Darling Harbour

This guide to Darling Harbour traces its shift from Tumbalong, a shell-midden shoreline of the Cadigal people, into a colonial industrial hub where Australia's first steam engine fired up in 1815 and coal, timber and wool moved through the wharves for decades. It follows the docks' decline into an abandoned rail yard by 1984, and the political promise that set the derelict site on a different path. Convicts once waded into these same shallows to dig for their dinner, long before the crowds and water taxis arrived.