newcastle WED 22 APR 2015
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pages 20-22 pa
Honouring Hunter heroes 250-metre Memorial Walk to be opened to public on Friday
Guide to local Anzac Day services p.5 SPORT Stubbins praises Jets’ late-season fight p.25
The view from the new Memorial Walk which will open to the public at sunset on Friday night. Photo: Bryce Thomas
AMELIA PARROTT
@amelia_parrott
A
fter watching the pylons be set and the spans be lifted into place, Hunter residents will be able to take their first stroll along the new Memorial Walk at Newcastle when it opens to the public at sunset on Friday night. The 250-metre walk from Strzelecki Lookout to the Bathers Way on Memorial Drive commemorates the roughly 11,000 men and women from the Hunter who enlisted and served in the First World War. 3,859 family names are etched into the bridge
that hovers above the cliff top, along with silhouettes of soldiers and information on the contributions of personnel from the army, navy, air force, as well as light horseman and nurses. The design of the bridge was inspired by a smaller footbridge outside the University of Newcastle’s Wollotuka Institute at Callaghan and is intended to echo the image of a DNA double helix. “It is intended to be the DNA of the Hunter,” said Barney Collins, director of EJE Architecture, the firm that designed the walk. “So that a child descendent from one of those enlisted people can go up there and see their name.” Mr Collins said he hoped those attending Anzac
Day dawn services on Saturday morning would come to do the walk and reflect on the sacrifices of those from the Hunter who served in WWI. The walk also marks the centenary of BHP producing steel in Newcastle. BHP played a key role in producing steel for railways, ammunition and shipbuilding during the First World War and committed the bulk of the funding for the Memorial Walk project. Neil Slater, who came up with idea for the cliff top walk after being inspired by a similar coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee, said he hoped to one day see Newcastle City Council’s Bathers Way project extended beyond Merewether Baths, through to the Glenrock State Conservation Area and the Fernleigh Track.
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