Swamps and Centennial Park

Sunday 22nd September

I had the pleasure of meeting with Taylor again today, this time with the Cooks River Alliance Community Engagement Officer, Jason L’Ecuyer. Jason’s work spans a range of different forms in an effort to engage local communities to the river catchment with the river itself.

The walk today was meandering, in classic river style, following the history of both the water and the development in the area, eventually leading us to the swampland in the park. 

 On this hot day, surrounded by runners and dog walkers, listening to Taylor retell the complex and varying histories of place, we enacted a time travel of sorts: a bringing together and overlapping of duels, land clearing, Australia day memorials, an overgrown pond, Indigenous land use, children on electric scouters, a preened rose garden, labradoodles running after balls, and someone barbecuing. 

I feel I am beginning to bring these stories into focus and see how they begin to inform and intersect one another. 

Ibis count x 3

Flying Foxes count x 40+

Black Swan count x 2