Exploring Macquarie Harbour

Macquarie Harbour is SIX times larger than the Sydney Harbour and as well as reaching into the Wilderness Area, it holds many stories of the past and keys to the future.

Dare I bore you with more holiday snaps!!!

"That's water not sky"

I'll be really brief....

Above in the largest box is a small snapshot of the atlantic salmon farms that operate in the harbour. The pens are covered by nets to stop birds trying to pick at the fish. Sometimes they might get a seal breaking in but not often as their colony is about 30km away. 

Top left, the pile of rocks??? Blows me away every time I think about it, This is part of the HAND made rock wall 3km long, 7m deep and 5m wide at it's base. It was suggested and designed by an engineer (wish I had paid more attention, forgotten his name) in about 1900 to keep the narrow channel to the harbour open and deep. That's amazing in itself but HOW they achieved this building works. They cut huge granite stones from the quarry and hauled it in carts to a ship then sailed to the wall site and dumped them off....then they went back and did it again, and again, and....massive undertaking. Later in the project they were able to employ the use of a locomotive engine.

There are still a couple of lighthouses used in navigating the channel but nowdays are solar charged rather than kerosene lit.

The entrance to the harbour is also known as Hell's Gate given it's name by the poor convicts brought to the penal island situated in the harbour.

But that's another story....