Office Window

An office window at Waratah Park, Duffys Forest, photographed in 2017. Sunlight enters through glass that has not been cleaned in years, and the beam it casts makes visible the dust that has settled across every surface in the room. Nothing has been moved. Nothing is in use. The light falls on a space that has been waiting, without expectation, for a long time. Waratah Park occupies 12.6 hectares of bushland at 13 Namba Road, Duffys Forest, NSW 2084, adjoining Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north and west. The site was first developed in 1967, when the NSW Government granted permission to occupy approximately 10 hectares of Crown land for the television production of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. The Ranger Headquarters was constructed that year, along with roads, power and water connections, a helipad, and a helicopter-servicing area. Filming ran from 1967 to 1969 across 91 episodes and a feature film, before production wound up in September 1969. The public wildlife park opened in January 1970, with Ed Devereaux appearing at the official opening in his character's uniform as Matt Hammond. The park operated under successive tourism operators, including Waratah Park Pty Ltd from 1976 and Waratah Park Earth Sanctuary from 1995 to 2000. The business failed in 2006 and the park closed. By the time the lease was cancelled in 2010, all wildlife had been removed from the site. The office infrastructure from the tourism period, including rooms like this one, was left in place. Ownership of the land transferred to the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council on 28 August 2014, under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. Waratah Park was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register on 27 February 2015. This photograph records what the intervening years have left behind in a single room: a window, accumulated grime, and light moving through dust that has nowhere else to go.