The air is watery, the vegetation lush. A waning moon hangs in the pale sky. The chirping of geckos echoes in our ears. Although the sun is not yet up, the harbour pulsates with neon-lit sea kayaks, dragon boats, and early morning ferries.
We cross the water to Milsons Point, the start and end of our circular Seven Bridges walk. It’s a 28-kilometre route, although inevitable off-trail explorations will add a few more kilometres to our day.
As we make our way through the streets of North Sydney, we pass a procession of hi-vis clad tradies, toolbox in one hand and a takeaway latte in the other. Ahead of us stands the majestic Sydney Harbour Bridge, the most renowned of the seven bridges we’ll cross today. It spans the northern and southern shores of the harbour and, when approached from the west, frames the shimmering sails of the Opera House.
We climb the stone steps up and onto the iconic bridge. Colour flushes the sky to the east and illuminates the harbour’s splendours. Flocks of birds freewheel above us. Traffic whizzes past. A security guard keeps a lazy eye on the commuters vying for space on the pedestrian walkway. This monumental landmark is the largest steel arch bridge in the world. Built during the Great Depression, it symbolised connection, optimism, and hope.
Below us is the historic Rocks precinct, built from the sandstone on which it stands. Its development has long been a contentious issue. Recently, the government evicted residents from Sirius, a public housing block, and sold the property to developers. They preserved the brutalist building, but scattered its community. It’s now a citadel for the elite, featuring shiny copper living pods and plunge pools with breathtaking harbour views. “The social and heritage value of Sirius was connected to its use. Without any provisions for social housing, it has lost social value. It tells a very Sydney story.”
Once over the bridge, we pass the grassy slopes of Observatory Hill. It’s the former site of a windmill, a fort, a signal station, a telegraph station, a school, and Sydney’s first observatory. Built in the 1850s, the observatory closed in 1982 due to increasing light and atmospheric pollution.
We descend into the dim, dark canyons of the city where the unlikely twang of a banjo greets us. Deeper into the tangle of concrete, a builder’s scratchy radio plays Midnight Oil’s Power and the Passion. I see buildings clothing the sky, in paradise. We skirt around Darling Harbour, its confronting colonial history glossed over by tourist tack, and arrive at Pyrmont Bridge. Once the main transport route between the city and the western suburbs, it is one of the world’s oldest surviving electrically-operated, swing-span bridges. On weekends, you can watch the bridge swing open as it did in the past to allow ships in and out of Cockle Bay. Now pedestrianised, it’s a scurry of commuters at this time of day.
Small pockets of green, expanses of water, and the rusting remnants of industry characterise the walk to Anzac Bridge. The impressive structure, now a Sydney landmark, soars skyward. Cars and trucks speed across it, travelling to and from the western suburbs and the once distant mountains. Now that the bridge carries the M4 motorway to the Blue Mountains, those drawn by the ancient ruggedness of its landscapes and the charm of its villages can more easily heed its siren call.
The state-of-the-art concrete bridge opened in 1995, replacing the old Glebe Island Bridge and adopting its name. In 1998, on the 80th anniversary of Armistice Day, the Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, renamed it in honour of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought in WWI. A 4-metre-high bronze statue of an Australian soldier dominates the west end of the bridge; opposite it stands a statue of a New Zealand soldier. The sculptor Alan Somerville honoured his Kiwi background and the good-hearted rivalry between the two countries by making the Kiwi soldier 5 cm taller than his Aussie counterpart.
The air is sweet with the heady scent of frangipani. As we saunter through the backstreets of Lilyfield, the Kookaburra’s laughing call claims the territory we are traversing. Glancing up, we see planes flying so low overhead that we can read the text on their undercarriages.
Passing cottages with wooden-shingled roofs, we walk on through the sprawling grounds of Callan Park. Its remnant turpentine-ironbark trees once covered the ridges of Lilyfield and spilled down to the harbour.
From Iron Cove Bridge, we look out onto islands, coves, and boats moored along an arm of the Parramatta River. An aquamarine pool juts out into the river. We cross the bridge, opened in 1955 after years of delay. At the time, the Sydney Morning Herald described the building of the bridge as a long, sad tale. ‘It is a tale of post-war steel shortages, labour shortages, strikes and rising costs’.
Our meandering takes us through the tree-lined streets of Drummoyne and onto the Gladesville Bridge. It spans the majestic Parramatta River, a spectacle of rippling green water dotted with pleasure craft and private swimming pools. Drummoyne, fringed by water and blessed with classic Sydney views, is where old and new wealth mingle and sometimes collide.
The Gladesville Bridge was the first road bridge over the harbour. Before its construction in 1881, water transport was the only way to cross from one shore to another. The sandstone piers of the original, low-level bridge remain visible. The current bridge, which rises in a graceful arc over the river, opened in 1964. At that time, it was the longest concrete span bridge in the world and the first major bridge designed with the aid of a computer.
The sun comes and goes. From Tarban Creek Bridge, we detour to Hunters Hill for lunch. More fascinating than the unremarkable concrete arch over the creek is the life of the swift-flowing water beneath us. The creek supports a mangrove wetland and remnants of Forest Red Gum and Rough-barked apple, evidence that the natural world was wilder here once upon a time. Thanks to the revegetation efforts by local conservationists, the sound of bird song is returning.
Hedges conceal buildings, manicured playing fields, and the rowing sheds of an elite private school. Despite occupying about a third of the suburb of Riverside, the harbourside school pays no rates. To the chagrin of some locals, the school restricts public access to bush tracks, the foreshore, and its private ferry wharf.
Our seventh bridge is Fig Tree Bridge. It spans the Lane Cove River, a tide-dominated, drowned valley estuary that winds through bushland to join the Parramatta River. It was once an iron truss swing bridge that took four workers an hour to open. Now, it’s a nondescript concrete girder bridge.
Crossing the bridge, we pass Figtree Farmhouse, established by Mary Reibey around 1835. The Australian $20 note celebrates this cross-dressing horse thief, convict and emancipist (she claimed she only stole the horse because she was bored and found embroidery intolerable). Widowed at 34 with seven children, she took charge of her husband’s shipping and trading enterprises and became a highly successful entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Our walk continues beyond the seventh bridge. For a time, we wind through Lane Cove National Park on old tracks and in and out of a green gully known as Fairyland. Then, as much as possible, we follow the shoreline. Past Lavender Bay, immortalised in the paintings of Brett Whitely and now home to Wendy Whitely’s secret garden. We return to Milsons Point as the sun is lowering. Because the sheer physicality of it beckons, we walk back across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, quieter now than it was in the morning peak. We find our way to the rooftop bar at the Palisades Hotel for a celebratory spritz and a last breathtaking view of the harbour.
The walk acquainted us with the delights of the harbour west of the Bridge. Not just the sweeping vistas of shimmering water, humid green vegetation and majestic sandstone cliffs, but the quiet back streets and hidden worlds revealed by the height advantage of standing atop seven bridges and taking in all before us.
If you enjoyed walking across Seven Bridges, you might also like these short Australian walks: Surf Coast Walk, Grampians Peaks Loop and Mount Bogong.
