Dawes Point Reserve

The grassy knoll at Dawes Point sits directly beneath the massive southern arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. In seventeen eighty-eight, Lieutenant William Dawes built a small observatory here to track the passing of a comet. He refused an order from Governor Phillip to participate in a punitive expedition against local Aboriginal people, choosing instead to leave the colony entirely. Today, two rusted cannons remain embedded in the park, remnants of the coastal batteries that once defended the harbor entrance from foreign ships.