#cooks river

[vanishingsydney]

The Queen is dead. She was also Queen of Australia and ceremonial Head-of-State. A 1999 referendum to replace her with an Australian President and reconfigure the Constitution to become a republic was defeated. The republican movement has been dormant since then, but it's a certainty the Constitutional debate will be renewed over time now the popular monarch is gone. This plaque is a basically discarded Royal relic, as there's no Coronation Row to be seen anymore in these parts, and the Sydney Sandstone plinth has been shoved away in a small public garden on the banks of the Cooks River. Only discovered it by chance a few weeks ago. Canterbury.

[innervoiceartblog]

Crab for breakfast!

Sacred Kingfisher photos taken along the Cooks River where I live by David Noble.

[ancestorsalive]

"You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children -- that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself ..."

~ Chief Seattle

Photo: Mosaic Mural on the Cooks River, Undercliffe, Sydney, NSW, Australia. © Raine, Inner Voice Art™

[vanishingsydney]

In amongst the stands of mangroves along Sydney's most polluted waterway, the Cooks River, near the upper limit of its tidal range. Hurlstone Park.

[innervoiceartblog]

Sacred Kingfisher along the Cooks River. Photos by David Noble.

[vanishingsydney]

A stand of mangroves at low tide near the upper tidal limit of Sydney's most polluted waterway, the Cooks River. A new cycleway/pedestrian bridge under construction in the distance. Earlwood looking towards Hurlstone Park.

[vanishingsydney]

Buttress roots. Moreton Bay Fig Trees (ficus macrophylla) near the southern most point of their natural range, down by Sydney's most polluted waterway, the Cooks River. Canterbury.      

[vanishingsydney]

Punk trees (melaleuca quinquenervia), also known as Paperbarks, at the southern most extreme of their natural range. Undisturbed down by the river, they can grow to be very old. Canterbury.