Bart Bear's Blog

Cockatoo Island was Australia's most important dockyard until its closure in 1992. Hundreds of ships of all sorts were built and repaired there. Today the dockyards are empty of life. No ships are there. The big dockyard cranes are slowly rusting away. Submarines used to be built in the dock near the closest crane in this photo. A visit to the island is a sad experience, seeing the wreckage of what was a busy industrial site. Fortunately, some of the people who used to work there have started a preservation group and they are slowly saving and repairing some of the equipment. The small crane in the bottom picture is one of the current projects. It is a steam crane. The big silver tank at the back is the boiler which used to provide the steam to power the lifting bits and the wheels. Scruffy and I had a good climb around the crane and if all the bits were connected up and the boiler had steam in it, we could have driven it around and shifted things. Can you see us in the photo? The little inset may help. We love old machinery and are really happy that lots of people are helping to save important bits of our history.

Labels: boats, New South Wales, Sydney