Here's another round of inane drivel about the leafy North Shore.
Riverview
Riverview is a suburb with an extremely literal name that sits immediately south of my previous suburb, Lane Cove. I entered on foot,
by this electrical box ad.
Upon crossing the border, I found myself on a typical slice of North Shore suburbia, with green surrounds,
a beautiful corner cafe,
and older homes with a lot of flavour.
But this suburb is called Riverview - so surely there must be a river to view. To solve this conundrum, I headed south in the direction of the Lane Cove River,
and finding myself in front of some rather grand school gates.
These are the gates to Saint Ignatius College, a swanky private highschool with one year's tuition fees roughly in equal to an entire 3-4 year university degree. This school takes up around 1/4 of the suburb's footprint, which is great because it means less walking for me.
Rather than trespass on school grounds, I continued on south towards the fabled river view of Riverview,
quite soon reaching Tambourine Bay Park, a very bushy reserve at this suburb's southern end.
Here, there are some bushwalks.
The signs promised an old well, which sounded cool. Unfortunately,
the old well turned out to be this pile of twigs.
Other than the bushwalk, there's also a parky-bit to the park with grassy space and barbecues,
and following the right path,
leads to the fabled river view. This is the Lane Cove River and it's very nice.
This is not a bad spot, and very quiet on the day I visited.
From here, the parky-bit actually leads to more bushwalking.
At this bushwalk, you can look at rock shelters,
a dilapidated tree,
and all along the suburb's namesake.
Things like this is why I love Sydney. Who knew that in this bit of suburbia, not part of any national parks or on any guidebooks, you can enjoy a completely zen riverside bushwalk,
almost entirely to yourself,
save for the occasional lizard, bird or jogger.
A perfect pandemic activity.
I followed the bushwalk along, eventually taking it into the next suburb.
Riverview: Most of the Riverview river views are reserved for boarding schoolboys, but there's enough there to share.
Exceedingly pretty post! Less pretty is that vile habit view-seekers have of poisoning trees (your 'dilapidated trees'). The school, Tony Abbott's and Barnaby Joyce's alma mater (one worries what they feed them at the school), actually lets people wander through its grounds in the holidays and out of covid season (these days must be never). The fields and buildings are pretty ordinary, but the stretch down by the river is quite magnificent (rocks! trees! views!). Tambourine Bay, where that platform area is, was until recently the muddiest swimming baths in the harbour. Read the delightful description here: http://1000pools.com/?page_id=180
ReplyDeleteThe gates to the school were open and there were no signs telling folks to keep out, but I figured they wouldn't want randoms walking around their grounds. Interesting to know you can actually head in!
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