Enjoy a walk or ride along the Cooks River Cycleway (or pick it off as a park-and-grab) and learn about its long history along the way.
The Cooks River is a 23km long river that stretches from Yagoona in the south west of Sydney to Botany Bay in the east. Since European settlement, it has undergone many transformations and alterations, not all in the best interests of the river. Changes in the past few years are starting to bring the river back to a healthy state.
This part of the river was the home to the Bidjigal clan and as such we pay our respects to the elders past and present for allowing us to travel through this land.
When Europeans settled the lands of the Bidgigal people in the early 1800s, it took them only 60 years to transform the wildlife-rich water way into an industrial drain. It is now being rehabilitated with the restoration of the river edges.
The creek was named for the time before concrete canals were constructed and a small waterfall fell from a rock pool (the cup) into the creek below (the saucer). During the Great Depression of the 1930s, work to extend the stormwater system which caused more problems for the waterways than they fixed.
Water from Cup and Saucer Creek is now diverted into the wetlands where it is cleaned via natural systems before being put back into the Cooks River. These constructed wetlands are similar to what would have been here originally. Take a look at these progress images.
On the day of placing this cache, I attended a gathering where the Federal Government committed $10M to help the Cooks River. Fingers crossed that the money is spent wisely.
