North Head Manly — Hanging Swamp, Fairfax Walk and the Third Quarantine Cemetery

North Head sits at the southern entrance to Sydney Harbour, a sandstone headland with sweeping views across the heads, the Pacific Ocean and the city skyline. Most visitors come for the views. There is considerably more to the place than that.

The Hanging Swamp

The hanging swamp near the car park behind the café is one of the more unusual ecological features on the headland. Water percolates through the porous sandstone until it meets harder, less permeable rock — claystone or shale — and is forced back toward the surface. The result is a permanently moist, peaty environment that supports swamp heath plants in the middle of an otherwise dry sandstone landscape. It appears and disappears with rainfall, but in a wet season it is a proper swamp in miniature.

Memorial Walk

Close to the swamp, Memorial Walk is a paved track linking five memorials dedicated to Australian involvement in conflicts from the First World War to recent peacekeeping operations. During WWII, North Head was one of the most heavily fortified positions in Australia. The memorials are built in sandstone with raised plaques — understated and well placed in the landscape.

Fairfax Walk

Fairfax Walk reopened in 2023 after a major upgrade and now provides access to two well-designed clifftop lookouts. Burragula — an Indigenous word for sunset — and Yiningma, meaning cliff edge, both deliver sweeping views across Sydney Heads and the ocean below. The loop from the car park through the hanging swamp, Memorial Walk and both lookouts takes around 60 to 75 minutes.

From May to November, the Fairfax Walk lookouts are among the best shore-based whale watching spots in Sydney. Humpback and southern right whales pass close to the headland during their annual migration — the elevation makes sightings straightforward when whales are active.

Third Quarantine Cemetery

A short detour from the car park before leaving. The Third Quarantine Cemetery contains the graves of Australians who died from diseases that arrived with ships — smallpox, bubonic plague, scarlet fever. The headstones are a reminder of how recently these diseases were a genuine threat, and how the quarantine station at North Head functioned as a barrier between the ships and the city.

North Head is a regular stop on the Northern Beaches private tour, combined with the Manly to Shelley Beach coastal walk and the headlands and surf beaches of the mid-coast.

northern beaches private tour

one of 5 war memorials that can be accessed from Memorial Walk

sydney city coast, northern beachesGreg Sommers19 May 2024