Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

skyscrapers. Crossing the bridge, we edge around the top of Pyrmont peninsula,
passing wharves that once smelled of fish and reverberated with the sounds of
shipbuilding. Today they’re upmarket apartments and cafes, and many of the
adjacent warehouses have been razed and replaced with waterfront green space.
Turning the bend to the western side of Pyrmont, we see it in all its glory: the
Anzac Bridge. The Sydney Harbour Bridge may be the city’s most famous, but true
bridge geeks dig the Anzac more, with its cables like strings on a massive harp. The
2640ft (805m) bridge honours the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
(ANZAC), which fought WWI’s Battle of Gallipoli. Far above our heads, an
Australian flag flutters against the clear blue sky on the bridge’s eastern pylon,
while a New Zealand flag ripples on the western pylon. Walking on the pedestrian
lane beside eight lanes of Sydney morning traffic, we have views over the disused
Glebe Island Bridge, which has sat rusting at the mouth of Rozelle Bay for more
than two decades.
We exit the Anzac and we’re in Rozelle. We wander the residential backstreets
of this rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood, where traditional brick bungalows and
wooden cottages sit cheek-to-jowl with modernist boxes of glass and concrete. At
the peninsula’s western edge, we enter Callan Park. Here, a complex of
neoclassical sandstone buildings sits eerily quiet amid lush, slightly gone-to-seed
parkland. Once the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane, the buildings are now
home to an arts college. People say the area is haunted, and it’s easy to believe.
Somewhere in the distance, an ice-cream truck plays a tinny version of
‘Greensleeves’ over and over. I shudder slightly and wipe sweat from my face. It’s
midday now, and getting hot.