Sydney By Ferry - About this website

About this website

Who owns this website?
I prefer to remain anonymous. I do this as a volunteer, so the site costs very little to run, and doesn't need to take advertising.

I grew up in Mosman, where catching ferries was just part of normal life. Back in the days when most people worked a 9 to 5 day, the big double-ended wooden ferries were needed for the peak hour trips. The biggest inner harbour ferry of them all, Kosciusko (since gone to Hobart and burnt out there) did the 5:10pm trip, struggling to get to Cremorne in her allotted 12 minutes, and her capacity (as big as a Manly ferry) was needed. The seats were unpadded wooden benches, so you didn't want a long trip. She was met by four buses at Cremorne Point, one at Musgrave Street, and two at Mosman Bay. And the buses left the wharves full, so that's close to 500 people, not including all those who walked home or were picked up. The next ferry at 5:20pm would be Kanangra, Karingal or Kameruka. The only one of them left afloat today is Kanangra, built in 1912, and now waiting her turn for dry docking and return to service at Sydney Heritage Fleet. Sydney people once marvelled at James Craig being taken to bits and reassembled there (it's right in front of car drivers and bus passengers at White Bay on Victoria Road), and perhaps Kanangra will eventually stir the same wonder.

My late mother was a ferry commuter too. Her best story was from when the Harbour Bridge was being built. With no alternative travel, ferries had to keep running regardless, even in dense fog. The skipper would go slowly and have one of his deckhands at the bow as a lookout. One day, on the way from Cremorne to the Quay, the deckhand yelled out that he could just see the Harbour Bridge above. Oops, gone too far west and overshot the turn for the Quay.

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