Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Third Half: Broken Bay
For all the city bustle and quiet getaways, there's even more just around the corner. I'll bor-
row a line from Yogi Berra and call it the “third half”: the waterways that fan out from
Broken Bay, twenty miles north. That's where you'll find Pittwater, where moorings fill
every inch of coveted shoreline and several charter companies base their fleets. The narrow
bay explodes with sailboats during weekend and weekday evening races, in which parti-
cipants fly everything from custom-sewn Kevlar to old scraps of canvas. Some days, we
watched the races from the shade of our cockpit while kicking around at anchor. At other
times, we mimicked them with our own maneuvers, tacking up, then gliding back down the
bay.
In spite of the startling number of boats in Pittwater, we always found a place to anchor.
Morning Bay provides shelter from the west and has enough space outside the moorings for
several transients to anchor in mud at depths of thirty feet. When the wind went around to
the southeast, we'd anchor at the edge of Careel Bay, where we could practically walk
ashore through the tightly packed mooring field. Of course, it was a long dinghy ride to the
head of the bay, then a healthy walk to the nearest supermarket in Avalon - but that's what
vacations are for. We had all the time in the world - enough for day hikes like the one up
Barrenjoey Head with its namesake lighthouse and Tasman Sea views.
Pittwater is just one of several arms that branch off Broken Bay and cut a lightning-bolt
pattern into the surrounding countryside. The Hawkesbury River is another and popular
with houseboaters, though a twelve meter bridge at the head blocks most sailboats out. In-
stead, we headed up Cowan Creek and the primal world of Ku-ring-gai Chase National
Park. Cowan Creek gave us a glimpse of Australia before the arrival of Europeans: green,
thick, wild. A deafening chorus of cicadas strikes up every dawn and dusk; then it's the
kookaburra's turn to laugh.
Dozens of free public moorings line every deep-water branch of Cowan Creek. These fill
quickly on weekends, but at mid-week we had no problem snagging one - then another,
and another, working our way through the area in short hops. Just when we thought the
steep hillsides ahead would pinch to a close, a sharp turn revealed yet another twist in the
maze.
The only drawback was not being able to take more than a very quick dip in the water, and
that, with a very sharp lookout. The threat of sharks seemed secondary to the blooms of
Search WWH ::
Custom Search