Navigate | HIDDEN GEM The Secret Garden A SYDNEY PARK IS A FLORAL ODE TO PRIVATE LOSS AND PUBLIC REJUVENATION | By HEMA RAMAPRASAD derers like me, as well as a wealth of birdlife—parrots, rosellas, wagtails, and kookaburras popu- late it. For a long time after my visit, I was convinced that I had trespassed on private property. I found out about the garden’s history only much later while browsing the internet. I learnt that the garden, built on land owned by the New South Wales Rail Corporation, was once a derelict wasteland. Despite its prime waterfront location, it was used as a dumping yard for railway scrap. Overrun with weeds and choked with garbage, it began to be frequented by delinquents. Until Wendy Whiteley, ex-wife and muse of avant-garde Austral- ian artist Brett Whiteley stepped in. An artist herself, Wendy is credited with painstakingly reju- venating the junkyard after her husband died of a drug overdose. She lived adjacent to the plot at the time, and spent months transforming it bit by bit, just like her canvases, with the help of four gardeners and her daughter Arkie, an actress who later lost Wendy’s Secret Garden has a number of secret pathways, quirky artworks, and benches that offer her life to cancer. (It is said that blissful views of Sydney harbour. Brett and Arkie’s ashes are buried in the garden.) Once the artist o fence demarcates ATLAS view of Sydney Harbour and was done sculpting the garden’s Wendy’s Secret Garden; Lavender Bay, framed by foli- nooks and crannies, she allowed no signboards guide Sydney, age. The sacred and the earthly nature to run its course, giving N Australia visitors around this pretty patch coexist here: I spotted a small the garden its rambling look. of green. I discovered it by chance Ganesha statue amid the flower Sitting in the park, I watched while ambling around Sydney’s beds, perched on a hidden green the birds swoop and dart over- Lavender Bay area on an overcast wrought-iron pedestal, with his head, as I daydreamed about afternoon. A delightful collection back to a million-dollar view of moving to Sydney. There was of tropical plants, gnarly trees, Lavender Bay. (Someone loves a story that could fly: I moved man ferns, herbs, and oversized When the Syd- him enough to bring him flowers continents because I fell in love flowers greets visitors to this park ney Harbour every day.) Close by, is a plaque with a secret garden. I sat there that has an Alice in Wonderland Bridge, the imprinted with a lyric from for what seemed like hours, and feel. Its secret pathways, hidden world’s largest “Sweet Thing” by Irish musician barely registered any other sculptures, picnic tables, lopsided steel arch Van Morrison. “We shall walk and people, save for the odd runner chairs, and quirky art installa- bridge, opened talk/In gardens all misty and wet and an office-goer on a solitary in 1932 it cost tions affirm its enchanted appeal. a car 6 pence with rain/And I will never, never, lunch break. But if I’d looked At the heart of the garden is a to cross while a never/Grow so old again.” hard enough, I am confident I’d giant Moreton Bay fig tree with a horse and rider The lush, whimsical aesthetic have seen an elf or a gnome poke bench that offers a jaw-dropping was 3 pence. of Wendy’s Garden attracts wan- its head out of a burrow. PARKER TERESA 2 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | MARCH 2015.