Tales from the Bushland Shire - Part 4 - Crosslands

Crosslands is a little piece of estuarine paradise not too far from home.  In my younger days I would ride my bike most of the way there then struggle down to the water but the indistinct track finally become a road in around 1970 which was then sealed during the 80s.  Hallelujah!

And speaking of hallelujah, some may attribute the name Crosslands to the Seventh Day Adventist youth camp that stands on the western shore but not so.  After the Indigenous Dharug people were forcibly moved on or very conveniently died from disease or perhaps lead poisoning, Burton Crosslands and Matthew Charlton set themselves up on the western and eastern banks respectively.  They cut timber, grew fruit, fished and built boats for a living.  The Crosslands eventually bought out the Charltons and the SDAs and Scouts bought the western shore from them in the 1940s while Hornsby Council resumed the eastern side.  That become a reserve which has since been incorporated into Berowra Valley National Park and thus begins our walk.

There is quite wondrous thing called the Great North Walk which runs from Sydney all the way to Newcastle and today's short ramble covered a very small part of that.  We only did a couple of km which I though wasn't too bad for a couple of old blokes with mobility issues and only 2.75 eyes between them.  Once past the wheelchair friendly boardwalk the path has a good many roots and rocks to navigate.  We went another 500m or so until I had a vision of one or both of us tripping and rumbling down towards the mangroves below so we headed back.

 

What we did do was lovely though and we were joined by our newest best friend for a bit more of a wander around a backwater and the wide slip-off slope by the long sweeping bend of the Berowra Creek which accommodates the reserve.

When I studied geography in high school newly accessible Crosslands was the site of our 5th form (now Year 11) river geomorphology field study with Palm Beach being used for coastal geomorphology in 6th form and what we observed in the sand dunes that day is a whole other story.  Being not quite as handy to Asquith Boys' High, alpine geomorphology came straight out of the textbooks but I still remember the names of all the features which hasn't served me that well these last 50 years apart from one trip to the Colorado Rockies in the 1970s then two more to the Canadian Rockies 30 years on where I was able to say "Look, there's a cirque!"  

Of course that made it all completely worthwhile.  Anyway to this day I can recognise a slip-off slope when I'm walking on one and a brush turkey as well.  Here's a bit of both...