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Macquarie Point6.0 the site‘...our settlement is formed about 16 miles from the mouth of the Derwent, one of the finest rivers I ever beheld...deep enoughand large enough to admit the whole navy of Great Britain at once. The shores rise gradually into hills covered with fine grassand noble trees - we are settled on the left hand side going up in a small cove where there is an island and an excellent run offresh water - the town is built on a gently rising plain.’Surveyor Harris, describing the camp quoted in Boyce, J. (2008) Van Diemen’s Land. (p.30)Measuring 8.6 hectares, the site liespartially on the reclaimed cove flooradjacent to the working port, andextends across what was once thenatural shoreline. The site can beoverlooked from the headland wherethe Cenotaph stands. Although just ashort distance from both Sullivans Coveand the Hobart CBD, the site is largelyabsent from the life of the city.For tens of thousands of years the site was a placeof habitation for the indigenous Muwinina people.Upon European settlement the role of the sitehas changed periodically. Beginning as a place ofcolonial endeavour, it soon gave way to a seriesof uses and infrastructure developments thatmirrored the development of the city of Hobart as ittransitioned from a colonial settlement, to a proudGeorgian town, to a city region of around 215,000people.Today the site is largely vacant, open space.Immediately adjacent to its boundary, the RoyalEngineers Building maintains its pivotal positionat the end of Macquarie Street. The site itself isoccupied by a concrete batching plant, a small,renovated office building and a scatter of sheds.Disused rail lines are splayed across the site,which is littered with steel brackets and metalparts that have loosened from the rails. Thereis little vegetation remaining. A sewer mainzigzags beneath the site to the nearby wastewatertreatment plant and a decommissioned cold storesits just outside the site’s perimeter. Movementthrough the site from Sullivans Cove around theheadland to the Regatta Grounds is prevented bytemporary fencing.32