A Cook’s River walk with Ian Tyrell

Saturday 23 March 10.20 for 10.30 sharp.

Meet at the Newtown Jets Tempe facility parking lot – off Holbeach Avenue. This is close to the site of the old Cook’s River Bowling club and 750m from Tempe railway station. Alternatively the 422 bus south on Prince’s Highway stops at Fanning Street, 5 minute walk.

The walk will take about 1.5 hours and includes: the Tempe Lands restoration project (site of the 1930s greyhound track and earlier firing range); the new Sydney Gateway bridge construction over the Alexandra Canal; Shea’s Creek/Alexandra Canal reconstruction (including the inaccurate Sydney Water plaque) and Sydney Airport diversion. We will look at the Tempe wetlands and the eroding 1890s banks at Tempe Basin.

The major issue that will be highlighted is the tension between continual use of the site as a transit route for all sorts of ‘improvements‘ requiring the perpetual digging up and filling in of the area on the one hand, and the restoration of ecological and environmental sustainability on the other.

The final section of the river is entirely artificial, altered to accommodate Sydney Airport. Cook’s River connects with Botany Bay at Kyeemagh.
Image: https://www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au/cooks-river.html

Ian Tyrrell joined the committee of MHS in June 2023. He retired as Scientia Professor of History at the University of New South Wales in 2012 and is now an Emeritus Professor of History. Ian‘s teaching and research interests include American history, environmental history, and historiography.

His work is widely published, both in his own books, specific chapters for others, and international journal articles. This includes River dreams: the people and landscape of the Cooks River (2018).