Despite the fact that the island was joined early in the 20th century to the mainland at Wollstonecraft, Berry Island remains the most rugged and natural of Sydney's Islands. Two kilometres upsteam from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the island's caves and middens are still carpeted with shells collected by generations of Aborigines who once dwelt around the shores of Sydney Harbour.

The island held great cultural significance to their occupants, the Cadigal and Wangal tribes, as evidenced by a vast sea creature carved into a flat grey ceremonial rock on the forested island a short paddle from the shore. The carving today is almost as faded as the dreamtime stories it evokes, of victories for the Camaraigal people whose culture was decimated soon after the arrival of European settlers in 1788.
The Europeanisation of the island and the peninsula on the end of which it sits, began in 1819 when British merchants Edward Wollstonecraft and Alexander Berry settled in Sydney. Wollstonecraft took up a 524 acres grant that included present day Wollstonecraft and Berry Island. Wollstonecraft built a house on the highest point, and named it Crows Nest, a name which is still in use today. Berry received a much smaller land grant next to Wollstonecraft's, which included the island which now bears his name.
Berry rarely visited the place - his interests were in pastoral properties in the Shoalhaven district, and it was perhaps his lack of interest in developing the island that has seen in stay in its natural state. After he died age 91, the property was passed to his sister and her husband Alexander Berry.
By this time, the waters around the island were popular among fishermen, and had become an official breaking up ground for derelict ships. Many skeletons of ships still rest in the deep water surrounding the island.
In the early 19th century, Berry Island was attached to the land of Edward Wollstonecraft by a stone causeway over mud flats (now reclaimed as lawns). The island was dedicated as a nature reserve for public recreation in 1926. Today there are public toilets, picnic areas, seats and benches and a children's playground, but care has been taken not to let these creature comforts encroach on the natural beauty of this small island. This award-winning Gadyan Track is a 20-minute bushwalking track around the island, guided by interpretative signage detailing the island's Aboriginal and European history.
How to get there: If arriving by car, turn off the Pacific Highway at Shirley Road, North Sydney, and follow it to it's end. There is limited street parking. By public transport it is a short five to ten minute walk from Wollstonecraft railway station.