The Harbourside trek from Gooragal – the headland east of Taylors Bay - to the lookouts atop Middle Head, which the Indigenous Borogegal, Aboriginal custodians knew as Gubbuh Gubbuh, is an enjoyable stroll.
By Alec Smart
Former gun mount overlooking Sydney Harbour at Middle Head/Gubbuh Gubbuh. Photo: Alec Smart
Approximately 4km in length, and part of the greater 80km Bondi to Manly Walk (a series of interlinked paths around Sydney Harbour), the Middle Head walk is achievable in an hour at a steady pace.
But a leisurely pace provides opportunities to explore historic sites around Chowder Bay/Gooree and Georges Heights – and perhaps pause for a picnic. There are cafés and restaurants along the route (but check the opening hours).
However, much of the route is not wheelchair-accessible due to many steps and several unsealed dirt tracks.
Best point to start the trek is Taylors Bay Track, which curves around the natural, forested cove of Taylors Bay, and takes you in a north-easterly direction around Gooragal headland, then down into the Clifton Gardens.
I joined the path after descending the stairs from the end of Burrawong Ave, then followed the forested route around Gooragal headland. (Morella Rd also has two sets of stairs leading down to the track, or you can drive down to Clifton Gardens carpark if you wish to avoid steep steps).
Clifton Gardens Reserve, on the foreshore of Chowder Bay, once featured a luxury hotel resort with a scenic railway, boathouse and a dance pavilion. It’s now an open grassed picnic area with barbecues and amenities.
During its tourism heyday in the 1920s, Chowder Bay featured an enormous circular swimming arena with a viewing platform above, upon which 3,000 people could stroll around. Regular steam-powered ferries from the City brought a stream of pleasure-seekers and bathers.
All that’s left of the former pleasure grounds now is the timber jetty. It encloses an expanse of water about the size of a football field that protects bathers with a shark-proof enclosure. The shark netting beneath the wharf is currently being used as part of a special breeding program for the endangered White’s seahorse to help rehabilitate this vulnerable species.
The Indigenous Borogegal called this cove Gooree, but the name Chowder Bay originated in the 1830s when visiting American whalers made fish chowder from shellfish along the shore. A whaling factory was founded in Mosman Bay in 1830, but the ships, many of them international vessels, often anchored in neighbouring Taylors Bay, Sirius Cove and Chowder Bay.
At the north end of the beach, the route then traverses the preserved yellow timber buildings of the former Submarine Miners Depot. In 1889, the NSW Torpedo and Signals Corp, founded 1873, relocated to Chowder Bay from Torpedo Bay (a cove in Berrys Bay, Waverton).
The personnel here were not submarine crew – reliably safe submersible vessels with diesel-electric engines and pressurised chambers were not in production until the turn of the next century. In Chowder Bay they specialised in underwater bombs.
From here they stretched submerged cables across Sydney Harbour on which were attached mines that would detonate if an unwelcome foreign ship sailed into them.
The Submarine Mining Corps were disbanded in 1922 and the base was repurposed for various military activities until its closure in 1997.
On the lower deck, a research aquarium and the Sydney Institute of Marine Science now operate, while above there are two restaurants overlooking the bay. Stairs ascend to the grounds above, where several old cottages have been adapted for business clients.
The path continues up a bush trail to Georges Heights via Bungaree’s Walkway. Bungaree was a distinguished leader and diplomat from the Garigal clans around Broken Bay, who circumnavigated Australia with Matthew Flinders.
As a reward, in 1815, Governor Macquarie granted Bungaree and 14 other Aboriginals and their families 15 acres of fertile land on Georges Heights, along with huts, farming equipment and seeds.
It was a naive experiment by the Governor to persuade Indigenous peoples to abandon hunter-gatherer lifestyles and adopt European agricultural practices. However, it was a failure, and Bungaree’s skills were better utilised with maritime missions as the farmland slowly fell into disrepair.
City view over Chowder Bay from Georges Heights, Mosman. Photo: Alec Smart
The path is named Bungaree’s Walkway because it is the approximate route he took between his hut and his fishing boat in the bay, before he sailed out into the harbour to formally greet international vessels as they arrived.
At the top of the path, it passes the former Gunners Barracks, and Georges Head Lookout, with majestic views across the harbour.
Thereafter the trail carries on up to Middle Head Rd, passing former military cottages now occupied by private businesses, and the still-active HMAS Penguin Naval base. On Chowders Bay Road below, there are a number of abandoned fortifications, as well as Obelisk Beach – notorious for attracting naturists who shun clothes.
The trail then leads onto Middle Head/Gubbuh Gubbuh, passing historic military installations before arriving at the repurposed former Naval base, previously the site of the historic Middle Head Fort.
The seafront lookouts there, with spectacular 180-degree harbour views, are surrounded by a series of concrete bunkers and gun mounts where defence forces once guarded the entrance to Sydney Harbour from maritime invaders.
In 1801, during the Napoleonic Wars, the first of many big guns was installed nearby at a site north of Obelisk Bay. Others soon followed, especially during the two world wars, to take advantage of this strategic defensive location with direct observation of the entrance to Sydney Harbour.
A network of tunnels exist below the Middle Head, linking gun pits and ancillary rooms. Closed to the public for safety reasons, as a teenager this reporter roamed them one night with a group of friends, illuminating the pitch-black shafts somewhat dangerously with fireworks.
According to the Sydney Harbour Trust, the area around Middle Head Fort also contains ‘tiger cages.’ “Soldiers were once trained in these ‘tiger cages’ to resist torture, and visitors today can visit some areas of this historic fort.”
The return to Gooragal from Middle Head (to avoid an hour’s stroll back to the start) is via two buses: the 111 west along Middle Head Rd to the roundabout beside The Buena bar-restaurant, followed by the 228 south along Prince Albert St which takes you to Clifton Gardens Reserve (and passing the Gooragal headland beside Taylors Bay).
To extend the route to 10km (3 hours walk), start instead from Sirius Cove Beach (west of Taronga Zoo), and follow the seafront paths past Athol Bay, over Bradley’s Head and around Taylors Bay until it reaches Gooragal.
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