In the early 20th century, several small islands existed in the river. But, when accompanied by the re-routing and shortening of the river estuary for expansion of Sydney Airport downstream, the velocity of the tides increased after 1967, thus increasing erosion on the islands.
By the 1980s, after dredging and tidal changes, only one island remained. This was Fatima (reinforced with recycled, convict-made bricks in 1901). By 1988, the erosion of its brick wall defences had begun, yet by 2000, casuarinas and mangroves grew up to compensate. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Fatima Island provided bird nesting spots. Since then, with further tidal erosion, only a fragment of the island remains visible at high tide and much of the vegetation is gone.
The island is of cultural and historical as well as ecological significance. In 1949, the Very Rev. Dr. Monsignor J. F. Giles, Director of the Fatima Apostolate of the Roman Catholic Church, conducted an Epiphany pageant at Tempe because he “wanted to restore some of the spiritual significance” of the Twelfth Night of Christmas.
During the Cold War, Monsignor Giles latched upon the idea of using the island as a local site for Pope Pius’s global campaign against world communism. The story of Fatima originated in Portugal and centred on the need for a spiritual revival to combat irreligion and bring world peace. The Catholic Church sent the “pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima” to forty-one countries. Cooks River was one of those destinations.
By 1952, Giles had invented a tradition for the local Tempe congregation of St Peter and St Paul. After a church service on January 5, parishioners “joined in a community picnic on Cook’s River Reserve.” – now Kendrick Park. “Festivities included dancing on the lawns, games (with prizes for children), and carol singing. At evening the statue of Our Lady of Fatima was taken to the site and, through a torch light guard of Honor, was illuminated during the singing of the ‘Ave Maria.’” The statue was taken to the island. Amid a fanfare, tableaux depicting the Annunciation, Visitation, Adoration of the Shepherds, the Journey of the Magi, Nativity scene and the Message of Fatima on the unification of the world under God’s realm were “enacted by costumed parishioners.” Finally, the Fatima statue was rowed back, and “carried in torchlight procession to the church.” Princes Highway traffic came to a standstill as hundreds of people stopped to watch every time the Tempe congregation had a meeting there.
The island pilgrimages stopped after Father Giles left the parish in 1955. But the name, Fatima Island, and the exotic story of the events remained as a memory of a magical place.
This spot was also the site of jetties used in ferrying passengers to and from Arncliffe, before the completion of the dam in 1840. One passenger, taken across by the famed convict, Willie the Boatman (William Kerr), was Alexander Spark. Spark built Tempe House, a highly significant cultural and architectural site visible opposite Kendrick Park. Spark’s name for the house became the name for the suburb on the northern side of the river, and set the tone for the idea of the Cooks River as a “Vale of Tempe”, drawing on Greek mythology and ideas of a pastoral, idyllic landscape for small-scale farming.
A plaque on the quarried cliff face adjacent to Kendrick Park marks the spot and commemorates the landing of Captain Cook by longboat in 1770.
The Cycle Path takes the visitor past the Concordia (German) Club to the Cooks River Canoe Club building and then Mackey Park (-33.922938, 151.154708), where the 1903 embankment and sandstone bank lining from the dredging and flood prevention works are clearly visible on the riverside.
