View to Cockatoo Island (formerly the Royal Australian Naval Dockyards) from the small beach below the Commander’s Residence on Spectacle Island, located on the great Parramatta River, Sydney, Australia.

"I must have walked every inch of Spectacle Island during my time as a Government Public Servant working in the archives of the Naval Heritage Collection, but my favourite place was the tiny beach on the eastern side of the island where fascinating objects, coloured glass and shells washed ashore…some perhaps from nearby Cockatoo Island" (Victoria Kitanov). The iconic 19th-century Commander’s Residence is situated on the eastern tip of Spectacle Island.

Spectacle Island is historically significant as the oldest naval explosives manufacturing and storage complex in Australia. Dating from 1865 it was originally built to hold government gunpowder. It was later converted for use by the Royal Navy for storage of naval munitions and subsequently the Royal Australian Navy when formed in 1911 (Source: Naval Historical Society of Australia).

Cockatoo Island is the largest Island in Sydney Harbour and is located at the junction of the Parramatta and Lane Cove Rivers, about 3.7 km west of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It has a unique place in the history of Australia, starting with early European occupation as a penal settlement then operating as a shipbuilding, ship repair and general engineering establishment for 134 years. Today, Cockatoo Island is a UNESCO world-heritage listed site in the custody of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, a self-funding agency created by the Australian Government to protect and improve public access to former defence and Commonwealth sites around Sydney Harbour (Source: Naval Historical Society of Australia).