Goat Island (Port Jackson) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Goat Island is a rocky island in Sydney Harbour

Port Jackson

Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...

, in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. The island is some 400 m by 200 m in size and is located north-west of the Sydney central business district

Sydney central business district

The Sydney central business district is the main commercial centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It extends southwards for about 3 kilometres from Sydney Cove, the point of first European settlement. Its north–south axis runs from Circular Quay in the north to Central railway station in...

.

Goat Island lies off the shores of the Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

suburbs of Balmain

Balmain, New South Wales

Balmain is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Balmain is located slightly west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....

and Millers Point

Millers Point, New South Wales

Millers Point is an urban locality within Sydney's city centre, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Millers Point is located on the north-western edge of the Sydney central business district, adjacent to The Rocks and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney.Millers Point...

, at the junction of Darling Harbour with the main channel of Sydney Harbour. Over the years Goat Island has served as a quarry, convict stockade, explosives store, police station, fire station, boatyard and film set. Today the island forms part of the Sydney Harbour National Park

Sydney Harbour National Park

thumb|right|250px|[[Nielsen Park]]Sydney Harbour National Park is a national park comprising parts of Sydney Harbour, its foreshores and various islands. The park lies within the Sydney metropolitan area and was created in piecemeal fashion during the 20th century...

History

Confusingly, some early maps of Sydney Harbour show the current Goat Island with the name Cockatoo Island, whilst the current Cockatoo Island is named Banks Island. However by the late 1820s the naming of the two islands had stabilised at the current situation.

Whilst the use of Goat Island as both a naval arsenal and a convict stockade were discussed during the late 1820s, the first use of the island was in 1831, as a sandstone quarry. This use set the tone for much of the later life of the island, with the first of many bureaucratic disputes between the colony's local civil government and the local military establishment who reported directly to the War Office

War Office

The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...

in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. In this case the Surveyor General

Surveyor General of New South Wales

The Surveyor General of New South Wales is the person nominally responsible for government surveying in New South Wales. The original duties for the Surveyor General was to measure and determine land grants for settlers in New South Wales...

, Major Thomas Mitchell, objected to the quarrying on the grounds that what was being quarried away was a valuable point for the purpose of defence, and quarrying soon ceased.

By the early 1830s there was considerable concern about the amount of military explosives being stored in the Commissariat in The Rocks

The Rocks, New South Wales

The Rocks is an urban locality, tourist precinct and historic area of Sydney's city centre, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour, immediately north-west of the Sydney central business district...

district of central Sydney

Sydney

. In 1833 gangs of convicts started work quarrying stone and levelling ground on a site at the south-western side of the island. The powder magazine was completed by January 1839, and is a substantial, stone-built, bomb-proof construction. It was during this original period of construction that the convict Charles Anderson was said to have been kept chained to a rock for two years. A stone cut couch, with fixing points for a platform and the wooden lid said to have provided him with shelter, can still be seen.

Also in the late 1830s, a water police station was built on Goat Island. This was constructed at the north-eastern tip of the island and at the opposite end from the magazine. For defensive reasons, and to provide a clear boundary between the domain of the police, part of the colonial civil government, and that of the military magazine, a water level ditch was cut to separate the north-eastern tip of the island from the bulk of the island. This 'cut' can still be seen today.

In 1854 a new Colonial Magazine was constructed to the north of the existing magazine, which became known as the Queen's Magazine. This was a building of much lighter construction, and was intended for the storage of civilian explosives belonging to the colonial government and local merchants. In 1864 the police station was converted into a laboratory for the preparation of cartridges, requiring the building of a bridge over the cut. The water police were moved to Kirribilli

Kirribilli, New South Wales

Kirribilli is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located three kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area administered by North Sydney Council...

. In the 1870s magazines were built on the east side of the island to house the new explosive dynamite

Dynamite

Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...

. By this time most of the storage of propellant powders and cartridge manufacturing had moved to nearby Spectacle Island.

In 1900 all explosives were removed from Goat Island. The island is believed to have been used for a period in that year as a bacteriology station, for the investigation of the major outbreak of bubonic plague

Bubonic plague

Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...

in the nearby Rocks district, but firm evidence for this usage is lacking. What is certain is that by 1901 the island had become the depot for the Sydney Harbour Trust

Sydney Harbour Trust

The Sydney Harbour Trust began operations on 1 November 1900 with responsibility for the Navigation Department and Marine Board of Sydney Harbour. The Trust, as governed by an act of the New South Wales Parliament consisted of three commissioners appointed by the Governor of New South Wales...

, responsible for the maintenance of that body's significant fleet of tugs

Tugboat

A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...

, dredge

Dredge

Dredging is an excavation activity or operation usually carried out at least partly underwater, in shallow seas or fresh water areas with the purpose of gathering up bottom sediments and disposing of them at a different location...

rs and other floating plant. Over the following years until the mid-1920s, the island saw the construction of a harbour master's house on the highest point of the island, together with four cottages for married members of the fireboat

Fireboat

A fireboat is a specialized watercraft and with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with firefighting equipment....

crew stationed on the island, and a barracks for the unmarried members of the same crew.

Between 1925 and 1931 the magazine area to the south-west of the island was converted into a shipyard for the repair of the trusts vessels and floating plant. Over the following years this has grown to include four slipway

Slipway

A slipway, boat slip or just a slip, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats. They are also used for launching and retrieving small boats on trailers and flying boats on their undercarriage. The...

s, of 500 ton, 150 ton and 12 ton (x2) capacity respectively, plus a 770 foot wharf. The Colonial Magazine was recycled as a shipwright's workshop, whilst the Queens Magazine became a general store. In 1936 the Sydney Harbour Trust was replaced by the New South Wales Maritime Services Board, but the island retained its role.

The Maritime Services Board finally relinquished control of the island in 1995, and Goat Island became a unit of the Sydney Harbour National Park

Sydney Harbour National Park

.

During the mid 1990s to the early 2000s, the island was used as a film-set for the Australian television series Water Rats
Water Rats (TV series)
Water Rats is an Australian TV police procedural broadcast on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2001. The series was based around the men and women of the Sydney Water Police who fight crime across Sydney Harbour and surrounding locales. The show was set on and around Goat Island in Sydney...

.

The island has also played host to rock concerts from Midnight Oil

Midnight Oil

Midnight Oil , were an Australian rock band from Sydney originally performing as Farm from 1972 with drummer Rob Hirst, bass guitarist Andrew James and keyboard player/lead guitarist Jim Moginie...

in 1985 and Green Day

Green Day

Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...

in 2000. Both were presented by radio station Triple J

Triple J

triple j is a nationally networked Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners between the ages of 18 and 30. The government-funded station is a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...

.

Goat Island has recently reopened to the public, with tours available on weekdays. Goat Island is also included in the 2010 Crave Sydney International Food Festival's Sydney Harbour Island Hopping Tour.

Panic at Rock Island, an Australian telemovie, was filmed on the island in 2010.

On 24 March 2011, Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters is an American alternative rock band originally formed in 1994 by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of his previous band. The band got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War...

performed a secret show on the island to 300 people.

External links

Goat Island, Sydney Harbour from the National Parks and Wildlife Service
National Parks and Wildlife Service (New South Wales)
The National Parks and Wildlife Service is part of the Office of Environment and Heritage - the main government conservation agency in New South Wales, Australia....

.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

See also

External links