of the Sea’s spire trying to burst the clouds. Further up the headland, the Macquarie Lighthouse’s white paint was licking up the sun to look pristine.
As we sailed back to Drummoyne, darting and pirouetting around the thick Saturday afternoon boating traffic, I remember feeling a sense of excitement that I would soon be paddling into all these places we were passing. And I felt a little overawed at the enormity of what I wanted to do, in trying to learn about the individual characters of the dozens of bays and coves, and, in the process, better understand why the harbour meant so much to so many. I wondered how long it would take, and where it would take me. Then I remembered something Jacqui had said to me earlier in the day, when I asked where we would head for lunch.
‘Sailors don’t tend to ask where they’re going,’ she smiled. ‘They just sail.’
I would do the same. I would just paddle.
DESPITE MY resolution on that day, I always had in mind my destination. I knew where this journey would end. Back at the monument to champion sculler Henry Searle.
The end is almost in sight.
First, by way of thanks to the original inhabitants, I paddle into Wallumatta Bay on the northern bank of Parramatta River. I walk over the rock shelf at the water’s edge. The rock is striated, holding the scars and marks of millennia in its skin, and the surface is pocked with dozens of little pools. I peer into one, admiring the reflected bush and sky cupped in the water. On the foreshore is a rack of dinghies clumsily hugging, and set into a rock is a plaque honouring and acknowledging the Wallumedegal people. We could honour them, and respect what we have, more meaningfully yet simply by keeping the shore cleaner. The rubbish I see on the tideline is besmirching the traditions and beauty of this part of the harbour.
Heading upriver, I see the broken column protruding from the water. The monument marking the tragic end to a young life, erected on the finish line for competing rowers on the river, is also my finish line for this book.
When Mark Twain sailed into Sydney in 1895, he was beguiled by what he saw, charmed by what he heard, and inspired to write about the experience, embellishing it with a tale entwining two obsessions of the harbour city: sharks and making oodles of money quickly. Twain observed the harbour was beautiful, but made all the more so by the city. With respect to one of my favourite novelists, Mark Twain viewed Sydney the wrong way. The city is beautiful because of the harbour. For all the ugly structures we have built around it, the harbour remains undiminished. Without the harbour, everything we have built in Sydney would be sorely diminished. Even the Opera House, even the Harbour Bridge. Newcastle upon Tyne has a similar bridge, and I doubt many people would travel around the world to see it. It is an impressive bridge, but it doesn’t span Sydney Harbour.
Yet everything has its limits, even the seemingly bottomless beauty of Sydney Harbour. We can’t keep ignoring it, encroaching upon it, imposing our expectations and demands on it, pouring our stormwater and tossing our rubbish into it, and abusing it. And it is not enough to occasionally look at the harbour, or to skite about it to visitors. We have to engage with it, nurture it, protect it, and cherish it. We have to do that, otherwise, one day we’ll look at the harbour and realise it isn’t as beautiful as it once was. And in that moment, we’ll realise how ugly we are, and how stupid we’ve been. If John F. Kennedy was right about us being drawn to the sea because, in a sense, that is what flows through us, then by abusing the harbour, we are hurting ourselves.
Storm clouds gathering in the west are backlit by the lowering sun, and a gum tree on the bank is aflame in the dying light. Henry’s monument is almost glowing, like a navigational beacon. Perched on top of the broken column is a pelican. Watching the majestic bird, I wonder if the pelican is somehow a sign from Henry, telling me to keep paddling and cross the finish line. With the day ebbing away, I forget about symbols and immerse myself in the beautiful sight of a pelican-crowned column hardening into a silhouette as the silken water wraps around its base.
Even so, while looking at Henry’s column, I can’t help but think of what’s ahead. I don’t know what I’ll do next. Maybe I’ll apply for a job on a Sydney ferry. I had read how applicants used to be advised to row or sail the shores of the harbour to commit to memory the names of all the inlets, bays, hazards, reefs, buoys and currents, for they would be questioned about it. Even after all my paddling, I’m not sure I would pass that test, but through the journey, I have come to know the harbour, and myself, better. Anyway, sometimes you don’t need to know all the names and details of somewhere before setting off; you just have to trust instinct and go there.
THE JOURNEY is finished, but my relationship with the harbour will never end. One September Friday evening, while walking through St Thomas’ Rest Park, past the headstones of sailors and boatbuilders, I hear the distant moan of a cruise ship blowing its horn. I had seen the ship preparing to depart White Bay about an hour earlier. That mournful but warming moan wraps itself around the headstones, around the memories of the departed mariners, and around me, calling us all down to the harbour, back to the water.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This journey in a kayak, and in words, required more than water under the hull of Pulbah Raider and a paddle in my hands. It was dependent on the generosity and kindness of a lot of people, on the harbour and along the shore.
Firstly, my thanks to everyone who spoke with me for the book. I can only imagine how disconcerting it must have been for many of you, as this middle-aged stranger paddled into your piece of the harbour, and your peace, and started asking questions. So for your patience and good humour, and for sharing your knowledge and opinions of the harbour, I thank you all.
My appreciation and thanks to the following for inviting me onto your vessels, or for organising interviews with those at the helm: David Pettett; Simon Mitchell; Charles Jensen, Barry Jensen and Les Fordham; Captain Chris Norman; David Jones, Corporate Communication Manager, Carnival Australia; Whittney Jago and Cassandra O’Connor, Roads and Maritime Services; Wayne Cartner, Team Leader of RMS’ Environmental Services; Pam and Eric Sellix; Marina Thomas, Clipper Events; Tim Drinkwater, Operations Manager, Sydney Heritage Fleet.
A huge thanks to Ian Smith, a superb skipper and an erudite and patient man. Thank you for all you’ve taught me, Ian, on the harbour and through our conversations. And I raise a glass of red (in preference to that rum) to the wonderful crew of Britannia for tolerating the least competent ‘bailer boy’ to ever sail in an 18-foot skiff on the harbour.
Thank you to the staff of the State Library of New South Wales, particularly Senior Curator Louise Anemaat; the staff of the North Sydney Heritage Centre at Stanton Library; Catherine Hobbs, College Archivist, Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview; Steven Adams and Gareth Dyer, The Scots College; Shirani Aththas, Australian National Maritime Museum; Commodore Peter Cole, Naval Heritage Centre, Garden Island; Graham Percival, Hunters Hill Historical Society, and; Katherine Roberts, Senior Curator, Northern Beaches Council.
I tip my hat to the writers, musicians, artists and poets who have been inspired by the harbour and whose work I reference in the book. To a master of words, Simon Winchester, I’m honoured and humbled by what you’ve written about this book. Thank you.
For sharing your wealth of information or introducing me to your wonderfully knowledgeable friends and colleagues, my thanks to: Peter Mann; Mel Tyas; Michael Pembroke; Lyndsey Shaw; Randi Svensen; Amy Hetzel; Liz Hinton; Ben Hawke, and; Keiko Tamura.
To Dan Ruffino and all the team at Simon & Schuster Australia, thank you for your support and belief in this project. A special thank you to my publisher Roberta Ivers, for your patience, wonderful h
umour and gentle encouragement in helping bring this book to life. For all your work and advice, my thanks to Publishing Director Fiona Henderson, Marketing and Publicity Manager Anna O’Grady, Marketing and Publicity Director Anabel Pandiella, and Editor Michelle Swainson. Thank you as well to editor Janet Hutchinson, proofreader Mark Evans, and indexer Patricia Holloway for your care with the words. Thanks, too, to James Mills-Hicks for the wonderful map. For the beautiful cover, my thanks to designer Christa Moffitt and artist Mark Hanham.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster Australia’s terrific sales team, led by Sales Director Elissa Baillie, and Deputy Sales Director Liz Bray, for taking The Harbour out into the world. Indeed, my thanks to all the booksellers and librarians for what you do in spreading the word – and words.
And thank you to Larissa Edwards for accepting me into the Simon & Schuster Australia fold in the first place.
For your advice and admonishment, therapeutic drinks and healing laughs, my hugs and kisses or firm handshake (take your pick) to my friends who have pushed the kayak out and helped keep its paddler afloat: Craig Hassall, former CEO of Opera Australia; Commodore Peter Leavy; Guy Warren, and; Ken and Judy Done. Ken, huge thanks for your beautiful words about the book.
To my fellow Gentleman Kayakers and dear friends, Bruce Beresford and George Ellis: Groucho Marx may have said he didn’t want to belong to a club that accepted people like him as a member, but I’m honoured to be part of ours. Thank you, Bruce and George, for your guidance and humour, and for being slower and older than me.
To Tom and William, oceans of love to you both for encouraging me on the water, and off it, and for your patience while I’ve been writing.
And to Jo, for your research and editing, advice and encouragement, for lending an ear and a shoulder to lean on, for sharing your heart, soul and brilliant mind, and for paddling with me, on the harbour and through life … I’m lost for words.
