Uncle Richard Davis welcomed a group of 25 walkers to Holborn Park on Tuesday for Berkeley’s first free 5x5 guided community walk.

A Dharawal man who grew up in Coomaditchie in Kemblawarra, Uncle Richard called on everyone to learn about the history of Australia.

“This is your area. You’re on Dharawal land. Learn about it – learn about your area. I can’t encourage that enough,” he said.

Uncle Richard spoke about the land’s traditional owners, the Wadi Wadi people, and Lake Illawarra’s importance as a source of food, recalling a time when shellfish were abundant and children collected bags of bimblers (cockles) to eat.

He told of Kana (King) Hooka, the 19th-century leader who gave his name to the nearby island, point and creek, as well as the neighbouring suburb of Kanahooka.

"King Hooka was very important in this area … it is a pretty significant area for the Aboriginal people." 

Program a first for Berkeley 

The leader of Tuesday’s guided walk, Alexander Brown of Healthy Cities Australia, said it was great to kick off the Berkeley 5x5 series with a chance "to understand where we are when we walk in Country".

Healthy Cities runs the guided community walks program with support from Coordinare, the South Eastern NSW Primary Health Network. The aim is to cover 5km once a week, for five weeks, and past walks have explored a variety of locations, including Bellambi, Wollongong, Lake Illawarra, Shell Cove, Kiama and Nowra.

“This is our first one at Berkeley,” said Alexander, who led the group from Holborn Park along the lake’s edge towards Berkeley Harbour.

“It was great weather, and we had the pelicans all came down to meet us around Wollamai Point, which was quite lovely. They're not often there, so that was quite lucky.”

Step out on Tuesdays 

Next Tuesday, July 29, will be a good walk for anyone interested in the environment.

“Next week, we've got Trudy Costa coming from the Coastal Management Authority, which is Wollongong City Council and Shellharbour Council's joint management of the lake," Alexander said. 

"She's going to talk to us about the lake ecology and some of the projects she's working on. I think it's going to be really interesting.”

This walk will take the group east to the bridge across Hooka Creek.

“The bridge has this amazing balustrade that was a sculpture made as part of a community arts project some decades ago," Alexander said. "Healthy Cities was involved in that at the time, as were a whole bunch of community organisations … as well as the artists at Coomaditchie Aboriginal Corporation.

"So it's a very special place – they call it the Place of Healing.”

Bush regeneration in progress

In the third week, on Tuesday, August 5, Wollongong City Council’s natural areas officer, Matt Watts, will join the group to discuss bush regeneration.

“I'm looking forward to understanding more about how that's all being restored," Alexander said. "And seeing more native plants come back – that really helps to look after the quality of the water too, and the ecosystem of the whole lake.”

Only three Berkeley walks have been planned so far, but there might be a fourth. "Because we've had such a great response, I am actually going to look at one more,” Alexander said.

Healthy Cities also runs a shorter series, the 3x3 community walks, for older people, with the last one taking place at the Blue Mile.

Time to get moving

All the walks are free and most participants tend to be retirees.

“There are two main objectives,” Alexander said.

“Getting out and about in the open air is great for health, and it's building that habit of regular physical activity, and then the second objective is community – giving people an opportunity to socialise with other adults.

“One of the things that I noticed yesterday, as well as on the last walk in Bellambi, is a lot of people reported they joined because they were new to the area. So they were looking to meet new people and get a better understanding of what different walking tracks were available and where they could go.”

All the Berkeley outings will start from Holborn Park. Walkers are invited to register or simply turn up. RSVP via Humanitix.

Celebrate Tree Day 

Head to Berkeley's Holborn Park this Sunday, 27 July, from 9.30-10.30am to celebrate National Tree Day. Wollongong City Council will lead volunteers in planting native grasses, shrubs and trees at Lake Illawarra. Find out more here.

Also on Tree Day: the Illawarra Ramblers are inviting bushwalkers to join the club on a hike