Portus Jacksonia
The Demise of The Working Harbour .
Port Jackson, more familiarly Sydney Harbour is one of the Worlds largest natural harbours and in our view one of the most beautiful. The intrepid Captain Cook in command of the old collier the Endeavour located it following a futile attempt to water the Endeavour in Botany Bay, a tad south.. Used to be part of the early school curriculumn telling about 1770 and such, now given away to Google and online Reuters Screens on the Australian Stock Market ( ASX ). Remember these seven year olds have been on keyboards for half their lives.
The colonisation moved slowly at first as Sydney was used as a deportation center for Old Brits baddies. But as time went on, the fertile country, the natural beauty and the freedom from the Industrial Revolutions choked sky became a draw card as it remains today.
We owe our title to Vincentius who came up with it during a very convivial group of Other Mates celebration of the recent Inaugural Rusticana Lunch at The Oaks Hotel, a location much admired by we photographers over many years.
With Vincentius and the Other Mates assistance we aim to tell of strange craft, ancient and modern fortifications, transport , industrial sites, The Naval Dockyard, houses on the harbour, and there are some wonderful properties here, and lots else. We are well qualified to undertake this major work as many our Other Mates are of nautical bent. Maritimus must be our most experienced yachtsman whilst Te Deus was a Marine Radio Operator for a large chunk of his working life, indeed still communicating by Morse Code to his fellow operators. And Carolinus, although new to our flock, with her husband runs a large motorboat, soon to be replaced by another yacht.( Boat manufacture by an In mate stretches back to 1939AD when he helped construct a vessel made from a sheet of discarded rusty corrugated iron, although sadly not sailed on the harbour but a nearby lagoon).
Certainly last but far from least DRG is a highly qualified Marine Architect, go to :
https://pbase.com/galleria_rusticana/galleria__drg in Rusticana and catch up with his Vitae.
World war II came to Sydney Harbour as well and we will pay some attention to this. We feel this is important as OZ was certainly in deep trouble and VERY close to requiring language skills for which we were untrained. Experts as we are in Latin and French these would have been of little use had the Pacific War ended as planned by our enemies. We saw aircraft over Sydney: we saw the results of the submarine torpedo work in our harbour: we saw the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth painted grey and in our Harbour as troopships. The subject of fortification being what it is we have a Galleria in side Portus, drill down to Barbacane. And. While you are about it outside Portus is a specialist gallery on Submarine Mines, do take a look.

And there is night time, and wonderful festivals of light such as New Years eve 2007 to provide the ardent photophobes amongst The Other mates with a hi protein feeding frenzy.

There is much to see around Portus Jacksonia and in addition to our humble works do go to :
http://www.harbourtrust.gov.au/
The Harbour Trust administers many wonderful sites around the harbour, there are location maps and instructions for the walks and even where you may camp on Cockatoo Island.

Welcome to Portus Jacksonia a water front celebration.

Created November 1st 2007.
Garden Island Naval Dockyard was added 30 12 2007.
The Fortifications Gallerea became Barbacane on 08 January 2008
Galleria Regina Maritimus was added 29 February 2008
Galleria Portus Aereoalus kicked off Friday 7th March 2008
Latest update Portus July 2011