Cockatoo Island, October 21, 2025

 Ferry to Cockatoo Island

    We have had so much fun seeing Sydney from the harbor that we decided to venture out again. This time we turned toward toward the Parramatta River, going under the Sydney Harbor Bridge. 

     We disembarked at Cockatoo Island, the largest island in the harbor. It was used as a penal colony by the British between 1839-1869 which sent over 600,000 convicts to Australia in an attempt to solve the crime rate in England.

A cut-out sculpture at the penal colony

     There is an upper and a lower part to the island. The lower documents the history of industry on the island, mostly concerning ship building.

      We focused on the upper island which has the remnants of the penal colony and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

   

    Conditions were, of course, horrific with too many prisoners crammed into too small spaces. Prisoners had limited space on communal bunks.

They were underfed and forced to do hard labor mining the sandstone for building projects. The administrations were often corrupt, spending money meant for the prisoners for their own profitable projects. 

         Despite the grim history, we had a nice time. There were some nice garden areas and we did manage to identify some more birds - including a masked lapwing that Mark photographed. We also identified Welcome Swallows as we were waiting for the ferry back. 

Masked Lapwing

Barbara lying in wooden bed made for 3 people

        The apartment had no hot water for 4 hours today, so we timed our day to come back and put in a last wash while we are here as the next place with a washer won't be for a while. 

   

Mmmmm - shrimp and chive steamed dumplings

     We had lunch at LiLong, a Chinese restaurant where we ate when we first got here because it was just so good. We both had chicken corn soup which we first had when we were in Beijing many years ago and it was just as good as we remembered it was there. Mark had waygu beef with mushrooms and Barbara had shrimp and chive steamed dumplings. 

After napping a bit, catching up on the blog and doing a laundry, we went to the restaurant in our building, Yang San Park, a Korean barbecue restaurant. Wow! It was amazing! We had several side dishes along with barbecued chicken and pork, cooked at our table. One of our best meals here.

The combination of old and innovative architecture

In the heart of Chinatown