The Como Heritage and Environment Trail is a four-kilometre circuit walk around Como, which starts and ends at Como railway station. The trail, which meanders through suburbia & follows a rugged bush track along part of its route, features signage that highlights historic features & other curiosities.
By ALEC SMART
Interface between Woronora and Georges Rivers, Sutherland. Photo: Alec Smart
The eastern course, from the station down to Scylla Bay and north to Como Pleasure Grounds and the historic Como Rail Bridge, is a relatively easy descent suitable for wheelchair users and the elderly.
However, the western course involves many stairs, steep suburban streets, and a bushwalk through Paruna Reserve that involves clambering over boulders and accessing a set of timber steps that have been eaten away by termites. This route is definitely for the more agile.
Navigating the Como Heritage Trail: Markers, Missteps, and Wildlife Wonders
On a sunny Sunday afternoon, I followed the trail in an anti-clockwise direction, which allowed me to take photos of the historic Como Hotel and the Old Rail Bridge bathed in the afternoon sunlight and pause for a coffee at the marina.
Foolishly, I took a bicycle, and that proved a major problem when I reached the end of Central Avenue because the off-road section through Paruna Reserve bushland was completely unsuitable for cycling.
Whilst descending the aforementioned termite-eaten stairs and carrying the bicycle, they buckled beneath me and I toppled forward, nearly breaking my neck!
Advice: don’t take a bicycle!
The Heritage-listed Como Hotel. Photo: Alec Smart
The trail is, for the most part, well-signposted with yellow markers. The intermittent notice boards, with historic photos and captions, include a map to indicate where you are along the route. I deviated off-course twice when I couldn’t find markers, but a copy of the Heritage Trail route on my phone helped me back to the correct bearing.
The Paruna Reserve bushwalk, which runs parallel to Woronora River below, is interesting, and if you’re lucky you may see a variety of wildlife.
Thereafter the route from Paruna to the station is mainly roads, although it deviates through a small park with a children’s playground known as Henry Lawson’s Reserve.
Lawson, the infamous bush poet, rented a cottage beside the Woronora River during WWI and for several years afterwards (before relocating to the North Shore); the foundation stones of the cottage are located within the bushland of Paruna Reserve.
Como Marina. Photo: Alec Smart
Some points of interest: Como Hotel, the Pleasure Grounds, and the Old Rail Bridge.
The tracks of the Old Rail Bridge were removed in 1972 when a new double-track railway bridge was built alongside. The bridge structure was adapted to carry freshwater pipes from Woronora Dam, and the former rail corridor was paved.
In 1985 it reopened as a shared cycle/walking path across Georges River, which you can access from a path adjacent to the Como Marina.
See the accompanying Establishment of Como history article (link here) for some background on these points of interest.
Old Como Bridge, seen behind boats on dry dock in Como Marina. Photo: Alec Smart
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