34°00'58" S 151°13'58" E Kamay Botany Bay, New South Wales
We keep the Cape Solander light.
A volunteer society restoring a decommissioned nineteenth-century lighthouse on the Kurnell headland — and keeping the night watch in it. The lantern was dark from 1974 to 2012. It burns again.
- First lit
- 1868
- Decommissioned
- 1974
- Relit
- 2012
- Tower
- 14 m · 41 steps
The light
Every lighthouse has a character — the rhythm it flashes in, so that a ship’s lookout can tell it from every other light on the coast. Cape Solander’s is two flashes, then seven seconds of dark.
The lantern sits over a second-order dioptric lens ground by Chance Brothers of Birmingham in 1876 and shipped out packed in straw. For ninety-eight years a keeper stood behind it: whale oil at first, kerosene from 1891, and a 3 kW electric lamp once the town supply reached Kurnell in 1934.
When the light was decommissioned in 1974 the lens was crated and sent to the museum store at Ultimo, and the tower was fenced and left. It stood that way for thirty-eight years.
The society relit it on 21 April 2012, on a solar array and a 40-watt LED, and the maritime authority reclassified it the same week. The society calls it what it is: a heritage beacon, not an aid to navigation. No one should steer by it, and there is a brass plate on the gallery rail that says so.
The character is redrawn by hand each time the clockwork is serviced. The last entry in the maintenance log is a spacer replacement, March 2026.
- First lit
- 1 May 1868, fixed white, whale oil.
- Light source
- Whale oil to 1891, kerosene to 1934, electric to 1974, solar LED from 2012.
- Lens
- Second-order dioptric, Chance Brothers, 1876. Returned from store in 2011.
- Character
- Fixed to 1931; Fl(2) W 10s from 1931, interrupted by the war years and the 1949 refit.
- Range
- 19 nautical miles to 1974; 9 nautical miles as a heritage beacon.
- Structure
- Hawkesbury sandstone, 14 m; light 68 m above the sea.
The tower
The tower was built out of the headland it stands on. Volunteers have spent thirty years putting it back together in the open, which means visitors get to watch the work rather than read about it.
The stone is Hawkesbury sandstone, quarried within sight of the site and laid in 1867. The tower is 14 metres to the gallery and the stair inside it is 41 treads, worn into hollows on the seaward side where two generations of keepers climbed the same line.
The society formed in 1996, after the fence around the tower was cut for the third time in a year. The first work was not masonry but paper: recovering the station’s records from the old Harbour Board files, because you cannot restore a structure you cannot date.
Every job below was done by members, or by trades who gave the labour free. The scaffolding bills are the reason the society sells tours.
- 1996The society formsThirty-one founder members. The tower surveyed and fenced; the station records recovered.
- 2001Roof and lantern glazingThe dome reglazed in 6 mm laminate; the vent rebuilt to stop the condensation.
- 2004Stonework repointedEleven cubic metres of replacement stone from the Wondabyne quarry, colour-matched to the original bed.
- 2008Stair and gallery railAll 41 treads reset on new bedding; the rail recast in gunmetal to the 1902 drawing.
- 2011The lens comes homeReassembled on site over nine weeks by two retired opticians and a marine engineer.
- 2012RelitSolar array and battery on the old oil-store roof; the light shown for the first time in 38 years.
- 2019The museum opensThe keeper’s cottage and oil store reopened to the public, with the station’s logbooks on show.
Visit
Tours run at weekends and on school-holiday Wednesdays. Numbers are capped at eight because the stair is narrow, so book a day ahead by email and we will hold your place.
| Day | Departures | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Monday & Tuesday | Closed | Maintenance, and school groups by arrangement. |
| Wednesday | 11:00 | School holidays only. |
| Thursday & Friday | 11:00 · 13:00 | Two tours, weather permitting. |
| Saturday & Sunday | 10:00 · 11:30 · 13:00 | Weekend tours fill first; arrive ten minutes early. |
| Public holidays | Closed | The headland road gridlocks; we stand down. |
A tour takes about 45 minutes: the museum, the oil store, then the 41 steps to the gallery. The keeper’s museum — cottage and oil store — is open every day, 09:30–16:00, with free entry.
What it costs
- $14adult
- $7child, 5–15
- Freeunder 5
- $35family, 2 adults + 3 children
- Freesociety members
- $0museum entry, always
Getting up there. The last 400 m of Cape Solander Road is unsealed and the car park holds twenty-two cars. The tower is reached by 41 stone steps — there is no lift, and the gallery takes one group at a time. Tours pause in high wind, and the tower closes when lightning is within 10 km.
Book by email Or ask at the museum door; we keep a standby list for no-shows.
The night watch
The keeper’s cottage is slept in every night of the year. A volunteer takes the cot, keeps the log, and is the first person on the headland if something goes wrong at sea or on the cliff.
The watch is not ceremonial. The log records sea state, wind, visibility, any vessel standing too close in, and every whale that passes the point between May and August. It has run without a gap since the society’s first winter.
Two rules: the log is written in ink, and it never leaves the headland. Completed volumes go to the state maritime archive at the end of each year, where anyone can read them.
Watch keepers need no experience. You need one free night a month, a sleeping bag, and the willingness to be woken by weather at two in the morning and to go and look.
Where volunteers are needed
- Tower guideLead tours, weekends and school holidays. Training given over two sessions.
- Watch keeperOne night a month in the cottage; keep the log.
- Lens workshopClean, adjust and document the 1876 lens. Steady hands; we teach the rest.
- Archives and museumCataloguing the logbooks, photographs and Harbour Board files.
- Grounds and the light reserveClearing the headland track, and the weed work the park service cannot reach.