Walking the Tank Stream
The Old Tank Stream, Sydney by
Friday 20th September
A three hour walk will not condense well into a blog post, but I was able to join geographer and water historian, Taylor Coyne, to explore the story of the Tank Stream – Sydney’s hidden water way, which was the original water source for the city.
Taylor Coyne, is a Sydney geographer and fellow PhD candidate with a focus on urban political ecology, hydrosocial history and critical design theory. He works with Yerrabingin, an Aboriginal Commercial Design Studio, as well as running his own
project SWAMP CITY, where he documents and follows “urban swampscapes and water infrastructures past and present, across eastern Sydney”.
Upon reaching out, Taylor kindly agreed to show me around, starting with a fairly crucial piece of Sydney’s history – The Tank Stream.
Beginning at Taylor Square, at the top of the hill by Oxford Street, Taylor asked me to take in our surroundings. “Imagine a drop of water",” he said, “falling onto the crest of the hill”. He invited me to imagine it falling, “it can either flow down one side of the ridge towards Centennial Park, or down
the other to Circular Quay,” – it was the latter we would follow. We spent the morning following this imaginary droplet; passed Scottish fountains; memorial water features; ancient-looking (but in fact not-so-ancient) fig trees; successful and not-so-successful public art; and the usual multitude of birds (check out the Ibis count today).
The walk was long and complex. Intersected by incredible insight and histories – and some truly terrible signage. Taylor explained to me that many of Sydneys main streets and roads have followed the routes of Aboriginal walking tracks, following the ridges that surround and intersect Sydney.
But the main take away from the walk was the confusing and complicated history of Sydney’s first fresh water source – The Tank Stream. Ultimately, this crucial water source became completely inundated with pollution and overuse, resulting in the eventually creation of ‘Busby’s Bore’, of Centennial Park fame. But the stream is not gone. It lives and moves below the city, found and followed only by some crap signage and thanks to the work and obsession of geographers like Taylor.
After leaving our walk, I headed to a Sydney friends for dinner. Neither her nor her mother, both lifelong Sydney siders, had ever heard of the Tank Stream.
What an amazing way to “meet” this water , even if invisibly.
Ibis count x 12
