snails

Simply stunning with very good details and depth. Top drawer shot and worthy museum piece.

AT LAST I FOUND IT!

Over a year of puzzling it out. Not easy when you have never been there and you are 400 kms away. But thanks to Google maps, satellite photos, and Google Street view, I can say that it is ...

BALLAST POINT, Birchgrove, looking north-west to Snail's Bay.

Most of the houses on the left are still standing, and a trip along Wharf Street using Google Street View will confirm roof lines, chimneys, etc match this photo. Btw Powerhouse Museum Collection, the houses are definitely NOT "Federation style"; late Victorian Italianate (and some earlier) is more like it.

Where the three gents are sitting, Ballast Point, shows up as a deserted Texaco / Caltex site on the satellite picture. Just last year (11/7/2009) it was again declared a public park. Pity this photo was not identified for that. I imagine the rock the gents are on has long been quarried away, but a field trip and now photo would be terrific. Anyone nearby?

Ballast Point history - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballast_Point,_New_South_Wales

Google Maps satellite view - maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...

Great work beachcomber Australia!

It may take some time, but I'll see what I can do about a now photograph.

Well done beachcomberaustralia. A well-deserved eureka moment!

I might catch a ferry out there soon and see what I can see. Stay tuned.

Here's a bit of digital fun - travel there in 3D via Google Maps Earth plugin (takes a while to load, be patient!) -
maps.google.com.au/maps?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Sydney+...

Looks like Birchgrove with Rozelle Bay in foreground, and Cockatoo Island in right background. Probably photographed from Balls Head.

Is Birchgrove Park and Oval evident here? I don't know the area at all. HQ of the Sydney Cricket Club from 1897 - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birchgrove_Park. More detailed local history - www.walkingcoastalsydney.com.au/brochures/documents/HC201...

beachcomber australia Birchgrove Park is the flat shoreline region to the left of Birchgrove House and still in use today. Many of the houses seen on the shoreline,to the left of the park, and on Longnose Point at right, were still extant in this 1953 aerial photo (see original view):

Andy Brill beachcomber australia Got it! Thanks guys. The closest image I could find to confirm is this one from the Leichhardt Library Service where, far left, you can see a small building on the waters edge with what looks like a boat house right next to it. Those same buildings appear just behind the paddle steamer in our pic.

Andy Brill Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons Thanks! It looks like the cricket pitch is not evident in this photo, or the sea-wall. You can just see the new sea-wall on this contemporary PhM shot at full zoom (it took me yonks to find this a few years ago!) - from.ph/386462