WHARF WHISPERS – DARWIN CITY WATERFRONT APPEARS

MONTH BY MONTH

Select Date December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006

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February 2006

The monsoon trough moved away during the first week, as it does – but not for long, and there was frantic activity to get the building pad ready for hand over. Wave wall segments appeared everywhere with backfill and rock armouring close behind; by the 8th the place was starting to look like a building site.





At the western end of the project area BMD's trenching revealed all manner of buried treasure. This area, the site of the earliest European settlement on the Darwin peninsula, used to be Fort Hill before it was pushed into the harbour about 1965 to make way for the Iron Ore Wharf. Since early days the area has been used as a dumping ground, especially after Cyclone Tracy, so there's no shortage of steel girders etc.

Sitzler/Barclay Mowlem JV have now taken possession of their site to begin construction of Darwin's new Convention Centre. The image left shows those all important sewerage connections being finalized - now work can start! Through the trees left, in the expanded image, is the excavation for basement carparking. Centre is the dredge and excavators preparing for the placement of fill for the first of the peninsulas for the apartments blocks.



By the end of February, Keith Aitken's band of merry men from Advance Civil were started on the job of laying a new water main from the Darwin CBD. This daunting task involves threading a new 375mm MSCL pipe though the myriad underground services in the city area then along Herbert St and downhill past the Deckchair Cinema. It will provide the Waterfront Project with potable water for domestic and firefighting purposes.