Norfolk Guardian

Today's painting on my deck gallery is a diptych of an unusual visitor to the East Darling Harbour Wharves.

I spent most of the early 2000s as ‘Artist in Residence’ on the East Darling Harbour Wharves before its redevelopment into Barangaroo. 

One day in 2005 I arrived very early on a calm clear morning & a couple of wharfies grabbed me as I signed in.They were very excited & yelled “Quick, get your easel, you must paint the Norfolk Guardian- you don’t see ships like this every day!” 

A smallish vessel was docking at Wharf 5. It had an oddly shaped crane in its centre, which I later found out was known as a ‘derrick’ crane as it looked similar to the old fashioned oil rigs. A Derrick ship’s crane is a relic of the past, harking back to the days before containerization forced uniformity of ship design & changed their lines from sleek to squat & boxy.
The luminous peach tones of the horizon meeting the skyline of Goat Island & the northern suburbs in the background harmonized with the butter yellow ship's crane & sky blue hull, making an odd contrast with the heavy industrial subject matter. 

I watched the complex interplay of the ship's crane with the shore crane with a mixture of fascination & trepidation as rows of pipes were unloaded with consummate skill.
I didn't know how long I'd have to paint it before it left, so I added an extra canvas to the original one, making the total image a square.

DH34A-B'The Norfolk Guardian Diptych' 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

each panel oil on canvas 91 x 46 cm
Available for sale
The M.V. Norfolk Guardian (IMO: 8600856) is a General Cargo that was built in 1987, sailing under the flag of Tonga, & freighting break bulk cargo to Norfolk Island, New Zealand & the South Pacific. Ports of call include Norfolk Island, Auckland, Lyttleton & Marsden Point, Tasmania. Transhipments can be arranged to various destinations in the South Pacific, including Samoa, Fiji, etc.
Cargo handled by the Norfolk Guardian includes: general cargo, hazardous goods, freezer/cooler, hardwood poles, sawn timber, processed timber products.
They also ship Personal Effects from Norfolk Island & New Zealand to Yamba, Australia.

"Break bulk" is a term used for products which can't be transported in containers. It includes a wide mix of articles- from salt, gypsum, cement to timber, steel coils and heavy machinery as well as cars, trucks and boats.

About 50 years ago, the containerization of shipping modified the wharves dramatically & transformed port cities beyond recognition.

The humble shipping container isn't just a metal box - it created the world as we know it today.

Once goods were loaded and transported around the world as "break bulk" cargo. Container standardization revolutionized global trade, making it easier, quicker and cheaper. However,with the advent of the container, some of the mystery & magic of the shipping industry was lost forever.

John Crowley, the Port Operations Manager, used to describe the East Darling Harbour Wharves (aka Port Jackson) as a ‘boutique’ wharf. 

Port Botany is built on a superhuman scale and only deals with containers, so is huge, homogeneous and increasingly run by robots. Port Jackson, on the other hand, had a mix of break-bulk & containers & therefore was more dependent on the personal skills and judgement of the individual wharf workers. 

Islander ships are dwarfed by the container ships & totally unsuitable for the huge computerized straddle cranes of Port Botany. 

Now that the East Darling Harbour Wharves are closed, most "break bulk" is unloaded at Port Kembla, although Blackwattle Bay and to an increasingly lesser extent Glebe Island and White Bay still handle salt, cement and gypsum. 

Related Posts 

 

My Hungry Mile page in this blog 

 

End of an era - Maersk Gateshead 

 

Last of the Hungry Mile 

 

Barangaroo - Tabula Rasa 

 

Crane, East Darling Harbour Wharves

Ground Zero

wake up
look around
memorise what you see
it may be gone tomorrow
everything changes. Someday
there will be nothing but what is remembered
there may be no-one to remember it.
Keep moving
wherever you stand is ground zero
a moving target is harder to hit

"Ground Zero" by Michael Dransfield 

Today's painting on my deck gallery is yet another canvas celebrating something that no longer exists & probably remembered by very few.

AGL38 'AGL Site, Mortlake' 2004
oil on canvas 75 x 100 cm
Available for sale

In 1884, the Australian Gas Light Company purchased 32 hectares of land at Mortlake and began gas production there on the 23rd May 1886.
The A.G.L. Gasworks at Mortlake boasted grandiose structures modelled on the Beckton Works in East London. It was probably no coincidence that the engineer in charge of works, Thomas Bush, had previously been employed at Beckton.

 

 

AGL38 'AGL Site, Mortlake' 2004

oil on canvas 75 x 100 cm

Available for sale

The company had operated other gasworks in Sydney, but their entire gas-making operation was transferred to Mortlake in 1922 as the river provided a cheap and efficient means of obtaining coal, which was its raw material.

There was an enormous workforce. When AGL's Mortlake plant was in full operation it used nearly 460,000 tonnes of coal per year which was brought from Hexham on the Hunter River, by colliers known as the 'Sixty Milers'.

The rotting hulk of one of the colliers decorates the upper reaches of the Parramatta River, and its remains can still be seen if the tide is high enough to allow passage for the Rivercats.

The initials “C.W.G.” stand for Carburetted Water Gas which sounds a little as though it has something to do with Coca-cola. The C.W.G. Building once contained 6 retort houses which had continually burnt coal from Newcastle to light Sydney’s streets. 

Exhibition of AGL site Mortlake paintings
in Breakfast Point Community Centre 2004 

 

 

The process of carbonization to obtain gas from coal was discontinued on 31st December 1971. Thereafter, natural gas from the interior of Australia was piped to Mortlake where it was given an odour for safety reasons and distributed to consumers throughout Sydney. Ironically, Mortlake itself was one of the last suburbs to be converted to natural gas. The gasworks finally closed on Friday 15th June 1990 & the sprawling 58 hectare site became a moonscape.

Exhibition of AGL site Mortlake paintings
in Breakfast Point Community Centre 2004

The site had already been half demolished by the time I found it and there were only a couple of other ruins dotted around the vast wasteland.
Extensive remediation had begun. As a century’s worth of stinking coal tar waste was removed from the site, networks of channels were carved through the glowing sandstone surrounding the C.W.G. Building. After rain, these channels would fill with water, becoming a network of canals and lakes reflecting the ruins.
A terrifying 40 metre chasm had been excavated in front of it to remove the coal tar residue. Against it the C.W.G. Building loomed overhead, neatly sliced in half and propped up with a mad cat’s cradle of eye-popping red bollards opening wide in front of me as though to welcome me with an embrace. I had to write myself a 'post it note' to attach to my easel to remind me not to walk backwards to admire my painting as there was only a couple of metres between my easel and a sudden drop!

Exhibition of AGL site Mortlake paintings
in Breakfast Point Community Centre 2004
The former AGL Gasworks site has now been completely redeveloped into the controversial new gated suburb of Breakfast Point by Rosecorp. The complex of white and pale beige apartments and townhouses is totally unrecognizable from its industrial past.

 
Exhibition of AGL site Mortlake paintings
in Breakfast Point Community Centre 2004
To coincide with the opening of their new suburb, Rosecorp and the CFMEU jointly invited me to hold a solo exhibition in their freshly built Community Hall.
My paintings consisted almost entirely of renditions of the C.W.G. Building, which had recently been demolished.
Irony totally intentional.

Related Posts 

My AGL Gasworks page