Berowra Valley Park Historical Overview
by Bob Salt

The reservation of Berowra Valley Regional Park consolidates the protection of the scenic bushland along Berowra Creek from Pennant Hills to the Creek's junction with the Hawkesbury River. This has been a long and gradual process influenced by history.



The sandstone rock walls of Berowra Creek
© 2001 Anne Chrisite

Aboriginal history

The human history of the Berowra Valley begins with the Aboriginal people. Aborigines have been in Australia for at least 60 000 years, and there are relics in the Sydney region dating back at least 22 000 years. The Berowra Valley area was probably visited on hunting, trading or ceremonial trips from the coastal plain which existed before 6000 years ago. With the last rise in sea level the Aborigines were forced onto the Hornsby plateau and into the valleys.


Aboriginal rock carvings by Berowra Creek

The Aboriginal tribes were decimated shortly after the arrival of Europeans by introduced diseases and destruction of their culture. A major portion of their oral history was lost. Only the sparse observations of Europeans, supplemented by some oral history passed to the Dharug descendants at Blacktown, rock carvings, cave paintings and shell middens remain to tell us a little about their long history and use of the land.


Early European occupation

Two months after the First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove Governor Phillip sailed into Broken Bay to examine the Hawkesbury River. In April 1778 he made a land expedition and is believed to have crossed the upper reaches of the Berowra catchment near Pennant Hills. In June 1789, he began to explore the Hawkesbury. The expedition entered and investigated Berowra Creek on July 9, Captain John Hunter charting the course and depth of the creek up to about the Woolwash just before Sams Creek. Assistant Surveyor Govett traced the source of Berowra Creek to the Castle Hill region in 1829.

The first known use of the name Berowra appears in the Sydney Gazette in 1804. In 1816, the first settlement near the Berowra Creek catchment was the government timbergetting establishment at Pennant Hills, near Observatory Park. Probably the convict timbergetters in their quest for timber penetrated the upper reaches of Berowra Creek.

By 1824, Thomas Higgins in his quest for timber had arrived on the edge of Berowra Valley Park at Old Mans Valley. The Higgins family continued to log the valley for timbers for another hundred years. In the following years, settlement of the Catchment area continued - eg. the Duffys, Constable Horne and Chief Constable Thorn. Between 1830 and the 1840's shingle splitters cut shingles from Swamp Oaks at Merryman's Bay.

Burton Crossland purchased land on the Creek, building a house, planting an orchard and constructing a track to Somerville Road. He was an enterprising and skilled pioneer, building sailing vessels, channels and wharves to assist boat building and the export of stone and timber, logging the abundant she-oaks and splitting them to supply roofing shingles for buildings around Sydney. He cut stone for sale, and helped to build the stone church on Bar Island, George Collingridge's stone house and the Fretus Hotel above Calabash Bay. The wallabies, lyrebirds and possums at Crosslands were said to be so tame they would come to be fed by hand. The 1893 flood forced the Crosslands family to escape from their upper window in a rowing boat. By 1885, steam launches were travelling up the creek to Berowra on pleasure trips.

Crosslands pioneered a cart road through Galston Gorge to Galston. The bridges at Galston Gorge were built well before the road was completed in1893, by hauling the wooden beams through the bush with horse teams and manhandling them into place with block and tackle.

At Berowra Waters in 1898, Jack Smith's request for a four acre lease for a boatshed was denied, the surveyor finding that 1 rood 38 perches (1972 square metres) was sufficient. Jack put a hand operated punt into service for pedestrians and horse drawn vehicles after the road to Arcadia was built in 1902. By 1903 the Arcadia/ Dural orchardists were transporting their produce to Sydney by the ferry then the railway.

The threat of invasion by the Japanese in World War II led to the Australian Army collecting 2000 boats and impounding them at Crosslands. The biggest flood Berowra Creek had seen in the 20th century swept all these boats away in 1942. The Berowra Waters road was mined, with army personnel posted in readiness to destroy the road in the event of invasion. During preparatory blasting a fossil fish was uncovered. In 1948 more pre-history was uncovered when Geoff Scarrott discovered the fossil footprints of a labyrinthodont in his sandstone flagging quarry near Currawong Road, on the edge of the park overlooking Berowra Waters.


European houses on Berowra Creek
© 2001 Anne Chrisite

Growing environmental consciousness

Through the 1920s and 1930s development continued around Berowra Creek. An early conservationist, John D. Tipper, saw that the Hawkesbury sandstone ridges and gullies were the preserve of unique animal and plant life. He managed to secure a tract of 3000 acres (1200 hectares) as Muogamarra Sanctuary. This was combined with the 700 hectare Sir Edward Hallstrom Faunal Reserve in 1967 to form Muogamarra Nature Reserve.


Formation of the Berowra Valley Regional Park

By the 1950s, concern about the natural environment was rising. Local conservationists led by the Hornsby Conservation Society began to campaign for the reservation of the land along Berowra Creek to protect the local fauna, particularly the lyrebirds. The Elouera Bushland Natural Park was reserved in 1964 by the then Minister for Lands, the Hon.T.S. Lewis, 'for public recreation and the promotion of the study and preservation of native flora and fauna'. The park covered some 640 ha in the southern portion of Berowra Valley stretching down Berowra Creek from Boundary Road Pennant Hills to the Hornsby rifle range. Honorary trustees, appointed by the Minister, managed the park for 24 years until it was absorbed into the Berowra Valley Bushland Park. The southern portion of the Berowra Valley and the northeastern portion covered by Muogamarra were now protected.

Following sand mining proposals at Crosslands in the early 1960s, Hornsby Conservation Society, supported by the National Parks Association and the Nature Conservation Council of N.S.W., began to campaign for the reservation of the remaining vacant Crown Lands along Berowra Creek to preserve the scenery and flora and fauna. In 1971 the Minister for Lands, the Hon. Paul Landa, announced the dedication of Marramarra National Park stretching from Calabash Bay to the Hawkesbury and Wisemans Ferry.


A picnic area on the banks of the Creek

The Department of Lands, the Elouera Trust and Homsby Shire Council, began construction of the 25 km Benowie walking track from Thomleigh to Berowra in 1980. In 1986 the N.S.W. Bicentennial Council announced support for a project developed by two keen bushwalkers, Gary McDougal and Leigh Shearer-Heriot, to construct a walking track from Sydney to Newcastle. They adopted the name Great North Walk for this track, which incorporated and extended the Benowie Track.

Only the area between Hornsby rifle range and Muogamarra was still undedicated Crown Land. Following representations from the Elouera Trust and conservation bodies most of this land was added to the Elouera Bushland to form the Berowra Valley Bushland Park in 1988. This became the Berowra Valley Regional Park of nearly 4000 ha in 1997. After 63 years' effort the majority of Berowra Creek catchment is now securely protected.

Further Reading
· Hawkins, R.,1994, The Convict Timber Getters of Pennant Hills, Hornsby Shire Historical Society, Waitara NSW.
· Hornsby Shire Historical Society,1979, Pioneers of Hornsby Shire 1788- 1906, Library of Australian History, North Sydney.
· Joffe, M.,1992, Yarns and Photos: Beautiful Old Berowra & Hornsby to the Hawkesbury, Sandstone Press, Sydney.
· McDougall, G. and Shearer-Heriot, L.,1988, The Great North Walk, Kangaroo Press Pty Ltd, Kenthurst.
A more detailed version will be published shortly in the Guide to the Berowra Valley Regional Park by the Friends of Berowra Valley Park.