Just what is the link between the death of the infamous Red Baron and one of Sydney's most loved national parks?
Don't you love it when you go on a bushwalk and as you discover a bit of the area's history something out of the ordinary pops up? Case-in-point: the 13km walk from Brooklyn (the starting point of Sydney's Oxfam Trailwalker) to Cowan, showcasing the best of Ku-ring-gai Chase NP.
The park is one of the state's most loved and most visited; it preserves a massive corridor of bushland close to Sydney. Also, because there are train stations at the start and end of the walk, if you want you can leave your car at home and public transport it all the way.
Brooklyn is less than an hour’s drive from the CBD and it's where Germany's most famous fighter pilot, Manfred von Richthofen, comes into the picture, but more on that later. The trail is part of the 250km Great North Walk (GNW) linking Sydney with the Hunter Valley and Newcastle, passing through a diverse range of natural habitats and bushland, including Sydney Harbour, Berowra Valley, Hawkesbury River and Lake Macquarie.
To get to the trail from Brooklyn either park your car at Parsley Bay and walk along George St, then turn onto William St, or get out at the train station, head up Bridge St past the pub, turn left onto George and then right into William St. Walk to the end of William and enter the steep, concreted fire trail.
Follow the GNW marker posts to Brooklyn Dam and continue around the southern end of the dam. On the dam's western side turn left and follow the GNW marker posts up a hill. Soon enough you come to a junction and simply follow the GNW marker posts left, going further up the trail. You'll soon get some great views looking back towards Brooklyn and the Hawkesbury. For the next hour or so the path undulates and there's a bit of rock hopping required, but the track is wide and clear.
From the highest point of the walk follow the marker posts down towards Jerusalem Bay. It's a steep descent but the views are great. Continue along the GNW past the bay to a footbridge across the freeway. Turn left and you'll see Cowan train station. From here you can catch a train north to Brooklyn, if you left your car there, or south to Sydney.
So back to the Red Baron. On the day he was shot down, April 21st, 1918, Manfred von Richthofen was leading his circus of multi-coloured Fokker triplanes in action against a squadron of British planes and had just scored his 80th victim. Von Richthofen was involved in a dogfight with two British Sopwith Camel biplanes when he flew low over Australian lines and then things came unstuck.
See, below him, sitting in the trenches, was Robert Buie, a Brooklyn oyster farmer and local bushwalker who enlisted in the Australian Army in October 1916. He served in the 53rd Battery of the 14th Brigade of the Australian Field Artillery and on that particular cold April day he had the Red Baron in his sights.
"I was manning one gun and 'Digger' Evans the other," Buie wrote in a letter to the editor of the Central Coast Express in 1957. For decades there had been much conjecture over who actually shot the German fighter ace and Buie, who never talked about the war to his family, wanted to set the record straight.
"As the planes neared us, Evans opened fire, but the (British) plane came on. I could not fire at the same time as I did not have clearance, but as soon as our plane was out of the line of fire, I started firing directly at the German pilot. Fragments came off the plane and it lessened speed. It came down a few hundred yards metres away. When the place was reached, Richthofen was dead."
The Red Baron had died from a single bullet that passed through his body and was found in the folds of his uniform. In his 1957 letter Buie said: "There were quite a few who tried to claim von Richthofen's downing. All the evidence was sent to British Army headquarters in France and a month later, while I was still in the line, a dispatch came from General Rawlinson to the 53rd Battery and to me, giving me the credit for shooting down the German ace. I have the proof in my possession, and I cannot see why the controversy goes on."
For more info on the Red Baron shooting click here.
Words and photos_Brent McKean