Cockatoo Island

After a rather alcoholic new year's day which was finished off with a cheat-tastic game of monopoly we all struggled to get out of the house and on the 9.30 am ferry but we did it somehow, all 7 of us. 

The ferry from Balmain took us all to this tiny island.  Cockatoo has a rich and varied past from convict prison, reform and industrial schools to shipbuilding site and naval dockyards employing thousands.

Pre 1788 the island was heavily timbered with red gums and frequented by sulphur crested cockatoos.  Aboriginal people of Sydney almost certainly fished here.  In 1839 a prison was established to house convicts with drawn from Norfolk island and repeat offenders.  In 1940 the Fitzroy Dock and a workshop were built by prisoners to service the Royal Navy.  In 1870 the prisoners were relocated and it was used for an Industrial School for girls.  In 1880 its shipbuilding history begins but also resorted back to a prison due to overcrowding elsewhere.  In the 1900s the island becomes the Commonwealth Naval Dockyard and in 1913 Australia builds its first steel warship on the island.  In 1930 the island becomes the major shipbuilding and dockyard facility for the South West Pacific in WWII following the fall of Singapore.  Additional buildings were constructed in 1945 and the refit of the T-Class submarines occurs and the navy destroyers, Voyager and Vampire were built.

Running up to 1992 more refits and production were undertaken until the dockyard closed in 1992 with machinery sold off and some 40 buildings demolished.

Today the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust assumes control and are embarking in major restorations works.  You can camp on the island in the hundreds of  pre-erected tents.