Wallumatta was the original name given to the Ryde-Hunters Hill area of

Northern Sydney Northern Sydney is a large metropolitan area in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on the north shore of Sydney Harbour and Parramatta River. The region embraces suburbs in Sydney’s north-east, north and inner north west. Northern Sydney is ...

, Australia. Prior to the time that the area was known as Kissing Point, Wallumatta was the formal title and was named in honour of the area's native inhabitants: The Wallumettagal Aboriginal tribe. Although present-day demographics indicate that less than 0.4% of the

City of Ryde The City of Ryde is a local government area in the Northern Sydney region, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It was first established as the Municipal District of Ryde in 1870, became a municipality in 1906 and was proclaimed as the ...

has Aboriginal background, the name Wallumatta survives in modern-day street names in Newport and Caringbah, as well as in

Lower Northern Sydney The North Shore is a region within Northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, generally referring to suburbs located on the northern side of Sydney Harbour up to Wahroonga, and suburbs between Middle Harbour and the Lane Cov ...

at the Wallumatta Nature Reserve in

North Ryde North Ryde is a suburb located in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. North Ryde is located 15 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City ...

. Several community groups have also been named after Wallumatta, including the Wallumetta Scout Fellowship.

Wallumatta Nature Reserve

The Wallumatta Nature Reserve is a small and critically

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

remnant of preserved bushland located at the corner of Twin and Cressy Roads,

, and is significant for being the largest remaining expanse of endangered

Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest The Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest (STIF) is dry sclerophyll forest community of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that is typically found in the Inner West and Northern region of Sydney. It is also among the three of these plant communities ...

, which is an ecological community of plants unique to the Sydney

bioregion A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographic realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wide Fund for Nature classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the ...

. With the arrival of European settlement this small reserve was originally part of the

Field of Mars Reserve The Field of Mars Reserve is a protected nature reserve located on the northern suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The 50 Hectare (123.5 acres) reserve is a remnant of bushland situated between the Lane Cove and Parr ...

in 1804. During the 1950s it was part of a larger parcel of land set aside for further development of the North Ryde Psychiatric Centre (now Macquarie Hospital) In the 1980s the Macquarie Hospital Bushland was saved from further building development. The reserve is an important resource for scientific research and environmental education. It is popular with botanists, nature lovers, school excursions. Dedicated bushcare groups help preserve this valuable remnant of original bushland. The 6.2ha reserve features a clearly signposted 0.6 km walking trail. It is open to the public daily from sunrise to sunset, subject to fire danger or bad weather. Admission is free. The heartland of this type of forest once covered some 26,000 hectares west to Guildford, and North of

Parramatta River The Parramatta River is an intermediate tide-dominated, drowned valley estuary located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. With an average depth of , the Parramatta River is the main tributary of Sydney Harbour, a branch of Port Jackson. S ...

from

Ryde Ryde is an English seaside town and civil parish on the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight. The built-up area had a population of 23,999 according to the 2011 Census and an estimate of 24,847 in 2019. Its growth as a seaside resort came af ...

to Castle Hill, as well as on the shale ridge caps in the Hornsby Plateau and into areas of the inner western suburbs.

References

{{coord missing, New South Wales Geography of Sydney Forests of New South Wales

Wallumatta Nature Reserve

See also

References