The RAN Heritage Centre on Garden Island is on the far end of the island in Sydney Harbour, which used to be open to the public (the near end of the island is Garden Island Naval Base and is a secure Defence facility). Technically Garden Island isn't an island anymore - they built the Captain Cook Dry Dock between the island and the mainland during WW2, and in the process turned the island into a peninsula. There used to be a ferry service that members of the public could use to access the public end of the island, but that stopped running during COVID and never started again, so it is effectively public land without public access.The Heritage Centre consisted of three main components.The main part of the Heritage Centre consisted of a large historic building containing regular museum displays. One of the more prominent artefacts in it was the central portion of one of the Japanese midget submarines that took part in the attack on Sydney. (The tail section of this boat is currently on temporary display at the Australian National Maritime Museum, while the bow section is at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, where it is mated with the other half of a different midget submarine - Zubian style). The Heritage Centre closed about 18 months ago due to lack of visitors (hardly surprising since the public can't get to the island), and an apparent need to use the building for something else. However, since then the building has just sat there, with all the artefacts still on display - so who knows what the long-term plan is.Outside there is a large equipment park containing larger artefacts. One of the 8-inch guns from the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia II is there, as is a 4.1-inch gun & mounting from SMS Emden (WW1). They have an Ikara launcher, a Seacat launcher and director, and a range of other guns, radar antennae, and some substantial industrial machinery that must have come out of the Dockyard at some stage. The bow of the WW1 river class destroyer Parramatta is also here (her stern is preserved on the banks of the Parramatta River about 20km away, making her probably the longest destroyer in the world!).The third component is in the boatshed - one of the oldest buildings in Sydney, which was pre-fabricated in Britain and shipped out to be assembled on GI. Half of the boatshed is the headquarters of the Naval Historical Association of Australia, and the other half is full of various memorabilia belonging to the RAN Heritage Centre. It hasn't been opened to the public for as long as I have known about it.Hopefully there is a long-term plan to make all this material open to the public again at some stage - but in the meantime at least it is getting looked after.
