Expedition up Rocky Creek

I wrote an earlier post on a spot at the tidal limit of middle harbour creek called Bungaroo where Governor Phillip and an exploration party camped on April 16th 1788. It appears John ( who inspired my original post ) is still hard at work trying to uncover old records and get some official recognition for Bungaroo. As part of his research John said he’s now considering that the Bungaroo site of Governor Phillip’s April 16th camp may have been at the tidal limit of Rocky Creek rather than Middle Harbour Creek. It sounded plausible, and a good excuse to head up Rocky Creek again for a closer look! To get there I headed north on the trail that follows the west bank of Middle Harbour River.  Upon hitting Rocky Creek the trail heads west to where the creek can be crossed on foot near the tidal limit. When I got there the tide was low, the fresh water was cascading into the salt just below the crossing. At this point I left the trail and kept heading up Rocky Creek. About 100m further upstream the creek deepened to the point where I could not see the bottom, then a little way past this was a lip in the rock ( about 50cm high ) where the fresh water cascaded down. I’ll have to go back to confirm but I reckon this could be the point where fresh water meets salt when the tide is high. With the cascading fresh water meeting the salt at a deep pool this looks like a plausible alternate location of Governor Phillip’s Bungaroo camp.