A dawn ride or run through Sydney’s Centennial Park is a great way to start the day at anytime of the year. Shot here on a sunny winter’s morning, the air was crisp and ideally suited for a quick ten laps of the 3.5 km loop. One of my favourite rides is from Surry Hills, through Centennial Park and up the steep hills to Bronte Beach. This is especially good in the warmer months when you can stop off for a swim.
Notes on Centennial Park.
Centennial Park was established in 1888 to commemorate the centenary of European settlement in Australia. Originally a catchment area of swamps, sand dunes and springs, John Busby, city surveyor and civil engineer, began construction on a subterranean aqueduct to gravity feed water to the township of Sydney in 1827. The 3.5 kilometre aqueduct was bored using convict labour and is one of Sydney’s most important pieces of early industrial development. Lachlan Swamps, as Centennial Parklands was then known, served as Sydney’s main water supply form 1837 to 1859 when a combination of the growth of industry, poor maintenance, livestock grazing and garbage dumping gradually polluted the swamps. These were turned into the ornamental ponds we know today in Centennial Park.
