Coastal & marine
![B/W photo showing a beach-lined bay with rocks and some kind of makeshift swimming enclosure at the water's edge.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/dca14ba603514b008f0ccec3d5db37c7.jpg)
A pond in a privately owned paddock
Today, Sydneysiders would find it incredible that a century ago many of the harbourside beaches and parks to which they flock in summer were privately owned and not accessible to the public
![Ruins of Temple of Vishnu, Dondra, Ceylon](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/f8638eaf8923bcbc2b3f4276fabc15372a52c646-2000x1105.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
City of Gods, my early experience and toy boat
Inspired by a watercolour of the ruins of the temple of Vishnu, refugee curator in residence Jagath Dheerasekara writes about Devinuvara as a site of pilgrimage, colonisation and uprising
![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/3857cc4d0eb7494faf4c529f808a4211.jpg)
Enough rope
More than a kilometre of rope suspended the hammocks required to sleep 600 or more convicts in the Hyde Park Barracks dormitories between 1819 and 1848
![Circular Quay, ferries 1936](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/57526101f1264eb0a782e77b03d97e0f.jpg)
Harbour views through time
More than 4000 striking images from the Sydney Harbour Trust and Maritime Services Board in the State Archives Collection have been released online
![a group of people stand in front of a sign No Plastic Please](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/371dba25354e876a73cee06c7b8e9d9fdccd0cc8-1887x1027.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Tales of Sydney beaches
Meet a bunch of keen, caring and colourful Sydney beach-goers and see what attracts them to the city's fabled and fabulous coast