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A River or a Creek - a history of the Berowra waterway
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DetailsMost understand ‘creek’ to refer to a small waterway while a river is a larger body of water. At first glance, Berowra Creek is too large to be a creek, but it is a tributary of a much larger river system, The Hawkesbury, which it meets about 25 kilometres from the sea.
Berowra Creek is a drowned river valley with steep gorges and surrounding ridges and plateaus. Much of the waterway is accessible only by boat because of its steep sides and the only areas where the creek can be easily accessed by car are Berowra Waters and Crosslands Reserve. In both places visitors are faced with wide and seemingly deep ‘river like’ bodies of water. Elsewhere though the creek is narrow and much of the creek area is shallow ranging from 5 metres to less than a metre deep.
The story of Berowra Creek begins many years before white settlement came to Australia. The first people to sight and use the creek and indeed the wider Berowra area, were the Aborigines. Berowra Creek fell between the tribal areas of both the Dhurag and Guringai people and may have been a meeting place for the tribes instead of a more conventionally settled area.
Aboriginal use of the area, whether as a settled place or a more formal meeting place has left many traces. Along the edges of the creek are layers and layers of middens, so deep that in many places the tracks along the creek edges cut through the shells. These middens are thought to be thousands of years old. There are also many carvings and paintings left behind by the first people to use the river from small pictures to massive murals to grooves where they sharpened implements and utensils.
It wasn’t long after European settlement of Australia before exploration of the wider area was being undertaken. Governor Arthur Phillip undertook his own exploration of the Hawkesbury River, of which Berowra Creek is a tributary, in 1788, the year of settlement.
Within a year Berowra Creek had been explored and charted, with Captain (and later Governor) John Hunter mapping the Hawkesbury River and its branches in 1789. Hunter probably entered Berowra Creek on July 9.
A formal map of the river system, including Berowra Creek (though it was as yet unnamed) was published by William Dawes, the Government Astronomer, in 1791 and the map was included in the publication of John Hunters journal in 1793.
The final mystery of the creek, where it began, was solved in 1829 when the river was traced to its source in Castle Hill by Assistant Surveyor William Romaine Govett.
Although today the ridge is the centre of village life for Berowra residents, the first European to traverse the ridge, William Romaine Govett was distinctly underwhelmed by what he saw. He was directed in 1829 to survey the ridges around the Hawkesbury River, including Berowra ridge, and look for places where roads and settlements could be built. His trip revealed a ridge “which the blacks call “Carracyanya” . . . the whole way covered with an intolerable scrub and . . . bedded with the common sand and ironstones” It would be many years before a road was built over the ridge, and many more before settlers appeared here.
For many years the name Berowra has been thought to be an Aboriginal word meaning ‘place of many winds’ or ‘windy place’. This is a matter of dispute though. Although Dharug words for wind like guwarra do bear some resemblance to the word Berowra, it is not logical for the name to mean windy place as, although the ridge is indeed windy, it was not the ridge which the name was first given to, but the Creek and the Parish. Berowra is not even in the Parish of Berowra, which is on the opposite side of Berowra Creek, but in the Parish of Cowan! According to William Romaine Govett the Aboriginal people actually called the ridge Carracyanya.
So what does Berowra actually mean? The first use of a name for Berowra appears in the Sydney Gazette of May 27, 1804, but the name given was not Berowra but Perrara ‘on the south branch of the River Hawkesbury’. No doubt this was a European interpretation of an Aboriginal word, but most Aboriginal languages do not distinguish between the sounds for B and P which muddies the waters.
Another suggestion for the meaning of the name comes from the journals of William Dawes. He records the word berara (or birara depending on the spelling) which means either fish hooks or shells. Given the name was first applied to the river, where shell middens are found in abundance, this is perhaps a more likely candidate, but truth be told, we will probably never know the origin or meaning of the name ‘Berowra’ with any certainty.
The very first European ‘settlers’ to make the area their home were probably transient, living on the creek for short periods while they made their living and then moving back to ‘civilisation’.
Limeburners needed shells to burn in order to make lime which was needed for building. With so many middens along Berowra Creek it was a good place to set up home and ply the trade. We know that they had been in the area before 1833 when Sarah Mathews notes the ruins of a limeburner’s house in her journal.
Timber getters were certainly active in the area as early as 1816. The timber getters had a camp in Pennant Hills, between the sources of Berowra Creek and Cowan Creek. They used the upper reaches of Berowra Creek as a water supply, but also to cut timber, particularly shingles which were cut from the casuarina’s.
Whatever the name, the reference to Perarra in 1804 is probably the first evidence of tourism we have for the area, but it is not the last. The visitor to Perarra had come to shoot pheasants, which were probably lyrebirds. In 1833 though a real tourist with no agenda other than to see the Creek arrived. Her name was Sarah Mathews and she was the wife of surveyor Felton Mathews.
In her journal, Sarah Mathews records finding “nothing but rocky mountains and forests interminable, not a settlement of any description, not a sound to be heard or living thing to be seen”. Later she does record seeing and hearing some sounds of people living along and using the creek, including lime burners, shingle cutters and Aboriginals, but still believes the area is “such a desolate country that it can never be of any avail”
The first formal settlement also occurred along the creek edges. The earliest known European settlers in the area start to appear in 1821 with Joseph Craft taking up a grant at what is now known as Joe Crafts creek. In 1830 George Peat was promised land on Berowra Creek and this land was granted formally in 1840.
Before this though, in 1833 George Murphy was granted 50 acres bounded by Berowra Creek. In 1835 four land grants were given, all on Mother Marrs Creek (now known as Marramarra Creek), a subsidiary of Berowra Creek. One of these grants was to Sarah Ferdinand who became known as Granny Lewis. She is reputed to have been the last full blooded Aboriginal in the area and was certainly the last to be given a grant. Further grants were given around the Berowra Creek area throughout the remainder of the century.
Berowra Creek, or more truthfully the river it fed, was even responsible for the road which made settlement of the Berowra ridge an attractive prospect. In 1844 George Peat began to operate a ferry crossing of the Hawkesbury River. This was probably the first small step towards settlement of the Berowra Ridge because in the same year he put in a request to build a road to his ferry. Crossing the river was of great importance as a river crossing opened up the possibility for an alternative route to Newcastle. The Great North Road already existed, but had proven to be a difficult and arduous journey. His request was granted and the road was under construction in 1847. This road, now the old Pacific Highway, ran over the ridge and directly past the site where Berowra Village would eventually grow up.
George Collingridge was a famous man in his time. He was an artist, historian, geographer, linguist, author, campaigner, and was known as The Hermit Of Berowra. He took up a grant in 1880 on the creek at what is now known as Collingridge Point and soon set about achieving the amenities of village life. Over the next 10 years he petitioned for and was granted a postal service to Berowra, a railway platform and even a road to Berowra Waters along a route which he planned out. He corrected existing maps and generally set about establishing the village, despite living on the waters edge. In 1890, two years after he submitted his proposal for the road to Berowra Waters, Berowra was officially proclaimed a village.
Although settlement along Berowra Creek had been occurring for the better part of two thirds of a century it was not until 1900 that construction began on the road to Berowra Creek. It is likely that there was even a boatshed at Berowra Waters before the road was built with a small grant given to Jack Smith in 1898. The road was completed in 1902 and a small punt (ferry) was put in place at the bottom of the road to transport pedestrians and horse drawn vehicles across the creek. The ferry was hand operated by Jack Smith who by this time had become a fixture of Berowra Waters.
Although there had been the occasional tourist on Berowra Creek in the past, and tourists had been making their way to Windybanks Boatshed on Cowan Creek from Berowra Station for several years, the opening of the road to the edge of Berowra Creek really made it possible to attract tourists to the area. Jack Smith began holding fishing competitions in 1904 and it was not long before fishing and boating were major tourist attractions in Berowra. By 1908 the Berowra Creek Tourist Association had been formed and was holding events to attract people to Berowra and Berowra Creek. Over time guest houses and other tourist facilities sprang up.PublisherBerowra Living HistoryKeywordsBerowra CreekBerowra Waters
DetailsMost understand ‘creek’ to refer to a small waterway while a river is a larger body of water. At first glance, Berowra Creek is too large to be a creek, but it is a tributary of a much larger river system, The Hawkesbury, which it meets about 25 kilometres from the sea.Berowra Creek is a drowned river valley with steep gorges and surrounding ridges and plateaus. Much of the waterway is accessible only by boat because of its steep sides and the only areas where the creek can be easily accessed by car are Berowra Waters and Crosslands Reserve. In both places visitors are faced with wide and seemingly deep ‘river like’ bodies of water. Elsewhere though the creek is narrow and much of the creek area is shallow ranging from 5 metres to less than a metre deep.
The story of Berowra Creek begins many years before white settlement came to Australia. The first people to sight and use the creek and indeed the wider Berowra area, were the Aborigines. Berowra Creek fell between the tribal areas of both the Dhurag and Guringai people and may have been a meeting place for the tribes instead of a more conventionally settled area.
Aboriginal use of the area, whether as a settled place or a more formal meeting place has left many traces. Along the edges of the creek are layers and layers of middens, so deep that in many places the tracks along the creek edges cut through the shells. These middens are thought to be thousands of years old. There are also many carvings and paintings left behind by the first people to use the river from small pictures to massive murals to grooves where they sharpened implements and utensils.
It wasn’t long after European settlement of Australia before exploration of the wider area was being undertaken. Governor Arthur Phillip undertook his own exploration of the Hawkesbury River, of which Berowra Creek is a tributary, in 1788, the year of settlement.
Within a year Berowra Creek had been explored and charted, with Captain (and later Governor) John Hunter mapping the Hawkesbury River and its branches in 1789. Hunter probably entered Berowra Creek on July 9.
A formal map of the river system, including Berowra Creek (though it was as yet unnamed) was published by William Dawes, the Government Astronomer, in 1791 and the map was included in the publication of John Hunters journal in 1793.
The final mystery of the creek, where it began, was solved in 1829 when the river was traced to its source in Castle Hill by Assistant Surveyor William Romaine Govett.
Although today the ridge is the centre of village life for Berowra residents, the first European to traverse the ridge, William Romaine Govett was distinctly underwhelmed by what he saw. He was directed in 1829 to survey the ridges around the Hawkesbury River, including Berowra ridge, and look for places where roads and settlements could be built. His trip revealed a ridge “which the blacks call “Carracyanya” . . . the whole way covered with an intolerable scrub and . . . bedded with the common sand and ironstones” It would be many years before a road was built over the ridge, and many more before settlers appeared here.
For many years the name Berowra has been thought to be an Aboriginal word meaning ‘place of many winds’ or ‘windy place’. This is a matter of dispute though. Although Dharug words for wind like guwarra do bear some resemblance to the word Berowra, it is not logical for the name to mean windy place as, although the ridge is indeed windy, it was not the ridge which the name was first given to, but the Creek and the Parish. Berowra is not even in the Parish of Berowra, which is on the opposite side of Berowra Creek, but in the Parish of Cowan! According to William Romaine Govett the Aboriginal people actually called the ridge Carracyanya.
So what does Berowra actually mean? The first use of a name for Berowra appears in the Sydney Gazette of May 27, 1804, but the name given was not Berowra but Perrara ‘on the south branch of the River Hawkesbury’. No doubt this was a European interpretation of an Aboriginal word, but most Aboriginal languages do not distinguish between the sounds for B and P which muddies the waters.
Another suggestion for the meaning of the name comes from the journals of William Dawes. He records the word berara (or birara depending on the spelling) which means either fish hooks or shells. Given the name was first applied to the river, where shell middens are found in abundance, this is perhaps a more likely candidate, but truth be told, we will probably never know the origin or meaning of the name ‘Berowra’ with any certainty.
The very first European ‘settlers’ to make the area their home were probably transient, living on the creek for short periods while they made their living and then moving back to ‘civilisation’.
Limeburners needed shells to burn in order to make lime which was needed for building. With so many middens along Berowra Creek it was a good place to set up home and ply the trade. We know that they had been in the area before 1833 when Sarah Mathews notes the ruins of a limeburner’s house in her journal.
Timber getters were certainly active in the area as early as 1816. The timber getters had a camp in Pennant Hills, between the sources of Berowra Creek and Cowan Creek. They used the upper reaches of Berowra Creek as a water supply, but also to cut timber, particularly shingles which were cut from the casuarina’s.
Whatever the name, the reference to Perarra in 1804 is probably the first evidence of tourism we have for the area, but it is not the last. The visitor to Perarra had come to shoot pheasants, which were probably lyrebirds. In 1833 though a real tourist with no agenda other than to see the Creek arrived. Her name was Sarah Mathews and she was the wife of surveyor Felton Mathews.
In her journal, Sarah Mathews records finding “nothing but rocky mountains and forests interminable, not a settlement of any description, not a sound to be heard or living thing to be seen”. Later she does record seeing and hearing some sounds of people living along and using the creek, including lime burners, shingle cutters and Aboriginals, but still believes the area is “such a desolate country that it can never be of any avail”
The first formal settlement also occurred along the creek edges. The earliest known European settlers in the area start to appear in 1821 with Joseph Craft taking up a grant at what is now known as Joe Crafts creek. In 1830 George Peat was promised land on Berowra Creek and this land was granted formally in 1840.
Before this though, in 1833 George Murphy was granted 50 acres bounded by Berowra Creek. In 1835 four land grants were given, all on Mother Marrs Creek (now known as Marramarra Creek), a subsidiary of Berowra Creek. One of these grants was to Sarah Ferdinand who became known as Granny Lewis. She is reputed to have been the last full blooded Aboriginal in the area and was certainly the last to be given a grant. Further grants were given around the Berowra Creek area throughout the remainder of the century.
Berowra Creek, or more truthfully the river it fed, was even responsible for the road which made settlement of the Berowra ridge an attractive prospect. In 1844 George Peat began to operate a ferry crossing of the Hawkesbury River. This was probably the first small step towards settlement of the Berowra Ridge because in the same year he put in a request to build a road to his ferry. Crossing the river was of great importance as a river crossing opened up the possibility for an alternative route to Newcastle. The Great North Road already existed, but had proven to be a difficult and arduous journey. His request was granted and the road was under construction in 1847. This road, now the old Pacific Highway, ran over the ridge and directly past the site where Berowra Village would eventually grow up.
George Collingridge was a famous man in his time. He was an artist, historian, geographer, linguist, author, campaigner, and was known as The Hermit Of Berowra. He took up a grant in 1880 on the creek at what is now known as Collingridge Point and soon set about achieving the amenities of village life. Over the next 10 years he petitioned for and was granted a postal service to Berowra, a railway platform and even a road to Berowra Waters along a route which he planned out. He corrected existing maps and generally set about establishing the village, despite living on the waters edge. In 1890, two years after he submitted his proposal for the road to Berowra Waters, Berowra was officially proclaimed a village.
Although settlement along Berowra Creek had been occurring for the better part of two thirds of a century it was not until 1900 that construction began on the road to Berowra Creek. It is likely that there was even a boatshed at Berowra Waters before the road was built with a small grant given to Jack Smith in 1898. The road was completed in 1902 and a small punt (ferry) was put in place at the bottom of the road to transport pedestrians and horse drawn vehicles across the creek. The ferry was hand operated by Jack Smith who by this time had become a fixture of Berowra Waters.
Although there had been the occasional tourist on Berowra Creek in the past, and tourists had been making their way to Windybanks Boatshed on Cowan Creek from Berowra Station for several years, the opening of the road to the edge of Berowra Creek really made it possible to attract tourists to the area. Jack Smith began holding fishing competitions in 1904 and it was not long before fishing and boating were major tourist attractions in Berowra. By 1908 the Berowra Creek Tourist Association had been formed and was holding events to attract people to Berowra and Berowra Creek. Over time guest houses and other tourist facilities sprang up.
PublisherBerowra Living HistoryKeywordsBerowra CreekBerowra WatersRelated
CollectionBerowra Living History
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A River or a Creek - a history of the Berowra waterway. Hornsby Shire, accessed 30/04/2026, https://hornsbyshire.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/3954