Ode to landscape

To claim this is typical Australian landscape is just pretentious Sydney waffle. There is no such creature as a landscape typical of a continent so vast. This is not even typical Sydney landscape. However, cast the net more narrowly, and it may be valid to claim this as typifying Sydney Harbour foreshore pre-development. This rocky outcrop surrounded by the gnarled growth of a banksia, is very much the Castlecrag peninsula as it juts out into Middle Harbour.

And this is what so entranced Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahoney Griffin, Eric Milton Nicholls, and the investors in the Greater Sydney Development Association [GSDA] of the 1920s. We no longer rob the bush for our own delight, indeed, there are now laws against removal of bush rock. Not only that, but it is a very expensive way to build using this sort of material, requiring masons with specific skill-sets. Newer houses in the estates may ape the design - specifically the flat roof - but have updated the materials used, and the concept of 'nestling' is not uppermost.

The retaining wall is along Turret Walk, and the snippet of house, is 14 The Parapet, known as The Cheong House.