When I asked the friendly cleaning lady at the Anglers Rest if she lived in any of the riverside settlements or islands in the Hawkesbury River, she emphatically declared, "I wouldn't live anywhere I can't go by car!"
Most of the settlements along the Hawkesbury River can only be reached by boat and the only one which has a regular, almost hourly, ferry service is Dangar Island.
The ferry is the cute little "Sun" which I boarded the very first morning, even before I had got onto the Postman's Ferry run of which I shall tell you later.
The island is about 76 acres in size and, according to the 2011 census, has a permanent population of 267, including 50 children, but this may swell to about 400 on weekends and during holidays.
It probably has as many wheelbarrows as residents who use them to take goods to and from the jetty as there are no cars on the island.
With no cars there are also no roads, only peaceful and shady tracks which meander around and across the island.
As I walked around the island and along Bradleys Beach, I stopped to talk to Peter and Lynda Wolfe who had also spent time in Saudi Arabia - they in Riyadh, I in Jeddah - and, six years ago and for the mere bagatelle of $1.44 million - click here - , bought this little Bali-inspired beauty:
The island has its own quarterly-or-so "newspaper", the Mullet Mail (the island's previous name had been Mullet Island but the mullet must've got fished out ☺ ) and, for all the wannabes who wanted to see their names in print, a book called The Road to Dangar.
Then there was the bowling club, a historical society, and a film society. It even had its very own poet laureate in the shape of Bruce Lambert whom I met at the local shop and café which was run by Nadia, an attractive young Croatian lady from Dubrovnik. She delighted in pointing out to me a shop sign which read, "Some days it's better to fill the sink with coffee, stick your head in and suck ...". The sink was full with other things, so I settled for a Bundaberg Ginger Beer.
Nadia used to be an air hostess with GULF AIR in Bahrain where she became a Muslim and the wife of a polygynous Arab who had more wives - seven, although not all at the same time - than she currently had customers: just Bruce and me.
Bruce had lived on the island for forty years and probably had left it for the "mainland" fewer times than that. As I sat there drinking my beer, I could just imagine "doing a Bruce" myself and sitting out the rest of my life - albeit not another forty years - in this pretty and peaceful place.
There's something about being surrounded by all that water with a perfect sunset slipping into an empty ocean that makes you want to toast it - and life itself.
Click below for the other parts:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5 Part 6
P.S. If you are interested to read more about Dangar Island, look at this webpage or read this SYDNEY MORNING HERALD article of September 2006.
