Coast Australia (2013–2017): Season 1, Episode 2 - Sydney - full transcript
NEIL OLIVER: Coast is on
its biggest expedition ever.
After traversing the coastline of
Britain and Europe for eight years,
I've arrived for the first time
in Australia.
What a place!
I'm on an epic journey in a land
so defined by its ancient,
sculpted coastline.
It's a coastline that's blessed with
outrageously beautiful
natural wonders.
Unearthing stories of a people
hewn from isolation,
resourcefulness and the extremes
of climate and scale.
In all my travels,
this is some of the wildest,
most edge-of-the-world-feeling
coastline I think I've ever seen.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
When the first fleet rounded that
headland in the January of 1788,
life for the Aboriginal people
already living here
would never be the same again,
and for the convicts
aboard the ships,
this was supposed
to be a life sentence.
Sydney is a modern city
with an ancient heartbeat.
It's been window-dressed
to perfection.
The birth of a whole nation
is wrapped around
these cliffs and coves.
But all her brash beauty,
this harbour is a place
of immense complexity and surprise.
In this episode,
Anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett
discovers some ingenious
colonial DIY.
- XANTHE MALLETT: Oh! Hey!
- GARY: There you go.
XANTHE: Look at that!
NEIL: Palaeontologist
Professor Tim Flannery
solves a 200-year-old
geomorphic mystery.
And it's flooded Sydney Harbour
and this is what we've got,
this is the story!
NEIL: Marine ecologist
Dr Emma Johnston
tries finding Nemo.
Brendan Moar traces the stories
behind Australia's
most iconic landmark.
So two halves coming together
from opposite sides of the harbour.
How close were they?
Were they spot on?
NEIL: And I discover how a battle
played out in this tranquil harbour.
I thought it was incredible
that a submarine would be there.
This is Coast. Your Coast.
Australia.
NEIL: In this episode,
we travel from Botany Bay,
up the coast to South Head,
deep into the harbour at Balmain
and around to North Head.
The story of Australia as it is today
begins right here in Botany Bay.
I'm about to go on one of
the most significant coastal journeys
in all of modern Australian history.
It's a tale of risk,
chance and ultimate reward.
Hi, Rowan.
Rowan Brownette
is an avid history buff.
He's also the Chief Pilot here
on Botany Bay.
- Permission to come aboard?
- ROWAN: Welcome aboard.
Thank you.
[LAUGHS]
NEIL: We're setting off
on a sea-route that's been
almost continuously in use
since the British first arrived.
How long has there been
a pilot service here?
We have had a pilot service
in Sydney in Port Botany
since 1796.
A very proud service here.
NEIL:
Botany Bay is all about shipping.
It's the bustling port for Sydney,
12 nautical miles to the north.
Originally, there were quite
different plans for Botany Bay.
Certainly when Captain James Cook
put in here in 1770.
- So this is Cook's buoy.
- Okay, right.
This is as close as we can work out
where Captain Cook
actually dropped his anchor.
- Right. So right here, on this spot.
- In 1770.
NEIL: What do you think
a mariner like Cook
would've made of Botany Bay
when he saw it in 1770?
Well, upon entering here,
it was a big, wide-open bay.
It was sheltered waters
something he hadn't seen for months.
NEIL: Cook anchors here
while the scientists go ashore.
After 10 days
of mapping and exploration,
he sets sail to head North.
It's late afternoon.
The light's against him.
And that's the exact moment
he spots an inlet
and names it Port Jackson
and sails on.
Big mistake,
because look what he missed!
A great harbour.
All he did was spot the opening.
ROWAN: Spotted it, and named it.
- NEIL: What an oversight!
- Yeah, what an oversight, yeah.
NEIL: 18 years later,
Governor Arthur Phillip arrived
in Botany Bay with the First Fleet,
and orders to set up
a penal colony here.
Fast forward to 1788,
how does Botany Bay...
strike Phillip?
Well, it's a completely
different place,
it's during the hottest time
of the year,
you have little water,
not a lot of rain.
Is that why
he contemplates reconnaissance
and, you know,
exploration further north?
Yes, because he had Cook's journals
and he knew that Cook
had found a port
12 nautical miles
to the North of here
which was called Port Jackson.
NEIL: Phillip had everything to lose.
His orders were to stay put
but he couldn't afford to.
Survival was at stake.
Add to that, the French were also
dangerously close.
Phillip set off for Port Jackson
in three rowing boats
on what would be one of the most
momentous journeys
in Australian history.
After the disappointment
of Botany Bay,
I can well imagine
Phillip's excitement
as this spectacular, shimmering inlet
gradually revealed itself.
It must have been breath-taking!
He's just discovered
what I have to say
is one of the most dazzling harbours
in the world.
Not a bad find!
NEIL: The colony had been established
here in the harbour,
but one vexing problem remained.
Back in England, no-one knew
that Phillip had moved camp.
And that's where this place,
South Head
and the old signal station,
becomes a key player in this story.
Local historian Peter Poland
is the go-to man about that.
What is
the significance of this?
Well Neil, this place
is in fact one of the most
significant sites in Australia.
Phillip comes up here
in three little boats.
Finds the cove. But of course,
they've got a problem.
Nobody in England knows anything
about Sydney Harbour.
Right, so they've now
effectively disappeared
- off the face of the earth.
- They've disappeared. So ships...
coming to Botany Bay...
Where are they? They've been
eaten, you know? Goodness knows.
NEIL: So a flag pole was dug in
to ensure that ships far and wide
could see exactly where they were
and deliver the much-needed supplies.
PETER: There's been a flagstaff
up here for 223 years.
This site
has been continuously manned
since the 20th of January 1790.
All ships, all ships.
This is Marine Rescue Port Jackson,
Marine Rescue Port Jackson, with
the forecast for Sydney coastal...
PETER: I doubt if there are very
many places in the world
where you could say, "This site
has been continuously manned."
So it's this place here that mattered
to the lives in Sydney Harbour?
Oh, this was crucial,
absolutely crucial.
NEIL: From the earliest days,
this signal station was
the first point of contact
with the outside world
for the early settlers.
Imagine the thrill
when the flag went up.
Ships on the horizon
with news of home!
And eventually,
the supply ships arrived just here,
just off the coast.
But fortunately for all concerned,
they didn't stop there.
They kept on coming up the coast...
until they could take this very
inviting left-hand turn...
Which finally brought them into
contact with the good folk of Sydney
and from that moment, the fate
of the settlement was sealed,
all based around this spectacular
and hidden harbour
that's now home
to almost five million people.
With the colony established,
next came the job
of building a great city.
But from what?
Anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett
discovers that the new locals
had a knack for innovation.
XANTHE: Sydney,
a wonderland of glass and steel.
But of course, 200 years ago,
the plan was for a settlement
of bricks and mortar.
But soon after the First Fleet
arrived in Sydney Cove
in January 1788, a major gap appeared
in the supply chain for building.
In a word, lime.
You need lime to make mortar and that
generally comes from limestone.
But Sydney didn't have any limestone.
A solution was needed, and fast,
if the city was to grow...
But where to find it?
Looking for answers,
I'm traveling to Goat Island,
the largest island in Sydney Harbour,
to meet Jacqui Goddard,
a heritage expert
at Sydney's Lime Forum.
So what have we actually got here?
What we have here is, very basically,
we've got some sand and some water.
But what we're missing,
is a good source of calcium carbonate
which is the basic form of the lime
that we would then use
to make the mortar.
- So, where would I find that?
- Um...
The most common source
of calcium carbonate
in Sydney Harbour itself is shell,
mainly oyster shell
and a good source
of that is, in fact,
at Cockle Bay, traditionally,
and even now, because now, Cockle Bay
is full of really good restaurants.
XANTHE: Traditional
Aboriginal feeding grounds
provided a ready supply.
Heaps of discarded shells,
or middens,
piled up over thousands of years.
Oysters were a staple
for Indigenous Australians, here.
Most people have never
seen a midden now,
but when Philip
and his cohort arrived,
the Sydney foreshore would have
been dotted with them
from Lane Cove, in the West, to here,
at Cockle Bay. That's the name.
Back then,
such was the demand to build,
that the shell was more valuable
than the meat.
So, who was eating oysters?
Hello. Jacqui?
I'll ask colonial gastronomer
Jacqui Newling
from Sydney Living Museums.
Oh, and look what you've
brought with you!
Okay, let's have a look
at one of these little delicacies.
JACQUI NEWLING: Here we go.
XANTHE: Yum.
JACQUI N: When the Europeans
came here to settle,
fresh food
was very important to them,
because they could really only bring
what they called "salt provisions".
So, salt pork,
flour to make bread,
that kind of thing.
They had to supplement their diet
with the local produce,
- and that included shellfish.
- Just wealthy people, or everybody?
That's what I love about oysters,
they cut across all classes.
So, you have the Toffs sitting on
the hill there in their fine houses,
but you also had the convicts
and very poor people
literally gouging them off
the rocks themselves.
We know that the convicts
were eating them.
For example in Hyde Park Barracks,
we found oyster shells as part
of the archaeology of that building,
hidden underneath the floorboards.
Well, I have my modern-day midden.
I'm taking that with me for my
experiment. Thank you very much.
- Well, good luck with it!
- Thank you.
XANTHE: I'm following up Jacqui's
mention of Hyde Park Barracks,
which are located at the end
of Macquarie Street,
Sydney's grand old sandstone canyon.
And if we look in the wall
of Hyde Park Barracks,
which was built in 1819,
we can actually see
some of the shells in the mortar.
Here, for example, we've got
a little bit of cockle shell,
and here,
we've got a bit of oyster shell.
This is a combination
of ancient Aboriginal middens
and convict labour
from 200 years ago.
It's extraordinary!
Back to Goat Island,
and our experiment
on how the humble oyster shell
is turned into mortar.
JACQUI GODDARD:
And here we are.
This is where we're going
to burn these shells of yours.
So we now have
everything we need then?
JACQUI G: We do indeed.
XANTHE: Back then, a kiln would burn
for up to three days
at about 800 degrees
to break down the shell's
calcium carbonate to calcium oxide.
Get this burner up.
XANTHE: To speed that up,
Gary Waller,
a heritage building expert,
is using a butane torch.
GARY WALLER: We can just leave that
for about ten to 15 minutes.
It's perfectly possible
to produce lime mortar in this way,
but you'd have to do it
a shell at a time.
[ALL LAUGHING]
- Not the best way to build a house!
- Not the best way to build a house.
GARY: We'll just leave that
until the oyster glows orange.
Well, that looks about right, now.
So, I'll just...
take it out and let it cool down.
Got some clean water in the bucket.
See if we get a reaction.
There you go, it's flaking.
It's bringing itself
to the boil basically.
So that'll turn into a putty,
which we use in the building mortar.
XANTHE: I don't know why,
but I did not expect it
- to actually to dissolve like that!
- [GARY LAUGHS]
- XANTHE: That's amazing. Just water?
- GARY: Just water.
JACQUI G: And then,
we mix it with the sand.
Then it will set in the air.
- XANTHE: The moment of truth.
- JACQUI G: Yes.
XANTHE: How long do we need
to leave that, now, for that to set?
JACQUI G:
Probably leave that for about a week.
XANTHE: Will it stick
if I lift that up now?
GARY: You can try.
- XANTHE: Oh! Hey!
- GARY: Well, there you go.
XANTHE: Look at that!
City built on blood, sweat, tears
of convicts and oyster shells.
That's right.
- There you go.
- Fantastic!
NEIL: This harbour is a safe haven.
Plenty of calm waters
and hidden coves.
It has been Sydney's
greatest strength,
but also her greatest weakness.
And it was this weakness
that would ultimately lead
to one of the most daring attacks
of the Second World War...
and the loss
of many Australian lives.
The attack left
Sydneysiders stunned.
Suddenly, this far-away war
was right on their doorstep.
I want to know how the enemy was able
to penetrate such a protected port
and to claim
so many unsuspecting victims.
My journey begins at Dawes Point.
This is where the first fort
of Sydney Harbour was built in 1791.
Hugely strategic,
because this is the narrowest point
of the harbour,
with its clear line of sight
to the Heads.
As the colony grew,
so did threats from the outside.
First from the Spanish,
then the French, then the Russians.
So, more forts were built
over the next hundred years.
Here, on the northern side
of the harbour, was an integral part
of the command post
for Sydney's defence network.
It was called
the George's Head Battery.
As part of the outer line of defence,
it was designed
to intercept enemy ships
before they could
infiltrate the harbour.
It took four months and 250 soldiers
to laboriously manoeuvre
the enormous guns
along a rough track
called Military Road.
BOB CLARK: So, this is our entry
into the gun pit.
NEIL: I'm being shown
through the labyrinth of tunnels
by heritage expert, Bob Clark.
BOB: You get lost incredibly easily.
NEIL: It's cut out
of solid sandstone, and by the 1890s,
George's Head was the command centre
for all 41 gun emplacements
around the harbour
and minefields in the water below.
NEIL: This form of fortress Sydney...
Was it used in anger?
Did it see any action?
This site never fired either a shot
or a mine in anger.
NEIL:
But that was never going to last,
not with the advances
in submarine technology.
Sydney harbour was about
to become more vulnerable than ever.
I suppose, in fact,
the sheer scale of the harbour
presents such a struggle
to defend it.
Yes, that's right, that's right.
It's just a nightmare
to look after this place.
- [LAUGHS]
- It's one headache after another.
It's just lucky nobody really came
until 1942! [LAUGHS]
NEIL: It seemed like every time
a new line of defence
was established,
a new threat emerged.
Fast forward to 1942,
the halfway mark in World War II,
and Japan is now a serious threat
in the Pacific.
The Japanese were expert submariners,
so Sydney had to be protected.
But these huge gun placements
up on the cliffs and headlands
were outmoded.
They were helpless
in the face of submarines
just slipping unnoticed
into the harbour.
What was needed,
in effect, was a great big net.
Steven, tell me about the boom
and how it operated?
NEIL: Historian Steven Carruthers
knows more about it than most.
STEVEN CARRUTHERS: A boom
stretched across the harbour
from that point of land
you can see in the distance.
That was where the net was placed,
a permanent net.
It wasn't a net that could be moved.
It was permanently
fixed to the bottom.
So there was no way
they could actually nose under.
NEIL: But on the night
of May 31st 1942,
the net was incomplete.
Gates on either side were open,
and that's how three Japanese
mini-subs slipped into the harbour.
STEVEN: The first one got in
around about eight o'clock.
He came in through the gate here.
He finished up backing into the net.
We suspect that he actually collided
with that navigation marker.
- So he's out of action.
- He's out of action.
He's lays quiet for about two hours
before a fiery red-headed Scotsman
by the name of James Cargill
saw something suspicious in the net.
NEIL: He raised the alarm,
but at first, no-one believed him.
By the time they did, the trapped
Japanese two-man crew aboard M-14
had scuttled their craft
and killed themselves.
So, one sub down,
but two more were still out there.
Somewhere.
And one of them was dead on target.
STEVEN: He made his way
all the way up to Naval Anchorage.
He circled the Fort Denison twice,
and then he took aim at Chicago.
Fired both his two torpedoes,
the first one past the stern
of the Chicago.
NEIL:
M-24's second torpedo also missed
but sank a converted ferry,
the HMAS Kuttabul,
with sleeping soldiers aboard.
21 were killed.
But what if?
What if the American cruiser
USS Chicago had been hit instead?
STEVEN: The main worry
would've been the aviation fuel.
The ammunition would've made
a big enough bang,
but certainly, the aviation fuel
could've set off a chain reaction.
There were other capital ships
nearby, heavy cruisers
that were also laden
with aviation fuel.
NEIL:
Eyewitnesses are still alive.
I'm meeting Margaret Hamilton.
She was just 17 at the time
and had a ring-side seat.
MARGARET HAMILTON:
The force of the blast
sort of pushed the house,
and then came back.
NEIL: Gosh, so the house was actually
rocked back by the force?
The house was pushed.
It just went whoosh, like that,
and back.
And then the force of it coming back,
tossed my brother out of bed.
So this is the 31st of May 1942,
right here.
I could see tracer bullets
coming down the harbour this way.
So, I mean, Chicago was not
that far away
over in that direction.
You could hear them saying,
"Ready, aim, fire!"
[CHUCKLES]
So you could hear all that?
I think the wind was coming
from there and it carried the noise.
To see tracer bullets going down
the harbour was,
you know, a bit weird.
[EXPLODING]
NEIL: Gunfire, explosions,
the last mini-sub, M-21,
was being chased down
and, in desperation,
it pulled into Taylor's Bay,
right outside Margaret's house.
And I was looking down here,
and I saw a periscope.
[NEIL CHUCKLES]
I thought it can't be anyone
swimming at this time.
Did you realise
what you were looking at?
- You knew it was the periscope--
- I knew it was a periscope
and it came in,
and came in and came in
and I thought it would go aground.
- So right in here.
- MARGARET: Right in, down here.
And I thought it was incredible
that a submarine would be there.
- NEIL: Uh-huh.
- I just thought,
"Am I really seeing things, or what?"
NEIL: Both M-14 and M-21
were salvaged the next day,
both crews having committed suicide.
But M-24, the sub
that sank the Kuttabul, disappeared.
Her whereabouts a mystery
for the next 60 years,
before divers found the wreck
deep off Sydney's northern beaches.
The crew died onboard.
MARGARET: The whole thing,
for a young girl, was exciting.
For me, it was...
It was so interesting.
It was a one-off, you might say.
NEIL: When the attack was over,
the people of Sydney
gave the Japanese submariners
a funeral with full military honours.
And for many years,
Japanese nationals would come here
and spread chrysanthemums
on the water
to remember all the lives lost
when war came to Sydney.
[BUGLE CALL PLAYS]
NEIL: From the recent past,
we're journeying
to the farthest recesses of history
and the story
of Sydney Harbour itself.
What of those defining
sandstone cliffs that embrace it?
How were they formed?
How did the Harbour come about?
There's a great mystery to this place
and palaeontologist Professor
Tim Flannery is going to unravel it.
When Governor Phillip entered
Sydney Harbour, here,
over 200 years ago,
he was expecting to find a massive
river feeding into this harbour.
It looks like the estuary
of a very large river indeed.
But he found nothing of the sort.
TIM FLANNERY: It turns out
that Phillip was thousands of years
too late. The river
was long gone. But why?
It's an intriguing puzzle
that dates back 300 million years.
But in order to get the big picture
about how the harbour formed,
we need to resort to a cake,
believe it or not.
A cake representing the ancient
super-continent of Gondwana.
It really comprises three pieces.
The part that would
to become New Zealand,
the part that was to become
Antarctica, off to the South,
and here's Australia.
Let's mark Sydney in there.
And an enormous river,
a river the likes of which just
doesn't exist on the planet today,
started to flow
from the Trans-Antarctic mountains
along the East Coast of Australia
and through the Sydney Basin.
Soon after that, this great
super-continent began to break up.
New Zealand began to drift off
to the East,
but Australia began moving north,
at a cracking pace
for a lump of rock,
to come to rest where it is today.
That's the story of Gondwana,
told by cake.
I'm meeting a mate of mine,
Professor Bruce Thom.
He's an expert in coastal geology.
So, Bruce, what evidence
do you see here
for this ancient river system
that came from Antarctica?
Tim, if you look at the rocks,
the rocks give you the story.
And down here, we see the layers.
And particularly, we see the layers
of what we call cross-bedding.
These are the layers of sand
that were laid down
as great big sand-waves
as the river flowed
towards the North East,
and then built itself up like a cake,
like the cake was getting layered up.
TIM: The stratified sandstone cliffs
that define Sydney Harbour today
are formed by layer upon layer
of hard quartz sand,
washed down from the Antarctic
by that mighty river.
Not that Governor Phillip
was to know that, back in the day.
Phillip pulled into idyllic Camp Cove
here, in 1788.
He needed to find a ready source
of freshwater, desperately.
But what he did find, Tim,
but trickles!
- TIM: Creeks you might call them.
- Yeah, creeks.
The little trickles of water,
and that, one of them, he selected,
and that became the base for
the first settlement of Australia.
Right, but he never found that river.
No, he never did.
The best was creeks,
but he found something better
than he had in Botany Bay,
so he decided to move.
TIM: It didn't make sense to Phillip.
He could see that three waterways
fed into the harbour,
the Parramatta River,
Lane Cove River and Middle Harbour.
But Phillip was expecting
something much bigger.
Where was a Danube or an Amazon?
To answer that, Bruce has brought
his sandpit to time-travel back
to the way the land used to look.
So, this is the continental shelf?
BRUCE: This is
the continental shelf, here,
and this is the continental slope.
And the continental shelf goes up
and comes up
towards the present shoreline,
and then rises up into the area
which is now the catchments
that feed into Sydney Harbour.
These three rivers
that are coming down like so,
and they join together,
forming a river valley.
This system drained right out
onto the continental shelf
when sea levels were much lower.
TIM: All right, so a river system
that over millions of years
carved out the shape of the harbour
as we see it today.
But by around 20,000 years ago,
everything was about to change.
The ice is melting.
The sea is rising.
BRUCE: The sea starts to rise.
TIM: Post-Ice Age,
sea levels were on the rise.
BRUCE: This whole channel
that was carved out
millions of years ago and re-carved
when the sea level was lower,
that valley has now been
flooded by the sea.
- Yes.
- The remnants of it
can still be found. But of course,
now, the sea has risen,
and by 6,000 years ago,
it's right up there,
and it's flooded Sydney Harbour,
and this is what we've got.
- TIM: Yes.
- This is the story.
Here it all is before you.
TIM: From the moment
Europeans saw this harbour,
they've been enchanted by its beauty.
But had they known
what Bruce has just told me
about its geological history, I think
they would've been astonished!
The sand here, coming all the way
from the Transantarctic mountains,
the ice sheets of Europe
and North America
melting and flooding this valley,
drowning the mystery river
of Sydney harbour.
It's a symphony of geological action
that involves the entire planet.
And what it's done is created
what I think
is the most beautiful harbour
on Earth.
Right then, wish me luck.
I'm chancing my arm
on what is surely
one of the most breath-taking
golf courses in the world,
and that's saying something
from a patriotic Scotsman!
[EXCLAIMS]
Oh, well, it left the ground.
But what also makes
the Bondi course so special,
so dramatic,
is its link to the distant past,
and the indigenous Australians
who settled around this harbour
as early as 20,000 years ago.
Look at these!
Rock engravings like these ones...
Now, they were made
by Aboriginal people,
and they're all over the Sydney area.
And they're just beautiful.
There's all kinds going on here,
all kinds of sea life,
with dolphins, sharks, fish.
And there are also the outlines
of the people who hunted them.
Look at this one!
Sort of life-sized, almost.
A big dorsal fin
and the head and the mouth.
It's always difficult to put an age,
you know, a date
on artwork like this,
but we can at least say
that these things speak of people
who understood this coastline,
respected it, loved it
and also understood the life
that was out in the ocean beyond.
NEIL: As much as anything else,
for Australians,
the Sydney Harbour Bridge says,
"This is us."
As Brendan Moar discovers,
this gigantic Meccano set
speaks to the very heart
of the Australian identity.
BRENDAN MOAR: It's humbling.
The size and strength.
And sense of permanence.
Like it's always been there.
But the way it looks today
was never a given.
Had history taken another course
this view would've
been very different.
From the 1850s
through to the turn of the century,
all manner of suspension
and cantilevered designs
were considered.
How's this?
Or this one,
from a couple of years later?
Finally, a steel arch design
was settled on
by chief engineer Dr John Bradfield.
And I'm meeting his grandson, Jim.
- JIM BRADFIELD: Hey Brendan.
- BRENDAN: G'day, Jim.
What sort of man
was your grandfather?
JIM: He was a man of great vision,
but probably, even more,
a man of great passion.
He was passionate about the bridge.
He was passionate about Sydney.
He was sure
that it had to be a grand bridge.
It just couldn't be a simple bridge,
it had to be grand.
- BRENDAN: Was he a grand man himself?
- JIM: Well, he sort of was,
but he was small in stature.
He was quite a short man
but he had a very large head,
which I think was part of his...
The brains were all in there,
you know?
BRENDAN: In 1923, work began
on the massive foundations
and columns.
Sydney was abuzz.
But getting barely a second thought
were whole communities
that had to make way for it.
The majority of those
were over here on the north shore,
and I've come to find out more about
these forgotten victims of progress.
I'm in North Sydney,
meeting historian lan Hoskins.
Back in the day it was all housing,
streets going here and there,
and cheek-by-jowl terraced housing.
This was the first area
settled on the north side.
It would've been
a mix of working class
and more substantial middle class.
BRENDAN: Whole neighbourhoods
were marked red for demolition.
By the end of 1925,
some 500 houses
and around 2,000 people were gone.
It was bad news for everyone.
If you owned the property,
you at least got compensation
for the value of the land
and the value of the building.
Most people here, however, rented,
so they didn't get
any compensation at all.
BRENDAN: Most Sydneysiders
though, were utterly focused
on the two mighty half-arches
creeping towards each other.
It's a lot to take in.
Five million rivets,
53,000 tons of steel,
assembled with hardly a nod
to health and safety.
These days being on the bridge
is a very safely controlled affair.
I am firmly attached to the bridge.
But back in the day,
when the bridge was being built,
it could not have been
more different.
No harnesses, no helmets,
and just lucky
to have a job in the Depression era.
NARRATOR: One thousand men
were employed.
All doubts whether Australians
were equal to the task
were soon dispelled.
BRENDAN: Sixteen men died,
six of them falling to their deaths.
Despite that, in August 1930,
both sides met
with absolute precision.
NARRATOR: Dr Bradfield,
the chief engineer for the bridge,
and Mr Innis
anxiously inspect the joins.
BRENDAN: I'm 134 meters up
with modern day engineer
James Reynolds.
So, two halves coming together
from opposite sides of the harbour...
How close were they?
Were they spot on?
Well, it's surprising and without
computers, it was an amazing feat.
They were only 13 mm apart,
so, you know, smaller than
your pinkie finger in alignment
when they actually came together.
So, an incredible feat
of engineering.
BRENDAN:
The bridge was finally ready
for the grand opening in March 1932.
NARRATOR:
The dream was realised at last.
Sydney rightly claims
the greatest and heaviest
arch-type bridge in the world.
BRENDAN: You know, this is more than
a bridge. It's more than a landmark.
Because as much as anything,
this a symbol
of what Sydneysiders could do
in truly testing times.
NEIL: Not far
from the bridge in Balmain
is another Sydney institution.
Built 130 years ago,
the Dawn Fraser Baths are a haven
for some very fortunate ex-wharfies.
Still doing it hard every morning.
MAN 1: To be in a city of Balmain,
spend your retirement days
down on the water...
What could be better?
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
That one! Get in that one into you.
MAN 2: We're all retired blokes.
We had our childhood down here
and we've all congregated here
on our retirement.
I enjoy their company. You know,
they're generous and everything.
They're all about me.
Take the milk out of your tea
they would.
The boys play cards.
I do crosswords, read the paper.
You know, it's just a... Beats work.
[LAUGHS]
You get out of the house
and get away from your missus.
It's a well-spent
four hours every day.
MAN 3: It's actually the oldest
tidal pool in Australia.
That means the water comes
in and out. Flows on the tide.
- DENIS: Surfs up!
- MAN 4: Where's that board, Denis?
Get me my board, the surf's up.
MAN 3: The fish come and go
at their own pleasure.
We got stingrays, numrays in here
that swim with us.
MAN 1: This pool, it's been part of
my family's culture
spanning 60 years.
It was a meeting place
for all the families in Balmain.
The benefits,
mentally and physically...
It keeps me alive, actually.
And it gets me
out of the house and...
Another day in paradise.
NEIL: But in the early days,
the good life was out of reach
for many of the less fortunate
new arrivals.
If there was one thing
the young colony feared,
it was disease.
Reeking convict hulks
would arrive overloaded
not just with convicts
and new settlers,
but also with typhoid, cholera,
bubonic plague
and, in the early days, smallpox.
I'm off to find out
how they dealt with that.
Before the age of modern medicine,
the only known way
of protecting communities
from the outbreak of infectious
diseases was to isolate sufferers.
I'm heading to the quarantine station
on North Head
on the northern side of the harbour.
It's also at the quarantine station
that we'll unearth an amazing story
of a rebellious mass escape
by 900 Australian soldiers
freshly returned
from the First World War.
What a place to be quarantined!
It feels more like Club Med
or Saint-Tropez.
But with a difference.
In fact, this was
a 32-hectare prison,
complete with security fences,
armed guards and guard dogs.
There was to be no escape.
Or was there?
Convicts with smallpox
were first put here in 1828.
Over the next hundred years,
13,000 people were processed,
but of them,
600, sadly, would never leave.
It became a microcosm
of the passenger liner class system,
the most luxurious accommodation,
naturally, reserved for first class.
But it must have been a galling sight
for freshly arriving
Australian soldiers
in February 1919.
After they disembarked,
they saw a bunch of jolly old chaps
enjoying a game of cricket
on this very walkway.
But in stark contrast,
and despite being war heroes,
they were given tents and Billie cans
and dispatched into the bush.
After four years
of mud and misery,
you can imagine how they felt.
Home just across the water
and here they were,
dispatched into the bush.
No facilities
and snakes by the dozen.
Something had to give.
After just two days,
there was a full-scale revolt.
All 900 soldiers marched
to confront 140 armed police guards
at the perimeter fence.
They were demanding their freedom.
And the police, fearing
that any attempt to resist them
would lead to slaughter,
let them go.
Next, they were ferried
en masse into Sydney.
Despite fears that they might spread
the deadly Spanish flu virus...
locals greeted them in stony silence,
while the authorities scrambled
to find somewhere to quarantine them.
And I just love what happened next.
It was a truly Australian answer
to the problem.
The government and the health
authorities held crisis talks.
What was to be done
with the recalcitrant soldiers?
What was the solution?
Well, the answer is,
it was decided
the soldiers would serve
the rest of the quarantine
in the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Oh, yes, they did.
I should add,
there was no game on at the time.
After four days
at the cricket ground,
they were released
with no sign of illness
and later joined
rousing victory celebrations.
[CROWD CHEERS AND APPLAUDS]
NEIL: I'm off along the coastal walk
to the surfing Mecca
of Bondi Beach.
On Bondi Beach,
Sunday the 6th of February 1938
is remembered as Black Sunday.
And on that day, there were hundreds
of people in the water, as usual,
but over the course
of just five or six seconds,
three freak waves hit the beach,
almost simultaneously
and 300 people were pulled out
all the way out here into deep water.
One onlooker
who witnessed the event said,
"All at once the waves came crashing,
and three seconds later,
hands went up everywhere."
Now the hands were up,
calling for help.
And as sheer good luck would have it,
there were 70 lifeguards
on the beach that day
for a training exercise.
And so they were able to launch
an instantaneous,
mass rescue operation.
And of the 300 people
who went into the water,
all but five were pulled out alive.
Yet more testament
to the bravery of the men and women
who safeguard life at sea.
As the marine centrepiece
of a busy city,
you'd expect Sydney Harbour
to be a challenging environment
for its underwater life.
But marine ecologist
Dr Emma Johnston
also knows its strengths.
It's a surprising harbour
that boasts twice
as many fish species
as the entire United Kingdom.
EMMA JOHNSTON: This is my backyard.
It's my home and it's where I work.
I've spent my career investigating
the resilience of this harbour
to all of the challenges that a big
city can throw at a waterway.
Resilient,
and in a constant state of flux.
At Collins Beach
on the north side of the harbour,
I'm joining Professor David Booth
and his researcher,
who are monitoring some newcomers
to these temperate waters.
So, Dave what are we
gonna be looking for this morning?
Well, we're looking for some little
jewels called tropical reef fish
that have come down the coast,
probably from the southern
Great Barrier Reef,
over 2,000 kilometres,
and every summer, these little guys
sort of grace our harbour
and sights down in this direction.
EMMA: Soon, flashes of orange
and electric blue
reveal the identity
of several species of new arrivals
to these now warmer waters
of Sydney Harbour.
They travel down
on the East Australian Current,
which acts
like a marine superhighway,
carrying huge volumes
of water and fish
from the Coral Sea to Sydney
and further south.
- Let's have a look.
- And here we have them.
Oh, it's so beautiful.
So, we've got a nice array
of butterfly fish, there.
- EMMA: Look at that.
- DAVID: The bottom corner,
a little neon damsel,
and a couple of different species
of sergeant major.
We've seen a build-up in numbers
of this little guy, here.
He's probably come in
in the last week.
There's thousands of them, there.
And they weren't there last week.
EMMA: Sydney Harbour is one
of the most biologically diverse
estuaries in the whole world.
One of the major reasons
for that great diversity
is a huge structural complexity
we get here.
And the massive range
of environmental conditions.
And we also get changes
in circulation
depending on where you are,
changes in salinity,
changes in light.
All of these things
support a great diversity of habitats
and a great diversity
of biological organisms.
Which makes for a unique
and resilient harbour
that still surprises
with its hidden beauty.
There is an enormous
blue groper, and it's beautiful.
Look, it's eating the sponge
on the rock.
I'd say it's about a meter long.
Look at this bizarre-looking
underwater garden.
Sea squirts, sponges, barnacles...
and a huge number of animals
that live in and amongst these.
This is why Sydney Harbour
is so diverse,
because we've got places like this
that are virtually untouched
by the massive city above us.
NEIL: And now, I'm going topside
to the leafy eastern suburbs
for a taste of the high-life,
the way it used to be done.
This was Australia's
first international airport,
right here in Rose Bay.
And there were no terminal buildings.
There wasn't even a runway.
Instead, a little ferry used to take
passengers out to the flying boats.
Before the war, they were
a symbol of luxury and modernity,
at a time when international travel
was more about the journey
than the destination.
Spacious cabins, silver service
and Sydney to London in ten days!
The new Qantas imperial flying boats
were aviation marvels,
taking first class mail
and first class passengers
to the farthest outposts
of the Empire.
What must it have been like?
I'm taking a spin with pilot
Andy Gross.
NEIL: Hi, Andy.
- They only carried 17 passengers.
- Okay.
So... And it was a service
just for the high and wealthy.
You know, it cost an average salary
to take the trip from here to London.
What, like a year's salary?
Yeah, for the average
working diggers.
NEIL: Three flights a week
and luxury. Oh, yes!
Even an onboard putting green!
It's just a touch different
in Andy's wee plane.
Fantastic. [LAUGHS]
But it's just as exciting.
[ENGINE SPLUTTERS]
NEIL: This is real
seat-of-the pants flying.
ANDY: All righty, off we go.
NEIL: Back in the day,
the next stop was Darwin
then Surabaya,
a crew change in Singapore,
then on to Bangkok, Calcutta,
Karachi, Basra, Athens
and finally, England, ten days later.
ANDY: This is exactly
how the trip to London would start.
NEIL: The take-off is so smooth.
There's no sensation
of leaving the water at all.
This sparkling harbour
continues to define Sydney
despite all the challenges
of the past two centuries.
Resilient, defiant, diverse
and surely, as Governor Phillip said,
"The finest harbour in the world".
I've got a lot more of it to see...
I think I've done Sydney now,
so that just leaves 59,000 kilometres
of coastline to go!
Can you turn right, Andy?
[AEROPLANE ROARING]
NEIL: Next time, we're off to explore
the Great Barrier Reef.
Dr Emma Johnston discovers
a remarkable piece of technology
that could save
the world's coral reefs.
Brendan Moar uncovers the living
history of a hidden slave trade.
A lot of people are simply amazed
that this actually happened
in Queensland.
NEIL: Dr Xanthe Mallet hunts
for a ship that vanished
without a trace.
XANTHE: Why did the ship go down?
NEIL: And I try navigating
with the Australian Navy.
I'm coming to the conclusion
that I may be blind in my right eye.
Yeah?
its biggest expedition ever.
After traversing the coastline of
Britain and Europe for eight years,
I've arrived for the first time
in Australia.
What a place!
I'm on an epic journey in a land
so defined by its ancient,
sculpted coastline.
It's a coastline that's blessed with
outrageously beautiful
natural wonders.
Unearthing stories of a people
hewn from isolation,
resourcefulness and the extremes
of climate and scale.
In all my travels,
this is some of the wildest,
most edge-of-the-world-feeling
coastline I think I've ever seen.
[HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
When the first fleet rounded that
headland in the January of 1788,
life for the Aboriginal people
already living here
would never be the same again,
and for the convicts
aboard the ships,
this was supposed
to be a life sentence.
Sydney is a modern city
with an ancient heartbeat.
It's been window-dressed
to perfection.
The birth of a whole nation
is wrapped around
these cliffs and coves.
But all her brash beauty,
this harbour is a place
of immense complexity and surprise.
In this episode,
Anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett
discovers some ingenious
colonial DIY.
- XANTHE MALLETT: Oh! Hey!
- GARY: There you go.
XANTHE: Look at that!
NEIL: Palaeontologist
Professor Tim Flannery
solves a 200-year-old
geomorphic mystery.
And it's flooded Sydney Harbour
and this is what we've got,
this is the story!
NEIL: Marine ecologist
Dr Emma Johnston
tries finding Nemo.
Brendan Moar traces the stories
behind Australia's
most iconic landmark.
So two halves coming together
from opposite sides of the harbour.
How close were they?
Were they spot on?
NEIL: And I discover how a battle
played out in this tranquil harbour.
I thought it was incredible
that a submarine would be there.
This is Coast. Your Coast.
Australia.
NEIL: In this episode,
we travel from Botany Bay,
up the coast to South Head,
deep into the harbour at Balmain
and around to North Head.
The story of Australia as it is today
begins right here in Botany Bay.
I'm about to go on one of
the most significant coastal journeys
in all of modern Australian history.
It's a tale of risk,
chance and ultimate reward.
Hi, Rowan.
Rowan Brownette
is an avid history buff.
He's also the Chief Pilot here
on Botany Bay.
- Permission to come aboard?
- ROWAN: Welcome aboard.
Thank you.
[LAUGHS]
NEIL: We're setting off
on a sea-route that's been
almost continuously in use
since the British first arrived.
How long has there been
a pilot service here?
We have had a pilot service
in Sydney in Port Botany
since 1796.
A very proud service here.
NEIL:
Botany Bay is all about shipping.
It's the bustling port for Sydney,
12 nautical miles to the north.
Originally, there were quite
different plans for Botany Bay.
Certainly when Captain James Cook
put in here in 1770.
- So this is Cook's buoy.
- Okay, right.
This is as close as we can work out
where Captain Cook
actually dropped his anchor.
- Right. So right here, on this spot.
- In 1770.
NEIL: What do you think
a mariner like Cook
would've made of Botany Bay
when he saw it in 1770?
Well, upon entering here,
it was a big, wide-open bay.
It was sheltered waters
something he hadn't seen for months.
NEIL: Cook anchors here
while the scientists go ashore.
After 10 days
of mapping and exploration,
he sets sail to head North.
It's late afternoon.
The light's against him.
And that's the exact moment
he spots an inlet
and names it Port Jackson
and sails on.
Big mistake,
because look what he missed!
A great harbour.
All he did was spot the opening.
ROWAN: Spotted it, and named it.
- NEIL: What an oversight!
- Yeah, what an oversight, yeah.
NEIL: 18 years later,
Governor Arthur Phillip arrived
in Botany Bay with the First Fleet,
and orders to set up
a penal colony here.
Fast forward to 1788,
how does Botany Bay...
strike Phillip?
Well, it's a completely
different place,
it's during the hottest time
of the year,
you have little water,
not a lot of rain.
Is that why
he contemplates reconnaissance
and, you know,
exploration further north?
Yes, because he had Cook's journals
and he knew that Cook
had found a port
12 nautical miles
to the North of here
which was called Port Jackson.
NEIL: Phillip had everything to lose.
His orders were to stay put
but he couldn't afford to.
Survival was at stake.
Add to that, the French were also
dangerously close.
Phillip set off for Port Jackson
in three rowing boats
on what would be one of the most
momentous journeys
in Australian history.
After the disappointment
of Botany Bay,
I can well imagine
Phillip's excitement
as this spectacular, shimmering inlet
gradually revealed itself.
It must have been breath-taking!
He's just discovered
what I have to say
is one of the most dazzling harbours
in the world.
Not a bad find!
NEIL: The colony had been established
here in the harbour,
but one vexing problem remained.
Back in England, no-one knew
that Phillip had moved camp.
And that's where this place,
South Head
and the old signal station,
becomes a key player in this story.
Local historian Peter Poland
is the go-to man about that.
What is
the significance of this?
Well Neil, this place
is in fact one of the most
significant sites in Australia.
Phillip comes up here
in three little boats.
Finds the cove. But of course,
they've got a problem.
Nobody in England knows anything
about Sydney Harbour.
Right, so they've now
effectively disappeared
- off the face of the earth.
- They've disappeared. So ships...
coming to Botany Bay...
Where are they? They've been
eaten, you know? Goodness knows.
NEIL: So a flag pole was dug in
to ensure that ships far and wide
could see exactly where they were
and deliver the much-needed supplies.
PETER: There's been a flagstaff
up here for 223 years.
This site
has been continuously manned
since the 20th of January 1790.
All ships, all ships.
This is Marine Rescue Port Jackson,
Marine Rescue Port Jackson, with
the forecast for Sydney coastal...
PETER: I doubt if there are very
many places in the world
where you could say, "This site
has been continuously manned."
So it's this place here that mattered
to the lives in Sydney Harbour?
Oh, this was crucial,
absolutely crucial.
NEIL: From the earliest days,
this signal station was
the first point of contact
with the outside world
for the early settlers.
Imagine the thrill
when the flag went up.
Ships on the horizon
with news of home!
And eventually,
the supply ships arrived just here,
just off the coast.
But fortunately for all concerned,
they didn't stop there.
They kept on coming up the coast...
until they could take this very
inviting left-hand turn...
Which finally brought them into
contact with the good folk of Sydney
and from that moment, the fate
of the settlement was sealed,
all based around this spectacular
and hidden harbour
that's now home
to almost five million people.
With the colony established,
next came the job
of building a great city.
But from what?
Anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett
discovers that the new locals
had a knack for innovation.
XANTHE: Sydney,
a wonderland of glass and steel.
But of course, 200 years ago,
the plan was for a settlement
of bricks and mortar.
But soon after the First Fleet
arrived in Sydney Cove
in January 1788, a major gap appeared
in the supply chain for building.
In a word, lime.
You need lime to make mortar and that
generally comes from limestone.
But Sydney didn't have any limestone.
A solution was needed, and fast,
if the city was to grow...
But where to find it?
Looking for answers,
I'm traveling to Goat Island,
the largest island in Sydney Harbour,
to meet Jacqui Goddard,
a heritage expert
at Sydney's Lime Forum.
So what have we actually got here?
What we have here is, very basically,
we've got some sand and some water.
But what we're missing,
is a good source of calcium carbonate
which is the basic form of the lime
that we would then use
to make the mortar.
- So, where would I find that?
- Um...
The most common source
of calcium carbonate
in Sydney Harbour itself is shell,
mainly oyster shell
and a good source
of that is, in fact,
at Cockle Bay, traditionally,
and even now, because now, Cockle Bay
is full of really good restaurants.
XANTHE: Traditional
Aboriginal feeding grounds
provided a ready supply.
Heaps of discarded shells,
or middens,
piled up over thousands of years.
Oysters were a staple
for Indigenous Australians, here.
Most people have never
seen a midden now,
but when Philip
and his cohort arrived,
the Sydney foreshore would have
been dotted with them
from Lane Cove, in the West, to here,
at Cockle Bay. That's the name.
Back then,
such was the demand to build,
that the shell was more valuable
than the meat.
So, who was eating oysters?
Hello. Jacqui?
I'll ask colonial gastronomer
Jacqui Newling
from Sydney Living Museums.
Oh, and look what you've
brought with you!
Okay, let's have a look
at one of these little delicacies.
JACQUI NEWLING: Here we go.
XANTHE: Yum.
JACQUI N: When the Europeans
came here to settle,
fresh food
was very important to them,
because they could really only bring
what they called "salt provisions".
So, salt pork,
flour to make bread,
that kind of thing.
They had to supplement their diet
with the local produce,
- and that included shellfish.
- Just wealthy people, or everybody?
That's what I love about oysters,
they cut across all classes.
So, you have the Toffs sitting on
the hill there in their fine houses,
but you also had the convicts
and very poor people
literally gouging them off
the rocks themselves.
We know that the convicts
were eating them.
For example in Hyde Park Barracks,
we found oyster shells as part
of the archaeology of that building,
hidden underneath the floorboards.
Well, I have my modern-day midden.
I'm taking that with me for my
experiment. Thank you very much.
- Well, good luck with it!
- Thank you.
XANTHE: I'm following up Jacqui's
mention of Hyde Park Barracks,
which are located at the end
of Macquarie Street,
Sydney's grand old sandstone canyon.
And if we look in the wall
of Hyde Park Barracks,
which was built in 1819,
we can actually see
some of the shells in the mortar.
Here, for example, we've got
a little bit of cockle shell,
and here,
we've got a bit of oyster shell.
This is a combination
of ancient Aboriginal middens
and convict labour
from 200 years ago.
It's extraordinary!
Back to Goat Island,
and our experiment
on how the humble oyster shell
is turned into mortar.
JACQUI GODDARD:
And here we are.
This is where we're going
to burn these shells of yours.
So we now have
everything we need then?
JACQUI G: We do indeed.
XANTHE: Back then, a kiln would burn
for up to three days
at about 800 degrees
to break down the shell's
calcium carbonate to calcium oxide.
Get this burner up.
XANTHE: To speed that up,
Gary Waller,
a heritage building expert,
is using a butane torch.
GARY WALLER: We can just leave that
for about ten to 15 minutes.
It's perfectly possible
to produce lime mortar in this way,
but you'd have to do it
a shell at a time.
[ALL LAUGHING]
- Not the best way to build a house!
- Not the best way to build a house.
GARY: We'll just leave that
until the oyster glows orange.
Well, that looks about right, now.
So, I'll just...
take it out and let it cool down.
Got some clean water in the bucket.
See if we get a reaction.
There you go, it's flaking.
It's bringing itself
to the boil basically.
So that'll turn into a putty,
which we use in the building mortar.
XANTHE: I don't know why,
but I did not expect it
- to actually to dissolve like that!
- [GARY LAUGHS]
- XANTHE: That's amazing. Just water?
- GARY: Just water.
JACQUI G: And then,
we mix it with the sand.
Then it will set in the air.
- XANTHE: The moment of truth.
- JACQUI G: Yes.
XANTHE: How long do we need
to leave that, now, for that to set?
JACQUI G:
Probably leave that for about a week.
XANTHE: Will it stick
if I lift that up now?
GARY: You can try.
- XANTHE: Oh! Hey!
- GARY: Well, there you go.
XANTHE: Look at that!
City built on blood, sweat, tears
of convicts and oyster shells.
That's right.
- There you go.
- Fantastic!
NEIL: This harbour is a safe haven.
Plenty of calm waters
and hidden coves.
It has been Sydney's
greatest strength,
but also her greatest weakness.
And it was this weakness
that would ultimately lead
to one of the most daring attacks
of the Second World War...
and the loss
of many Australian lives.
The attack left
Sydneysiders stunned.
Suddenly, this far-away war
was right on their doorstep.
I want to know how the enemy was able
to penetrate such a protected port
and to claim
so many unsuspecting victims.
My journey begins at Dawes Point.
This is where the first fort
of Sydney Harbour was built in 1791.
Hugely strategic,
because this is the narrowest point
of the harbour,
with its clear line of sight
to the Heads.
As the colony grew,
so did threats from the outside.
First from the Spanish,
then the French, then the Russians.
So, more forts were built
over the next hundred years.
Here, on the northern side
of the harbour, was an integral part
of the command post
for Sydney's defence network.
It was called
the George's Head Battery.
As part of the outer line of defence,
it was designed
to intercept enemy ships
before they could
infiltrate the harbour.
It took four months and 250 soldiers
to laboriously manoeuvre
the enormous guns
along a rough track
called Military Road.
BOB CLARK: So, this is our entry
into the gun pit.
NEIL: I'm being shown
through the labyrinth of tunnels
by heritage expert, Bob Clark.
BOB: You get lost incredibly easily.
NEIL: It's cut out
of solid sandstone, and by the 1890s,
George's Head was the command centre
for all 41 gun emplacements
around the harbour
and minefields in the water below.
NEIL: This form of fortress Sydney...
Was it used in anger?
Did it see any action?
This site never fired either a shot
or a mine in anger.
NEIL:
But that was never going to last,
not with the advances
in submarine technology.
Sydney harbour was about
to become more vulnerable than ever.
I suppose, in fact,
the sheer scale of the harbour
presents such a struggle
to defend it.
Yes, that's right, that's right.
It's just a nightmare
to look after this place.
- [LAUGHS]
- It's one headache after another.
It's just lucky nobody really came
until 1942! [LAUGHS]
NEIL: It seemed like every time
a new line of defence
was established,
a new threat emerged.
Fast forward to 1942,
the halfway mark in World War II,
and Japan is now a serious threat
in the Pacific.
The Japanese were expert submariners,
so Sydney had to be protected.
But these huge gun placements
up on the cliffs and headlands
were outmoded.
They were helpless
in the face of submarines
just slipping unnoticed
into the harbour.
What was needed,
in effect, was a great big net.
Steven, tell me about the boom
and how it operated?
NEIL: Historian Steven Carruthers
knows more about it than most.
STEVEN CARRUTHERS: A boom
stretched across the harbour
from that point of land
you can see in the distance.
That was where the net was placed,
a permanent net.
It wasn't a net that could be moved.
It was permanently
fixed to the bottom.
So there was no way
they could actually nose under.
NEIL: But on the night
of May 31st 1942,
the net was incomplete.
Gates on either side were open,
and that's how three Japanese
mini-subs slipped into the harbour.
STEVEN: The first one got in
around about eight o'clock.
He came in through the gate here.
He finished up backing into the net.
We suspect that he actually collided
with that navigation marker.
- So he's out of action.
- He's out of action.
He's lays quiet for about two hours
before a fiery red-headed Scotsman
by the name of James Cargill
saw something suspicious in the net.
NEIL: He raised the alarm,
but at first, no-one believed him.
By the time they did, the trapped
Japanese two-man crew aboard M-14
had scuttled their craft
and killed themselves.
So, one sub down,
but two more were still out there.
Somewhere.
And one of them was dead on target.
STEVEN: He made his way
all the way up to Naval Anchorage.
He circled the Fort Denison twice,
and then he took aim at Chicago.
Fired both his two torpedoes,
the first one past the stern
of the Chicago.
NEIL:
M-24's second torpedo also missed
but sank a converted ferry,
the HMAS Kuttabul,
with sleeping soldiers aboard.
21 were killed.
But what if?
What if the American cruiser
USS Chicago had been hit instead?
STEVEN: The main worry
would've been the aviation fuel.
The ammunition would've made
a big enough bang,
but certainly, the aviation fuel
could've set off a chain reaction.
There were other capital ships
nearby, heavy cruisers
that were also laden
with aviation fuel.
NEIL:
Eyewitnesses are still alive.
I'm meeting Margaret Hamilton.
She was just 17 at the time
and had a ring-side seat.
MARGARET HAMILTON:
The force of the blast
sort of pushed the house,
and then came back.
NEIL: Gosh, so the house was actually
rocked back by the force?
The house was pushed.
It just went whoosh, like that,
and back.
And then the force of it coming back,
tossed my brother out of bed.
So this is the 31st of May 1942,
right here.
I could see tracer bullets
coming down the harbour this way.
So, I mean, Chicago was not
that far away
over in that direction.
You could hear them saying,
"Ready, aim, fire!"
[CHUCKLES]
So you could hear all that?
I think the wind was coming
from there and it carried the noise.
To see tracer bullets going down
the harbour was,
you know, a bit weird.
[EXPLODING]
NEIL: Gunfire, explosions,
the last mini-sub, M-21,
was being chased down
and, in desperation,
it pulled into Taylor's Bay,
right outside Margaret's house.
And I was looking down here,
and I saw a periscope.
[NEIL CHUCKLES]
I thought it can't be anyone
swimming at this time.
Did you realise
what you were looking at?
- You knew it was the periscope--
- I knew it was a periscope
and it came in,
and came in and came in
and I thought it would go aground.
- So right in here.
- MARGARET: Right in, down here.
And I thought it was incredible
that a submarine would be there.
- NEIL: Uh-huh.
- I just thought,
"Am I really seeing things, or what?"
NEIL: Both M-14 and M-21
were salvaged the next day,
both crews having committed suicide.
But M-24, the sub
that sank the Kuttabul, disappeared.
Her whereabouts a mystery
for the next 60 years,
before divers found the wreck
deep off Sydney's northern beaches.
The crew died onboard.
MARGARET: The whole thing,
for a young girl, was exciting.
For me, it was...
It was so interesting.
It was a one-off, you might say.
NEIL: When the attack was over,
the people of Sydney
gave the Japanese submariners
a funeral with full military honours.
And for many years,
Japanese nationals would come here
and spread chrysanthemums
on the water
to remember all the lives lost
when war came to Sydney.
[BUGLE CALL PLAYS]
NEIL: From the recent past,
we're journeying
to the farthest recesses of history
and the story
of Sydney Harbour itself.
What of those defining
sandstone cliffs that embrace it?
How were they formed?
How did the Harbour come about?
There's a great mystery to this place
and palaeontologist Professor
Tim Flannery is going to unravel it.
When Governor Phillip entered
Sydney Harbour, here,
over 200 years ago,
he was expecting to find a massive
river feeding into this harbour.
It looks like the estuary
of a very large river indeed.
But he found nothing of the sort.
TIM FLANNERY: It turns out
that Phillip was thousands of years
too late. The river
was long gone. But why?
It's an intriguing puzzle
that dates back 300 million years.
But in order to get the big picture
about how the harbour formed,
we need to resort to a cake,
believe it or not.
A cake representing the ancient
super-continent of Gondwana.
It really comprises three pieces.
The part that would
to become New Zealand,
the part that was to become
Antarctica, off to the South,
and here's Australia.
Let's mark Sydney in there.
And an enormous river,
a river the likes of which just
doesn't exist on the planet today,
started to flow
from the Trans-Antarctic mountains
along the East Coast of Australia
and through the Sydney Basin.
Soon after that, this great
super-continent began to break up.
New Zealand began to drift off
to the East,
but Australia began moving north,
at a cracking pace
for a lump of rock,
to come to rest where it is today.
That's the story of Gondwana,
told by cake.
I'm meeting a mate of mine,
Professor Bruce Thom.
He's an expert in coastal geology.
So, Bruce, what evidence
do you see here
for this ancient river system
that came from Antarctica?
Tim, if you look at the rocks,
the rocks give you the story.
And down here, we see the layers.
And particularly, we see the layers
of what we call cross-bedding.
These are the layers of sand
that were laid down
as great big sand-waves
as the river flowed
towards the North East,
and then built itself up like a cake,
like the cake was getting layered up.
TIM: The stratified sandstone cliffs
that define Sydney Harbour today
are formed by layer upon layer
of hard quartz sand,
washed down from the Antarctic
by that mighty river.
Not that Governor Phillip
was to know that, back in the day.
Phillip pulled into idyllic Camp Cove
here, in 1788.
He needed to find a ready source
of freshwater, desperately.
But what he did find, Tim,
but trickles!
- TIM: Creeks you might call them.
- Yeah, creeks.
The little trickles of water,
and that, one of them, he selected,
and that became the base for
the first settlement of Australia.
Right, but he never found that river.
No, he never did.
The best was creeks,
but he found something better
than he had in Botany Bay,
so he decided to move.
TIM: It didn't make sense to Phillip.
He could see that three waterways
fed into the harbour,
the Parramatta River,
Lane Cove River and Middle Harbour.
But Phillip was expecting
something much bigger.
Where was a Danube or an Amazon?
To answer that, Bruce has brought
his sandpit to time-travel back
to the way the land used to look.
So, this is the continental shelf?
BRUCE: This is
the continental shelf, here,
and this is the continental slope.
And the continental shelf goes up
and comes up
towards the present shoreline,
and then rises up into the area
which is now the catchments
that feed into Sydney Harbour.
These three rivers
that are coming down like so,
and they join together,
forming a river valley.
This system drained right out
onto the continental shelf
when sea levels were much lower.
TIM: All right, so a river system
that over millions of years
carved out the shape of the harbour
as we see it today.
But by around 20,000 years ago,
everything was about to change.
The ice is melting.
The sea is rising.
BRUCE: The sea starts to rise.
TIM: Post-Ice Age,
sea levels were on the rise.
BRUCE: This whole channel
that was carved out
millions of years ago and re-carved
when the sea level was lower,
that valley has now been
flooded by the sea.
- Yes.
- The remnants of it
can still be found. But of course,
now, the sea has risen,
and by 6,000 years ago,
it's right up there,
and it's flooded Sydney Harbour,
and this is what we've got.
- TIM: Yes.
- This is the story.
Here it all is before you.
TIM: From the moment
Europeans saw this harbour,
they've been enchanted by its beauty.
But had they known
what Bruce has just told me
about its geological history, I think
they would've been astonished!
The sand here, coming all the way
from the Transantarctic mountains,
the ice sheets of Europe
and North America
melting and flooding this valley,
drowning the mystery river
of Sydney harbour.
It's a symphony of geological action
that involves the entire planet.
And what it's done is created
what I think
is the most beautiful harbour
on Earth.
Right then, wish me luck.
I'm chancing my arm
on what is surely
one of the most breath-taking
golf courses in the world,
and that's saying something
from a patriotic Scotsman!
[EXCLAIMS]
Oh, well, it left the ground.
But what also makes
the Bondi course so special,
so dramatic,
is its link to the distant past,
and the indigenous Australians
who settled around this harbour
as early as 20,000 years ago.
Look at these!
Rock engravings like these ones...
Now, they were made
by Aboriginal people,
and they're all over the Sydney area.
And they're just beautiful.
There's all kinds going on here,
all kinds of sea life,
with dolphins, sharks, fish.
And there are also the outlines
of the people who hunted them.
Look at this one!
Sort of life-sized, almost.
A big dorsal fin
and the head and the mouth.
It's always difficult to put an age,
you know, a date
on artwork like this,
but we can at least say
that these things speak of people
who understood this coastline,
respected it, loved it
and also understood the life
that was out in the ocean beyond.
NEIL: As much as anything else,
for Australians,
the Sydney Harbour Bridge says,
"This is us."
As Brendan Moar discovers,
this gigantic Meccano set
speaks to the very heart
of the Australian identity.
BRENDAN MOAR: It's humbling.
The size and strength.
And sense of permanence.
Like it's always been there.
But the way it looks today
was never a given.
Had history taken another course
this view would've
been very different.
From the 1850s
through to the turn of the century,
all manner of suspension
and cantilevered designs
were considered.
How's this?
Or this one,
from a couple of years later?
Finally, a steel arch design
was settled on
by chief engineer Dr John Bradfield.
And I'm meeting his grandson, Jim.
- JIM BRADFIELD: Hey Brendan.
- BRENDAN: G'day, Jim.
What sort of man
was your grandfather?
JIM: He was a man of great vision,
but probably, even more,
a man of great passion.
He was passionate about the bridge.
He was passionate about Sydney.
He was sure
that it had to be a grand bridge.
It just couldn't be a simple bridge,
it had to be grand.
- BRENDAN: Was he a grand man himself?
- JIM: Well, he sort of was,
but he was small in stature.
He was quite a short man
but he had a very large head,
which I think was part of his...
The brains were all in there,
you know?
BRENDAN: In 1923, work began
on the massive foundations
and columns.
Sydney was abuzz.
But getting barely a second thought
were whole communities
that had to make way for it.
The majority of those
were over here on the north shore,
and I've come to find out more about
these forgotten victims of progress.
I'm in North Sydney,
meeting historian lan Hoskins.
Back in the day it was all housing,
streets going here and there,
and cheek-by-jowl terraced housing.
This was the first area
settled on the north side.
It would've been
a mix of working class
and more substantial middle class.
BRENDAN: Whole neighbourhoods
were marked red for demolition.
By the end of 1925,
some 500 houses
and around 2,000 people were gone.
It was bad news for everyone.
If you owned the property,
you at least got compensation
for the value of the land
and the value of the building.
Most people here, however, rented,
so they didn't get
any compensation at all.
BRENDAN: Most Sydneysiders
though, were utterly focused
on the two mighty half-arches
creeping towards each other.
It's a lot to take in.
Five million rivets,
53,000 tons of steel,
assembled with hardly a nod
to health and safety.
These days being on the bridge
is a very safely controlled affair.
I am firmly attached to the bridge.
But back in the day,
when the bridge was being built,
it could not have been
more different.
No harnesses, no helmets,
and just lucky
to have a job in the Depression era.
NARRATOR: One thousand men
were employed.
All doubts whether Australians
were equal to the task
were soon dispelled.
BRENDAN: Sixteen men died,
six of them falling to their deaths.
Despite that, in August 1930,
both sides met
with absolute precision.
NARRATOR: Dr Bradfield,
the chief engineer for the bridge,
and Mr Innis
anxiously inspect the joins.
BRENDAN: I'm 134 meters up
with modern day engineer
James Reynolds.
So, two halves coming together
from opposite sides of the harbour...
How close were they?
Were they spot on?
Well, it's surprising and without
computers, it was an amazing feat.
They were only 13 mm apart,
so, you know, smaller than
your pinkie finger in alignment
when they actually came together.
So, an incredible feat
of engineering.
BRENDAN:
The bridge was finally ready
for the grand opening in March 1932.
NARRATOR:
The dream was realised at last.
Sydney rightly claims
the greatest and heaviest
arch-type bridge in the world.
BRENDAN: You know, this is more than
a bridge. It's more than a landmark.
Because as much as anything,
this a symbol
of what Sydneysiders could do
in truly testing times.
NEIL: Not far
from the bridge in Balmain
is another Sydney institution.
Built 130 years ago,
the Dawn Fraser Baths are a haven
for some very fortunate ex-wharfies.
Still doing it hard every morning.
MAN 1: To be in a city of Balmain,
spend your retirement days
down on the water...
What could be better?
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
That one! Get in that one into you.
MAN 2: We're all retired blokes.
We had our childhood down here
and we've all congregated here
on our retirement.
I enjoy their company. You know,
they're generous and everything.
They're all about me.
Take the milk out of your tea
they would.
The boys play cards.
I do crosswords, read the paper.
You know, it's just a... Beats work.
[LAUGHS]
You get out of the house
and get away from your missus.
It's a well-spent
four hours every day.
MAN 3: It's actually the oldest
tidal pool in Australia.
That means the water comes
in and out. Flows on the tide.
- DENIS: Surfs up!
- MAN 4: Where's that board, Denis?
Get me my board, the surf's up.
MAN 3: The fish come and go
at their own pleasure.
We got stingrays, numrays in here
that swim with us.
MAN 1: This pool, it's been part of
my family's culture
spanning 60 years.
It was a meeting place
for all the families in Balmain.
The benefits,
mentally and physically...
It keeps me alive, actually.
And it gets me
out of the house and...
Another day in paradise.
NEIL: But in the early days,
the good life was out of reach
for many of the less fortunate
new arrivals.
If there was one thing
the young colony feared,
it was disease.
Reeking convict hulks
would arrive overloaded
not just with convicts
and new settlers,
but also with typhoid, cholera,
bubonic plague
and, in the early days, smallpox.
I'm off to find out
how they dealt with that.
Before the age of modern medicine,
the only known way
of protecting communities
from the outbreak of infectious
diseases was to isolate sufferers.
I'm heading to the quarantine station
on North Head
on the northern side of the harbour.
It's also at the quarantine station
that we'll unearth an amazing story
of a rebellious mass escape
by 900 Australian soldiers
freshly returned
from the First World War.
What a place to be quarantined!
It feels more like Club Med
or Saint-Tropez.
But with a difference.
In fact, this was
a 32-hectare prison,
complete with security fences,
armed guards and guard dogs.
There was to be no escape.
Or was there?
Convicts with smallpox
were first put here in 1828.
Over the next hundred years,
13,000 people were processed,
but of them,
600, sadly, would never leave.
It became a microcosm
of the passenger liner class system,
the most luxurious accommodation,
naturally, reserved for first class.
But it must have been a galling sight
for freshly arriving
Australian soldiers
in February 1919.
After they disembarked,
they saw a bunch of jolly old chaps
enjoying a game of cricket
on this very walkway.
But in stark contrast,
and despite being war heroes,
they were given tents and Billie cans
and dispatched into the bush.
After four years
of mud and misery,
you can imagine how they felt.
Home just across the water
and here they were,
dispatched into the bush.
No facilities
and snakes by the dozen.
Something had to give.
After just two days,
there was a full-scale revolt.
All 900 soldiers marched
to confront 140 armed police guards
at the perimeter fence.
They were demanding their freedom.
And the police, fearing
that any attempt to resist them
would lead to slaughter,
let them go.
Next, they were ferried
en masse into Sydney.
Despite fears that they might spread
the deadly Spanish flu virus...
locals greeted them in stony silence,
while the authorities scrambled
to find somewhere to quarantine them.
And I just love what happened next.
It was a truly Australian answer
to the problem.
The government and the health
authorities held crisis talks.
What was to be done
with the recalcitrant soldiers?
What was the solution?
Well, the answer is,
it was decided
the soldiers would serve
the rest of the quarantine
in the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Oh, yes, they did.
I should add,
there was no game on at the time.
After four days
at the cricket ground,
they were released
with no sign of illness
and later joined
rousing victory celebrations.
[CROWD CHEERS AND APPLAUDS]
NEIL: I'm off along the coastal walk
to the surfing Mecca
of Bondi Beach.
On Bondi Beach,
Sunday the 6th of February 1938
is remembered as Black Sunday.
And on that day, there were hundreds
of people in the water, as usual,
but over the course
of just five or six seconds,
three freak waves hit the beach,
almost simultaneously
and 300 people were pulled out
all the way out here into deep water.
One onlooker
who witnessed the event said,
"All at once the waves came crashing,
and three seconds later,
hands went up everywhere."
Now the hands were up,
calling for help.
And as sheer good luck would have it,
there were 70 lifeguards
on the beach that day
for a training exercise.
And so they were able to launch
an instantaneous,
mass rescue operation.
And of the 300 people
who went into the water,
all but five were pulled out alive.
Yet more testament
to the bravery of the men and women
who safeguard life at sea.
As the marine centrepiece
of a busy city,
you'd expect Sydney Harbour
to be a challenging environment
for its underwater life.
But marine ecologist
Dr Emma Johnston
also knows its strengths.
It's a surprising harbour
that boasts twice
as many fish species
as the entire United Kingdom.
EMMA JOHNSTON: This is my backyard.
It's my home and it's where I work.
I've spent my career investigating
the resilience of this harbour
to all of the challenges that a big
city can throw at a waterway.
Resilient,
and in a constant state of flux.
At Collins Beach
on the north side of the harbour,
I'm joining Professor David Booth
and his researcher,
who are monitoring some newcomers
to these temperate waters.
So, Dave what are we
gonna be looking for this morning?
Well, we're looking for some little
jewels called tropical reef fish
that have come down the coast,
probably from the southern
Great Barrier Reef,
over 2,000 kilometres,
and every summer, these little guys
sort of grace our harbour
and sights down in this direction.
EMMA: Soon, flashes of orange
and electric blue
reveal the identity
of several species of new arrivals
to these now warmer waters
of Sydney Harbour.
They travel down
on the East Australian Current,
which acts
like a marine superhighway,
carrying huge volumes
of water and fish
from the Coral Sea to Sydney
and further south.
- Let's have a look.
- And here we have them.
Oh, it's so beautiful.
So, we've got a nice array
of butterfly fish, there.
- EMMA: Look at that.
- DAVID: The bottom corner,
a little neon damsel,
and a couple of different species
of sergeant major.
We've seen a build-up in numbers
of this little guy, here.
He's probably come in
in the last week.
There's thousands of them, there.
And they weren't there last week.
EMMA: Sydney Harbour is one
of the most biologically diverse
estuaries in the whole world.
One of the major reasons
for that great diversity
is a huge structural complexity
we get here.
And the massive range
of environmental conditions.
And we also get changes
in circulation
depending on where you are,
changes in salinity,
changes in light.
All of these things
support a great diversity of habitats
and a great diversity
of biological organisms.
Which makes for a unique
and resilient harbour
that still surprises
with its hidden beauty.
There is an enormous
blue groper, and it's beautiful.
Look, it's eating the sponge
on the rock.
I'd say it's about a meter long.
Look at this bizarre-looking
underwater garden.
Sea squirts, sponges, barnacles...
and a huge number of animals
that live in and amongst these.
This is why Sydney Harbour
is so diverse,
because we've got places like this
that are virtually untouched
by the massive city above us.
NEIL: And now, I'm going topside
to the leafy eastern suburbs
for a taste of the high-life,
the way it used to be done.
This was Australia's
first international airport,
right here in Rose Bay.
And there were no terminal buildings.
There wasn't even a runway.
Instead, a little ferry used to take
passengers out to the flying boats.
Before the war, they were
a symbol of luxury and modernity,
at a time when international travel
was more about the journey
than the destination.
Spacious cabins, silver service
and Sydney to London in ten days!
The new Qantas imperial flying boats
were aviation marvels,
taking first class mail
and first class passengers
to the farthest outposts
of the Empire.
What must it have been like?
I'm taking a spin with pilot
Andy Gross.
NEIL: Hi, Andy.
- They only carried 17 passengers.
- Okay.
So... And it was a service
just for the high and wealthy.
You know, it cost an average salary
to take the trip from here to London.
What, like a year's salary?
Yeah, for the average
working diggers.
NEIL: Three flights a week
and luxury. Oh, yes!
Even an onboard putting green!
It's just a touch different
in Andy's wee plane.
Fantastic. [LAUGHS]
But it's just as exciting.
[ENGINE SPLUTTERS]
NEIL: This is real
seat-of-the pants flying.
ANDY: All righty, off we go.
NEIL: Back in the day,
the next stop was Darwin
then Surabaya,
a crew change in Singapore,
then on to Bangkok, Calcutta,
Karachi, Basra, Athens
and finally, England, ten days later.
ANDY: This is exactly
how the trip to London would start.
NEIL: The take-off is so smooth.
There's no sensation
of leaving the water at all.
This sparkling harbour
continues to define Sydney
despite all the challenges
of the past two centuries.
Resilient, defiant, diverse
and surely, as Governor Phillip said,
"The finest harbour in the world".
I've got a lot more of it to see...
I think I've done Sydney now,
so that just leaves 59,000 kilometres
of coastline to go!
Can you turn right, Andy?
[AEROPLANE ROARING]
NEIL: Next time, we're off to explore
the Great Barrier Reef.
Dr Emma Johnston discovers
a remarkable piece of technology
that could save
the world's coral reefs.
Brendan Moar uncovers the living
history of a hidden slave trade.
A lot of people are simply amazed
that this actually happened
in Queensland.
NEIL: Dr Xanthe Mallet hunts
for a ship that vanished
without a trace.
XANTHE: Why did the ship go down?
NEIL: And I try navigating
with the Australian Navy.
I'm coming to the conclusion
that I may be blind in my right eye.
Yeah?