page_title: Marie Byles
section_title: Conservationist and bushwalker
hierarchical_section_title: Marie Byles / Conservationist and bushwalker
caption_attribution_description: Maria Byles Lookout, Killcare heights
context_page_description: Marie Beuzeville Byles was a committed conservationist, pacifist, the first practising female solicitor in New South Wales, mountaineer, explorer and avid bushwalker, feminist, journalist, and an original member of the Buddhist Society in New South Wales. She was also a travel and non-fiction writer.
context_section_description: As a teenager at her family's holiday retreat at Palm Beach, Marie would look through her telescope across Broken Bay to the bushland beyond on the Central Coast. The area was marked on maps as Bouddi, an aboriginal name meaning nose. It was a coal reserve visited only by fishermen. In 1920 Marie and some of her university friends set out to walk through the bush of Bouddi to Maitland Bay, then known as 'Boat Harbour', where they camped. It became a favourite spot for them. The only bushwalking club at the time was The Mountain Trails Club led by Myles Dunphy, which did not admit women. By 1929, there was an increasing focus on organised recreation for the city and suburban population and Marie joined the two-year-old Sydney Bush Walkers Club. In 1930, a new name for Boat Harbour was proposed by the club; bushwalker Dorothy Lawry suggested "Maitland Bay" after the steamer that was wrecked at the northern end of the beach in 1889.
  Over the next five years, with the support of the Federation of Sydney Bushwalkers Clubs, Marie successfully campaigned in the press for the area to be placed under public ownership. The creation of Bouddi Natural Park in 1935 was a landmark achievement for the early conservationists. The Lands Department set aside an even larger area than Marie had proposed. Marie Byles was elected a trustee of the board that managed the park, and for many years organized volunteers to clear and maintain its walking tracks. A lookout over Bouddi has been named after her; it is accessible by car, on The Scenic Road in Killcare Heights just south of the Bouddi National Park Visitor Centre.
  In 1939, Marie was the co-founder, with her close friend Paddy Pallin, of The Bush Club. This was a bushwalking club with an emphasis on day-walks, which did not impose rigorous entry tests on prospective members and attracted many pre-war European refugees as members.
caption: The Marie Byles lookout
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