Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
A harbour remade.
An introduction to Darling Harbour, the waterfront beside Sydney’s city centre where Madame Tussauds stands on Aquarium Wharf.
On this page
From goods yard to waterfront
Darling Harbour lies beside Sydney’s central business district and runs north from Chinatown along both sides of Cockle Bay. Once known as Long Cove, it was renamed in 1826 after Governor Ralph Darling.
Much of the land was once railway goods yards. By the mid-to-late 1980s it was largely derelict, and it was redeveloped as a pedestrian and tourist precinct.
Pyrmont Bridge
Pyrmont Bridge, a swing bridge across Cockle Bay designed by Percy Allan, opened on 28 June 1902. It has carried only people on foot and on bicycles since 1981, and its swing span still opens.
Begin with a detail and ask how it was built and kept working. A photograph alone cannot tell you who built a bridge or how it is maintained.
A waxworks chapter
Madame Tussauds Sydney shows one side of the harbour today: a precinct of attractions, restaurants and walkways where wharves and goods yards once stood.
Look at the meeting of the two: the nineteenth-century bridge and the modern buildings around the water.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the waxworks history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places or represents the people who run them.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
