| Sydney Harbour is immensely busy, and the variety of marine craft just astounding. The photographic eye must continually move, like a toothbrush, left/right, top/bottom, infront/behind. |
| I wached the water taxi speed out from the Quay into the morning sunshine, and disappear. I looked up, and realised that I could see the other side of Sydney Cove, unlike the previous week when my view was blocked by a thumping big gin-palace! |
| Our forebears were really wise, and reserved much of the harbour foreshores on the southside for public recreation. Here is some of it. Elizabeth Macquarie shared her husband's passion for aesthetics. This was a new and rough land they were trying to civilise. The indigenous inhabitants used the land in a totally different way to those born and bred in England's "green and pleasant land". If the Aborigines wanted fresh green shoots, they used fire. If the colonists wanted green shoots, they planted trees from their homeland. Eucalypts and acacias are more olive green than "Jerusalem" green. |
| This aerial view of the southern shores of the harbour is an excellent overview of the results of the vision of the Macquaries. This shows the Royal Botanic Gardens and The Domain. I have included a labelled version, too, down below. From the left, the three inlets: Wooloomooloo Bay, Farm Cove, and Sydney Cove. The two Peninsulas: Mrs Macquarie's Point, and Bennelong Point. Garden Island is out-of-sight to the left. The harbour bridge is out-of-sight to the right. |
| My two photos were taken from the tip of Mrs Macquarie's Point looking across Farm Cove to the city skyline, and Government House, nestling in the trees of the Botanic Gardens. This was the home of the Governors of this state, New South Wales, from 1845 until the present day (with two small breaks). Of course, there is a mucho impressive view from the tip of Elizabeth's point looking across the harbour itself. Show you this tomorrow. |
| This week is lovely and mild, but since Easter we have received some wild and woolly weather! Last Wednesday, as I stood beneath the northern pylon of the bridge, a squall blew in from the ocean, giving my city an unusual pallor. I was looking SE from Milsons Point - the northern point of the bridge - through to Sydney Cove, where yet another massive gin-palace was tied to the bollards. The Opera House is on Bennelong Point, and the southern pylon of the bridge is on Dawes Point. Prior to 1932, a ferry chugged from Dawes Point to Milsons Point. Note the icons: SHB, SOH, Manly Ferry, Rivercat Ferry, Sydney Cove. Not that I'm counting, or anything. Note also, that the Flanagan & Allen song, "Underneath the Arches" was written in 1932, the year this bridge was opened. |
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| This is not a bad location for a swimming pool, is it? Remember, the bridge opened in 1932. The engineering firm was Dorman Long & Co. and the pool was built upon part of their worksheds. |
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| The pool opened in April 1936, emblazoned with art deco designs and brickwork. When Sydney hosted the 1938 Empire Games, the pool, already an established fixture for swimming competitions became the stage for the Games' swimming and diving programs. Through the years, 86 world records have been set at the pool by such swimming greats as John and Ilsa Konrads, Lorraine Crapp, John Devitt, Shane Gould and Michelle Ford. |
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| Only missing one icon. I have the bridge. I have Sydney Cove. I have Circular Quay. I have a ferry. To get to the missing Opera House, follow the crowd of people around to the right ... |
| Taken from the top of the Opera House Steps, facing south-west. |
| It seems to me that, once people are actually in the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House, they cannot believe their eyes and their good fortune. A bit like wandering The Mall, and wow, there is Buckingham Palace. Or standing aways down the Champs-Elysees, and wow, there is the Arc de Triomphe. And there are no cars. Very few in the forecourt, none around the foreshore. The entire Sydney Cove thing still blows my brain each and every time I wander down there. |
| The curve of the quay wall between Wharf 1 and Wharf 2 on the eastern side of the quay. |
| In the beginning ... the head of Sydney Cove was a tidal mudflat where the Tank Stream dribbled into the harbour. The cove, as Governor Philip noted in January 1788, was a deep harbour where ships of the realm could anchor in safety. Between 1837 and 1844 a military officer of the Royal Engineers, Captain George Barney, created a semi-circular quay, building a seawall and utilising thousands of convicts to reclaim about four and a half hectares of mudflats behind the wall; most of this fill came from the sandstone precipice dividing the two ends of Argyle Street, resulting in the Argyle Cut. The rest was cut from what is now the Tarpeian Walk adjacent to the Opera House forecourt. |
| Left: A sketch by Jacob William Jones in 1845 (SL-NSW); Right: The balaustrade that sits atop the sandstone sea wall constructed by Barney and his iron-gangs. |
| It was not until 1854, however, that the quay was completed with the closure of the space where the Tank Stream entered the cove. It was after this closure, that the populace started to warm to the name "Circular Quay", even though the space is more a semi-oval. The Tank Stream now enters Sydney Cove in a storm-water drain just as you round Wharf 6 for the stroll along the front of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). |
| Left: A bustling Circular Quay in 1870 (National Archives of Australia number A1200, L85037
TLF resource R2583) Right: Barney's wall beside Wharf 2 |
| One of the reasons Sydney is sited where it is, is because the scouting party in January 1788, spotted a stream of fresh water trickling into a wide, deep cove. The stream became known as The Tank Stream, and is now totally underground. The cove was named Sydney Cove. Where the Tank Stream meets Sydney Cove is Circular Quay. |
| This metal plaque is in the Pitt Street Mall. The Tank Stream was not long, perhaps a little over a kilometre, and it was more a trickle than a stream. It raised in a swamp as you can see from the diagram. I have included two views down Pitt Street, ie facing north. The second shows the storm-water drain that flows into the tunnel beneath the surface which is the current day stream. The first one shows a sliver of the harbour bridge right down and beyond the Quay. The Tank Stream provided fresh water for the colony for about 40 years, being replaced by the pipes of Busby's Bore which came all the way from the sandhills of Centennial Park. Very quickly the new settlers became aware of the fragility of water supply in a continent like Australia. And they did themselves no favours, by degrading and polluting the stream with human waste and the waste and carcasses of animals. |
| If I had to leave Sydney forever, what would I miss? I have canvassed a range of regrets I would have should this occur, until it finally dawned on me that I would miss Sydney over three-dimensions. On a 2-dimensional axis, I would miss the centre of Sydney: from Sydney Cove in the North, to Central Station in the south; from Macquarie Street in the east, to the shore of Darling Harbour in the west. But adding a third dimension is the crucial element for me, and that is time. I would miss my search for understanding the people and places of my city through time, from 1788 through to 2015. And what better place to ponder all this history than on the shores of Sydney Cove, where European settlement commenced. Kicking back with a Stonefish Riesling, and a Roast Pumpkin, Macadamia nut, and goat's cheese salad, watching the myriad of vessels plying their trade under a summer sky. |
| To see how other City Daily Photo bloggers have interpreted the Theme Day for February, follow this link. |
| The top image was taken from the far-eastern end of the Cahill Walk, as soon as I alighted the lift from the quay. I am facing west. The bottom image was taken during 1931. The bridge itself has been constructed - now for the fit-out and approaches. It is one of the images displayed in The Pylon Museum, which is worth your attention. There are 200 steps, and walking is the only option. As a Senior, it cost me $8.50. But only bother if there are NO cruise ships at the Overseas Terminal! So, why do I feel a need to whinge about our collective ignorance of historical significance? Sydney Cove is the birthplace of European civilisation in this city, nay, this nation. And LOOK how we honour it! (Must remember not to overdo the exclamation mark in this little rant.) Sure, Sydney has always been a working harbour, and I respect the history of our harbour, and the people who have worked it. But really what we have here is a developmental pig-sty. Once the Cahill Expressway cut across the head of the cove in the mid-'50s, the die was cast. The First Fleet anchored out there. Captain Arthur Phillip raised the Union Jack 50m behind me. The convicts pitched their tents on the left. The soldiers, and military bureaucrats, pitched theirs on the right. And today we have el-cheapo eats, not-so-el-cheapo eats, buskers, convenience stores, ice-creameries, and assorted stores purporting to flog mementos to gullible tourists! If I had to, or chose to, leave Sydney, I would not miss our attitude to the past. But this attitude, is a national characteristic, I am afraid. |
| During summer, there is a cruise ship tied up in Sydney Cove, every day. Every weekend there is a different one. This is the "Voyager of the Seas". They are so massive, they dwarf the Harbour Bridge, They dwarf the Opera House. From the Pylon Lookout on the bridge, I could not see Circular Quay (and obviously, judging from this photograph, from the Cahill Walk, I could not see the Pylon lookout), and I could not get a good view of the city skyline. If I had to leave Sydmey, I would NOT miss these cruise liners. I want my city back!! |
| I tracked this little tug coming in to help. It choofed from under the harbour bridge, into Sydney Cove, and right-angled the store-boat alongside the "Rhapsody of the Seas". I might have made up that florid name, but it was something like that. It was a busy stretch of water that morning. |
| Originally, Circular Quay was not circular at all; it was a tidal mud-flat, with a slash - in the south-western corner - where the Tank Stream entered Sydney Cove. Hah! A corner in a circular shape - boggles the mind, eh what? The engineer, George Barney, was allocated a team of convicts to shape up the cove from about 1836 when mercantilism was the colony's saviour. At that stage, that landward side of the cove was known as 'semi-circular quay". |
| Between 1860 and 1880, it took on the shape that we see today; the Tank Stream went underground, the edges were buffed and lined with wool stores and gang planks. If you wander from the Opera House around the 'circular' bit to the Museum of Contemporary Art, you will notice, perhaps, bronze plaques indicating the water's edge at various years from 1788 to today. |
| The two, large colour photographs I took on Wednesday evening as I wandered across the Cahill Expressway from the Botanic Gardens to the Glenmore Hotel in The Rocks. The painting is a recreation of the raising of the flag of the United Kingdom on 26th January 1788 beside the waters of Sydney Cove. The black and white photogaph is dated 1892, and shows the hectic pace of the quayside along the eastern edge of Circular Quay. |
| Click here to see other participants in the City Daily Photo Theme Day for November, 'The Water's Edge'. |
| 8:50am,90mm, F11, 1/1000, ISO=500 |
| Love is lovelier The second time around Just as wonderful With both feet on the ground It's that second time you hear Your love song sung Makes you think perhaps that love Like youth, is wasted on the young Love's more comfortable The second time you fall Like a friendly home The second time you call Who can say What brought us to this miracle we've found There are those who'd bet Love comes but once and yet I'm oh so glad we met The second time around. Sammy Kahn & Jimmy Van Heusen (1960) |