Macquarie Lighthouse at dawn.  This photo was framed by John McMahon, and is now one of my favorite pictures.  Many have asked if it is a postcard.  Goodonya Mate!

The cliffs below Macquarie Lighthouse are easily more than 300 fee tall. The sun is shining almost horizontally against the cliffs, making them glow red.  Clouds can be seen rolling in from the background.

Historic plaque on the grounds of Macquarie Lighthouse.

Smokey Cape Light, sitting watch over a desolate, expansive stretch of coastline.

The front of the Trial Bay Gaol.  The wind blew so strongly here I had to lean against a tree to get a decent picture.

Looking into the Trial Bay Gaol.

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Historic Buildings

In general, the architecture we saw in Australia was fairly unassuming. The structures were sturdy, with function placing far ahead of form.  Small town character stemmed from the people more than the buildings, with notable exceptions in each town being the large "hotels" (bars), churches, and city halls.

Australia's history lies in the sea (Captain Cook and Captain Bligh both have leading roles in Australia's history).  My favorite places all find their existence linked one way or another to Australia's relationship with the ocean.

Macquarie lighthouse was the first lighthouse in Australia, and marks the headlands into Sydney Harbor.  The light stands over Watson Bay (part of Sydney Harbor), named after Lt. Ed Watson, the first lighthouse keeper and a member of Captain Cook's crew on the Endeavor.  Standing at its base, you can look over one shoulder into Sydney, and over the other onto the Pacific Ocean. 

John and I woke up early one morning to arrive at the lighthouse before dawn.  We shot several rolls of film altogether, and got some great shots!  We watched a faint rainbow appear right on top of the light keeper's cottage.  One picture shows it very lightly, but it didn't reproduce digitally very well.

By the time the shots on this page were taken, clouds were already rolling in.  Shortly after the cliff-side shot was taken, the skies were solidly overcast.

We found the Smokey Cape lighthouse, near South West Rock NSW, sort of by accident while driving along the coast from our SCUBA diving trip.  Looking down from the lighthouse along literally miles of beaches and beautiful half-moon bays, we couldn't see a single town or building.  I'm sure that coastline hasn't changed much in centuries.  The climb to the lighthouse from the parking lot is easily a 30% grade.  It's so steep that they had a hoist system for pulling vehicle up the last incline.  The light still operates.

The Light-keeper's cottage is available for rent, which might be a really cool way to spend a very isolated weekend.

Travelling further south along the coast, we came upon signs for the Trial Bay Gaol ("jail") in the Arakoon State Recreational Area in South West Rocks NSW.  We had mental images of a sort of "wild west" sheriff's jail.  We never expected to find a giant granite structure covering acres on an isolated, terribly windswept point of land.  It looked much more like a deserted medieval fort than a jail

The Gaol was built by convicts, with the intention of then building a long sea-wall to create a safe harbor.  The sea-wall was never completed (storms wrecked it at least 4 times), and the Gaol was closed.   During World War I, it was used to intern German citizens.  After it was discovered that the internees were signaling German ships at sea, the Gaol was closed for good, and turned into a historic location. 

Despite the fact that the Gaol is less than 150 years old, it appears much older.  All of the wood in the building was sold by the government after it was closed, including the doors, roofs, and rafters, so it looks almost wrecked.  The stone is very weather-beaten, but given the wind and how close it is to the water, that's not surprising.

We don't have any pictures of it, but we spent one evening on a lantern-light tour of the Sydney Quarantine Station, where shipboard immigrants were isolated from the general population until they were proven free from infectious diseases.  Stays might last 6 months or more, depending on what diseases were present on a ship.  With some boat voyages taking more than a year to complete before reaching Sydney, you can imagine that this was never one of the happy places to stay in Sydney.  Operated until as late as the 1970s, the Quarantine Station is reputed to be the most haunted place in Australia.   We didn't see any ghosts, but it was spooky (especially the autopsy rooms in the morgue....).  Some brave folks spent the night.  Not us.