The decommissioned lighthouse at Cape Solander, restored and kept open by volunteers.

First lit in 1881, switched off in 1975. Since 1998 the society has kept the tower standing: the third-order Chance Brothers lens still on its mercury bath, eighty-seven cast-iron steps up to it, and the keepers' logs in the cottage beside the gate.

Tower tours and prices What is inside the museum

Tours Wednesday and Sunday, 10am and 1pm. Twelve people a climb, and eighty-seven steps to the top of them.

Tower elevation. The light showed two white flashes every fifteen seconds — Fl(2) W 15s — until it was switched off in 1975.

A light switched off in 1975 and never taken down

Cape Solander was the last thing a ship saw leaving Kamay Botany Bay and the first thing it saw coming back. The light was lit here in 1881 to mark the point, and for ninety-four years a keeper wound its clockwork by hand, every two hours, through the night.

In 1975 an automated light took over the job, and the tower was left standing and empty with the optic still in its bath of mercury under a lid of soot. In 1998 a group of Kurnell residents got the door open again. The society has kept it open, more or less, ever since.

First lit: 1881, serving the southern entrance to Botany Bay
Switched off: 1975, when an automated light took over the job
Height: 18 metres to the lantern floor, up 87 cast-iron steps. No lift, and no handrail on the last turn.
Optic: Third-order dioptric lens by Chance Brothers of Smethwick, 500 mm focal length, still in place
Light: Two white flashes every 15 seconds, nominal range 16 nautical miles
Structure: Rendered brick on a sandstone base, cast-iron lantern and gallery

Fl(2) W 15s · white 082°–196° · red 196°–228° · 16 M

The light that replaced this one sits on an automatic tower well to the north and is visited by nobody. This is the one with a door, a stair and a log book.

Watch, restore, record

Three jobs, in the order they matter to us. Members do all of them on their own time, in whatever weather the point is having.

Watchkeeping

The tower is unlocked at eight on every open day. The weather is written down, and so is the sea: swell height and direction, and how far the spray is carrying up the cliff face. Between May and November the watchkeepers also count whales from the platform — humpbacks heading north to calve, then back south with their calves alongside. The tally goes up on the cottage wall in pencil, season by season, and nobody has ever rubbed one out.

watch log — 02 Oct 20260640

windSSW 18 kn, gusting 24

swell2.1 m SE, 9 s period

visibility12 nm, haze to the north

sea statemoderate, spray on steps

barometer1013 hPa, steady

whales3 pods northbound

Restoration

The salt and the wind take something every year, so something gets done every year. The long job was the lantern glazing: twelve panes replaced in 2019, then the ventilation louvres rebuilt the winter after, because the lantern had been sweating onto the lens for a decade. Before that it was the gallery rail, the door, and the whole of the cottage floor. Mostly it is wire-brushing and priming and waiting for a calm week.

Working bees run on the first Saturday of the month. Bring a hat; we supply the brushes and the tea.

The records

Forty-one volumes of keepers' logs survive, from the first entry in 1881 to the last watch in 1975. Members are transcribing them a page at a time into an index anyone can search. Volume 12 covers nine years of weather, shipping and one very long argument about the fog signal.

Tours, and what they cost

Tours run on Wednesday and Sunday at 10am and 1pm and take about forty-five minutes. Twelve people at a time, because that is what the stair will hold. The climb is eighty-seven steps in a narrow spiral, and the doorway into the lantern room is 1.5 metres high — if you are tall, take that as your warning.

Tower tour Wednesday and Sunday, 10am and 1pm · about 45 minutes · 12 people $12 concession $8 · child 5–16 $5 · under 5 free
Family ticket Any tower tour · two adults and two children $30 at the gatehouse
Museum only Wednesday and Sunday, 10am to 3pm · self-guided, no booking $4 free with a tower ticket
Twilight climb First Friday, October to March, 7pm · about an hour · weather permitting $25 torches supplied; cancelled in high wind
Schools and community groups Weekday mornings by arrangement · minimum 10 people $6 a head; teachers and carers free

Book by email and we will confirm a time. We are volunteers with day jobs, so allow a few days for a reply. Pay at the gatehouse on the day, by card or cash — there is no online booking and no booking fee.

Email the bookings officer

The museum is in the assistant keeper's cottage

Ten metres from the tower door and warm enough to linger in. Everything in it was either used on this site or written about it, and most of it was carried in by members.

The optic A third-order dioptric lens by Chance Brothers of Smethwick, 500 mm focal length, still standing in the lantern room where it was installed in 1881. A spare set of prism panels sits on the bench in the cottage where the dirty ones were cleaned.
The drive The clockwork weight tube that turned the lens, and the mercury float it turned on. It was wound by hand every two hours, all night, for ninety-four years.
The logs Forty-one volumes, 1881 to 1975, kept open at the page for today's date. The handwriting is better in the 1880s than in the 1970s, which tells you something about the job. A line from the March 1903 volume: Wind S.S.W. fresh, sea heavy on the point, lamps trimmed at 5.40 p.m. and the lens revolving free.
The fog bell Cast brass, 1891, with the striker bar that replaced a keeper's arm in 1912, after the keepers complained in writing that they were losing their hearing.
The last board The weather board from the final watch in 1975, and the letter that ended the posting. It is four sentences long and the third one is an apology.
The whale tally Every humpback logged from the platform since 1999, in pencil on the cottage wall, one column to a season. Twenty-seven years of it, and the columns are getting longer.

What we need, and how little experience it takes

Nobody here is a professional lighthouse keeper. It is retired teachers, a marine biologist, a fitter and turner, a few teenagers, and a great many people who came up the steps once and came back the following month.

Watchkeeper Unlocks and locks the tower, keeps the weather and sea-state log, counts the whales in season. Suits somebody who likes the early shift and being outdoors in it.
Tour guide Takes twelve people up eighty-seven steps and back down again, three or four times a day. The best guides are the ones who tell people what went wrong here, not what went right.
Transcriber Reads a hundred-year-old copperplate and types what it says. This one can be done at home, in the evening, in a chair.
Cottage and grounds The tea urn, the garden, the paint, the small repairs, and the running of the little shop by the gate on open days.

The way in is a working bee: first Saturday of the month, 9am, at the gatehouse. Bring a hat and closed shoes, and you will be handed a wire brush and paired with somebody who has done it before. There is no interview and no membership fee. If you would rather guide tours or keep watch, you will need a Working With Children Check — it is free for volunteers and we will walk you through the paperwork.

Two mornings a month is plenty. Some members give far more than that, and that is entirely their business.

Getting up the hill

Where: Cape Solander Drive, Kurnell, in Kamay Botany Bay National Park — about twenty minutes' drive south from Cronulla, at the end of the road past the lookout.; 34°01′S 151°13′E. Open in OpenStreetMap.
Opening: Gatehouse, tower and museum: Wednesday and Sunday, 10am to 3pm. Closed on total fire ban days and on Christmas Day.
Getting there: Almost everyone drives. Cape Solander Drive runs south out of Kurnell village and ends in a car park at the lookout. Buses come from Cronulla as far as the village, but the last few kilometres have no footpath and no shade.
Access: The cottage museum and the lookout platform are step-free, and there is an accessible toilet at the lookout. The tower is not accessible and cannot be made so: eighty-seven steps, a narrow spiral, and a low door at the top.; Email us before you come and we will describe the climb precisely, or bring the lens story and the photographs down to the cottage and do it sitting down with a cup of tea.
Facilities: Toilets at the lookout. No cafe and no drinking water — bring your own. The nearest shops are back in Kurnell village.
Safety: The cliffs here are unfenced in places and the swell on this point is serious. People have died falling from this headland. Stay back from the edge, keep children close, and do not swim anywhere near the point.
Entry: Entry to the Kurnell section of the park is free. You pay only for the tour, at the gatehouse.
Contact: Email is the reliable way to reach us: tours@capesolanderlighthouse.org.au. There is no phone at the tower, and the gatehouse is only staffed on open days.