Planning a picnic? It used to be, if you were in southern or western Sydney, that you went to aptly named Picnic Point.
Fitzpatrick Park at Picnic Point was the original picnic place along the Georges River just south of Bankstown and across the river from Sutherland Shire.
It was made part of the much larger Georges River national park, about 25 kilometres southwest of the Sydney city centre.
Frolicking in the park
At Picnic Point, among the towering gum trees and along the river, families came for an Aussie barbecue with steaks, bangers and beer while children frolicked on the grass.
The Picnic Point barbecue areas were supplied with hewn wood all ready for lighting up. All you needed was a lighter or a box of matches.
There were boat ramps (one could rent boats from a nearby boat shed), areas for water skiing and jetskiing, walking tracks for those with an exploratory bent, and the bush for the birdwatchers and lovers of fauna.
Unfortunately, while easily accessible by car (or by boat from any point of the Georges River starting at the Liverpool Weir and down to Botany Bay), Georges River national park now looks quite untended and unkempt, ostensibly because of lack of funds for its maintenance.
Yet it remains one of southwest Sydney’s many popular picnic grounds, better known than, say, the Chipping Norton Lakes not too far upstream, and while the park is in disrepair with broken down facilities and high grass, there are still those who visit the area for a picnic by the river.
Shark warning
As the Georges River empties into the Pacific, the story goes that sharks have been sighted upstream and there are signs at Picnic Point warning of sharks (although I have not heard of any shark sighting near the park in recent years, actually not for yonks).
This Sydney recreation area, one of many overseen by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, is in the region where Salt Pan Creek and Little Salt Pan Creek join the Georges River and is close to the burgeoning newer residential suburbs of Alfords Point, Illawong and Menai as well as the established areas of Padstow, Revesby and Panania.
According to the National Parks and Wildlife Office, this Sydney recreation area was first opened to European settlement in 1795 after Australian explorers George Bass and Matthew Flinders spent nine days searching for suitable agricultural land along the river. They were granted land near Prospect Creek, in the present suburb of Georges Hall.
Popular recreation area
Three years later, the town of Bankstown (now a city) was founded. By the 1900s the area had become a popular Sydney recreation area with paddle steamers plying the river. The paddle steamers ceased service in the 1920s.
The main entrance to the Georges River National Park is at the junction of Henry Lawson Drive and The River Road. Fitzpatrick Park at Picnic Point is accessible from Carinya Road, off Henry Lawson Drive, further west from the main gate.
The last time I visited, the gates to the national park were closed to vehicular traffic but people could still come to picnic by the Georges River.
