by Loine Sweeney

When Chris Yiallouros walks around the beautiful creek and billabong areas in G.S. Kingston Parlk /Wirrarninthi (Park 23) in the western Park Lands - which he does almost daily - he is struck by the wonderful transformation the Park has undergone since his childhood.

“As kids from Mile End, we used to ramble here,” he said. “From the western suburbs perspective, this was our backyard and was really the extent of our world.”

“Around here was barren, dry and essentially treeless,” Chris said. “A youngster now would think this beautiful area of native plants and trees has been here forever; well no it hasn’t, the return to a more natural environment is only a relatively recent thing.”

The beautifully clear creek that now runs through the park was, Chris recalls, a “pretty rough overgrown ditch. They had to rehabilitate it entirely. Now it’s a cacophony of birds and frogs. Previously, it was completely out of our scope of thinking that this could happen here, so close to the city.”

Chris said that he and other locals thought “the regeneration of these Park Lands was just a miracle. It’s the way cities should be where you should have, within reasonable walking distance of your home a reminder of nature, without a building on it, without a road through it, without a car park on it.”

Now that Chris is retired, he gets down to the western Park Lands daily.

“This is the way I walk to the Central Market and to visit inner-city friends and its a joy to walk through here.”

But he is concerned about the impact on the Park Lands of incremental development.

“Soon enough my generation will be gone. What we have to be concerned about is what will be left for our grandchildren. They shouldn’t have to drive to experience nature like this, they shouldn’t need car parks and they shouldn’t have to pay to have the chance to enjoy it.

“We’ve started to try to regain nature as it originally was here with the Kaurna people, but it’s fragile. It only takes one developer with sufficient cash and this could be gone. Hopefully, with public support, it won’t be!”

Pleased to meet you Chris.