Sydney Harbour | Fotoeins Fotografie

Pottinger Street Viaduct, Parbury Park, Cliff Top Walk, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Rocks, Sydney, NSW, Australia, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: Parbury Lane at Dawes Point (Sydney)

This post is the second of five Fotoeins Fridays in June, all from Australia’s most populous city, Sydney.

In one of the oldest sections of the city, I wander over to the Clifftop Walk and to Parbury Lane with a view to Piers 1 to 3 in Walsh Bay and the city landmark that is the Harbour Bridge. There are few people around, save for the occasional resident running errands or poked their head out the door to say ‘hello’. At the southern foot of the Harbour Bridge, the small peninsula is divided roughly east-west into The Rocks and Dawes Point, respectively.

I made the photo above on 16 March 2013 with the Canon 450D, 18-55 kit-glass, and settings: 1/500-sec, f/8, ISO200, and 18mm focal length (29mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie on fotoeins.com at https://wp.me/p1BIdT-bCf.

HMAS Sydney I Memorial Mast, Bradleys Head, Sydney, NSW, Australia, myRTW, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: HMAS Sydney I memorial, Sydney Harbour

5 October 2012.

I’m on board Sydney Ferries on a day trip to the eastern suburbs of Sydney. Our ferry departs Circular Quay, and makes the requisite sail-by the Opera House on our way to Watsons Bay. We come across a grand ship memorial with the harbour’s mouth to the Pacific in sight. In the city’s north shore municipality of Mosman, the HMAS Sydney I Memorial Mast stands tall at Bradleys Head¹ with a small light tower (1905) at the end, presumably warning boats to stay well back of shallow rocks in the vicinity. In the background are Hornby Lighthouse on South Head at left-centre, and the steep cliffs at North Head where land drops into the Pacific.

Commissioned as a unit of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Her Majesty’s Australian Ship (HMAS) light cruiser “Sydney” (the First) saw action in World War I. In late-1914 on convoy duty to transport Australian troops to Europe, the Sydney set off to investigate the presence of enemy vessels near the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and found the German cruiser Emden which had been wreaking havoc in the Indian Ocean for two months. The two ships engaged in the Battle of Cocos with the Emden eventually running aground and defeated on Keeling Island, marking the RAN’s first ship-to-ship engagement and the first victory.

After the ship was decommissioned in 1928 and disassembled into scrap metal in 1929, the mast was purchased and installed at Bradleys Head in time for the visit by The Duke of Gloucester in 1934. With the latest round of restorations the memorial was rededicated in 2013. The HMAS Sydney I memorial is the only naval monument in Australia to which ceremonial honours must be delivered by all passing Australian naval ships.

More

• New South Wales state, Office of Environment and Heritage
• Monument Australia
• Mosman in World War 1

¹In the mid-19th century Bradleys Head was assigned for additional fortification as part of a network to defend Sydney Harbour, but by 1859, the fort was no longer used, and by 1870, British troops departed, leaving the colonies on the southern continent to fend for themselves.

During my year-long RTW, I made the photo on 5 October 2012 with the Canon 450D, 70-300 zoom, and the following settings: 1/500-sec, f/8, ISO200, 135mm focal length (216mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-ak1.

The Coathanger, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, Australia

Sydney: happy 90 to the Harbour Bridge (2022)

March 19 marks the anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of the key landmarks in Sydney, Australia.

Known informally as “The Coathanger”, the steel through-type arch bridge opened on 19 March 1932, joining the harbour’s northern “Kiarabilli” (Milsons Point) with southern “Tarra” (Dawes Point) to vehicular traffic for the first time. The project took eight years to complete the 1.2-kilometre span over the Parramatta River as its waters empty into Sydney Harbour.

It’s easy to forget Sydney is a city of bridges, as Elizabeth Farrelly wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald on 3 January 2013:

Sydney: five bells, one harbour, seven bridges. A bridge is the ultimate romantic symbol, crystallising in steel and concrete the yearning to connect disparate worlds – and Sydney, city of baroque waterways, is as fully (if not as glamorously) bridged as London, Stockholm or Prague.

It’s big, it’s functional, even as some call it “old and ugly.” Today, the bridge provides an important link between the city’s northern suburbs and the Central Business District.

The smooth shiny metallic curves of the Harbour Bridge and the sail-like spherical-shells on the roof of the nearby Opera House form a visually powerful combination which has not only helped to define Sydney but Australia as well on the world stage.

I cannot disentangle memories of Sydney or Australia without thinking about The Bridge. I know when I finally see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, I know I’ve arrived and I’m back in Sydney.

Sunrise from Mrs. Macquarie’s Point

Under the central arch

Northbound, through the south pylons

“THIS … is Sydney!”

Down to the right, up to the left

Swarming ships on a summer Saturday, at Circular Quay

Parramatta River Ferry (east to Circular Quay), Sydney, Australia

Parramatta River, towards Birchgrove

Parramatta River, Sydney Ferries, near Cockatoo Island, Sydney, Australia, fotoeins.com

Parramatta River, near Cockatoo Island

Moonset in front and sunrise behind, from Dover Heights

Morning light on the City skyline, from Dover Heights

West view from Gap Park, Watsons Bay

Setting sun, from Dover Heights

“Crowning the Coathanger,” 28 Apr 2013.

VIVID Sydney 2013

Full moon over Harbour Bridge, VIVID Sydney 2013, from Blues Point Reserve

I made all of the photos above between 2007 and 2013. I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of the land called Australia, and the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as traditional custodians of the place called Sydney. References to Aboriginal placenames: ANU, Australian Museum, Creative Spirits, and Pocket Oz. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-38e.