Quarantine Station...

We then ventured to the nearby QStation, which is now a hotel and conference center, but was previously a quarantine station from 1832 until it closed in 1984. Previously, migrant ships arriving in Sydney with suspected contagious diseases had to make their first stop at this location at North Head to offload passengers and crew into quarantine to protect local residents.

One of the first stops was the shower block for decontamination.

There’s also a colony of Fairy Penguins at North Head, but we didn’t see any.

Apparently some of the rich captains and immigrants were quite appalled by the early facilities and it didn’t take long before completely separate areas of the center were designated for 1st class passengers versus steerage.