Heritage Motor Launches Jacaranda Cruises

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Posted 2024-08-20 by Nadine Cresswell-Myatt ⇒ follow

Sat 26 Oct 2024 - Sat 02 Nov 2024

Every spring pockets of Sydney bloom in a sea of purple as the famous jacaranda trees burst into flower. Here’s how to see this sea of lilac from the water.

Heritage Motor Launch Harman cruises the lower Lane Cove River so that you can view the purple tide of Jacaranda trees blooming in the gardens of Hunters Hill and the North Shore. This tour is a must for garden and history lovers and camera enthusiasts alike

You gain an uninterrupted view of the shoreline as it was envisaged by some of the founding fathers of Hunters Hill, the Jouberts, who handed out trees in the 1860s for the early inhabitants to plant in their gardens to enhance the new suburb.

Jacaranda Cruises run the last week of October and the first two weeks of November.

Your vessel Harman is a Royal Australian Navy motor launch built in 1944 by the firm Storey and Keers built of Oregon planking on Australian hardwood frames. She was attached to the naval communications establishment HMAS Harman and often transported Navy personnel from ship to shore, and between the many Sydney Harbour RAN establishments, from Balmoral to the Parramatta River. As she only holds 24 people you can enjoy a personalised experience rather than a big tour.

Discover the hidden winding entrance to the Lane Cove River and the Humbug. Pass
Northwood Bay, a favourite subject of Lloyd Rees paintings. See Mary Reibey’s Figtree House still standing on the river bank, and learn about the conflict between convict saw millers and farmers and the Aboriginal resistance fighters.

Mary Reibey’s Figtree House

The cruise visits Woolwich where the once heavily industrialised harbour shoreline has changed to public parks and premier residential areas and left sites such as Mort’s Dock cut into the sandstone cliffs.

Meeting Point at the two anchors outside the main entrance of the Australian National Maritime Museum. The tour finishes back at the Australian National Maritime Museum wharf.