North Head

For the past dozen years, I have been a volunteer on North Head, north of Sydney, one of the two sandstone pillars through which all early travellers had to pass, to reach Sydney. I have been going up there since 1951, and I know the place fairly well.

You need to know that some bits belong to Northern Beaches Council, the lowest tier of government, the outside is run by National Sparks and Wildfires, sorry, National Parks and Wildlife, so the state government of New South Wales, and the central portion comes under the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, meaning the Commonwealth of Australia.

There are no fees for entry into North Head, though if you park a car in a National Parks and Wildlife carpark, that will cost you money.

Pro tip: as you approach the end of the road, you will see a coffee shop on the left, called Bella Vista, and there  is a road leading up the hill past it. The car park in there is on Commonwealth land, and parking in there is FREE!

Now this will probably be the only commercial bit here, and you will see that I have tried to shave the profits right down. The book is not a money-making venture, and I don't get kickbacks from businesses I recommend.This book is intended to help our visitors enjoy more and see more.

Because I always travel with two cameras, I gathered lots of photos, because I was a teacher, I shared my finds with the public, and I soon learned what they didn't know, and what they cared about. Because I was a professional writer, I created a website, called The Nature of North Head, but that went west as well when my treacherous ISP dumped all my work, and that one was full or new stuff that was well worth saving. So I did a book.

I released it through Amazon in an expensive ($AUD50) full-colour dead-tree book through Amazon. Then to help those less well-off, I produced a monochrome (grey and black) version for $AUD20. Then I came up with a full-colour Kindle edition for $AUD4.00, but there was a limit to how cheap I could make it, so I produced a Google Books edition for $AUD2.00, so save the trees and get that version, which is designed to use on tablet or phone. It tells you about the history, the plants, the animals, the geology and much more.

But to get to North Head, you will probably need first to get to Manly, and then you can either get the 161 bus, walk or bicycle. The bus is probably the best choice, but that means I need to talk about the Manly ferries, and there are several ways to find and catch those.

Note that public transport requires an Opal card.

North Head has about 500 flowering plants across 250 hectares (near enough to a square mile.

The ecological unit there is called the Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub, and this is an endangered ecosystem. On the right, you can see a Banksia aemula, one of our delights, and even a short walk will show you lots of it. The cones stay on the tree for several years. and seeds normally drop after a bush fire.

Then there are the flannel flowers, so called because the 'petals' (properly bracts) feel soft, like flannel.

Scientists call them Actinotus, and they flower almost the whole year around. On North Head, they are at their best in September, and the best place to look is in the Third Quarantine Cemetery.

Get a map, get a book, and on warm days, carry a water bottle, and go for a wander around North Head.

And now, you have 498 other flowers to find, but you won't find any waratahs like thenone below on North Head. When you see a live link here. you can find out more about them, but like the Banksias, they are part of the Proteaceae, featured brilliantly in the Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens, in about September.

North Head is probably the best place to try to see an echidna in the wild, but Taronga Zoo is a better bet.

How it got started: look at Griffith  Taylor's hypothetical river in Sydney  geology, you will see that the flat grund we call Manly was, most probably, once a river bed. I have talked to geotech engineers and they tell me that there is at least 30 metres of sand undertbe Corso. It follows that, like Barrenjoey, North Head is a sand-tied iland.