Bbq Area

The barbecue area at Waratah Park sits among the tourism-era infrastructure that once served a wildlife park drawing visitors to Duffys Forest in the northern bushland fringe of Sydney. A barbecue pit with a corroded metal top occupies the paved foreground, dry branches spread across the ground around it. Behind it a red timber shed with a white-trimmed roofline stands against a chain-link fence and a stand of tall, sparse eucalypts under flat, overcast light. The frame records the space as it stood in 2017, more than a decade after the park's last visitor. Waratah Park occupies 12.6 hectares of Crown land on Namba Road, Duffys Forest, adjoining Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north and west. The site's first structures were built in 1967 for the television production of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, produced by Fauna Productions with TCN Channel 9. The Ranger Headquarters was constructed that year as a working television set. Filming ran until September 1969, across 91 episodes and a feature film. The series broadcast in 128 countries and was dubbed into 25 languages. In December 1969, Warringah Council granted consent for the site to operate as an animal park and entertainment area. The wildlife park opened officially in January 1970, with actors from the series present at the opening. Tourism structures including the octagonal gatehouse and the undercover barbecue area were built out through the 1970s to serve that growing visitor trade. The park changed operators more than once over the following decades, operating for a period under the name Waratah Park Earth Sanctuary between 1995 and 2000, before the business failed and the park closed in 2006. The site was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register on 27 February 2015. Ownership had transferred to the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council in August 2014 under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. The land lies within the traditional country of the Garrigal and Terramerragal clans. Sydney Wildlife now operates a rehabilitation facility on the grounds. The barbecue area, like most structures beyond the Ranger Headquarters, sits untended, the bush working steadily back across the paving.