Welcome to the gasworks!
This cache is located at Little Manly Point Park, a great park with a lot of history and an important part of Manly’s heritage. Take a walk around the park and read the interesting plaques and admire the beautiful views! You’re sure to learn something new. There is a free parking lot, which is accessible from Stuart Street.
The Gasworks produced gas for Manly and its surroundings from 1883 to 1964. That’s over 80 years!
Time line of The Gasworks:
- 1883 – The Manly Gas Light and Coke Company was established
- 1908 – The name changed to the Manly Gas Company Limited
- 1938 – The Manly Gasworks merged with the North Shore Gas Company
- 1964 – The Gasworks closed
- 1970 – The NSW Government took over the area and the buildings were demolished
- 1990 – The Department of Planning started making Little Manly Point into a park
- 1992 – Little Manly Point Park opened
Little Manly Point was chosen as the location for the Gasworks because of its harbour side location. This meant that ships could unload cargo easily straight to the site, since coal was needed to make gas. A path was marked that followed the same line as the coal skips, so it was easy to move a coal load to the furnaces.
The surplus gas was stored in a big gas tank (called a gasometer), which was put upside down in the water to stop the gas from escaping.
In the 1920s, workers such as stokers, yardsmen and blacksmiths who worked at the gasworks promoted gas stoves, which were one of the many products that used gas.
A man called Herbert Wood designed the Wood’s Complete Gasification Plant, which was produced to improve gas production. This plant was only here and at Bathurst, probably because the plant did not reach the expectations and was demolished in 1937.
When the design for the retorts, which heated the gas was improved, the Gasworks in Manly started producing a lot more gas at a faster rate. The horizontal retorts were replaced with vertical ones, and the coal was fed through the top, meaning that workers no longer had to put in the coal themselves. The heat was better controlled, and the Manly Gasworks produced much more gas. After the coal went through the vertical retorts, it was washed, scrubbed and purified to remove tar and ammonia.
This is a very important area, so you should follow the following guidelines of the park:
No camping
No dogs allowed on the beach or within 10m of the playground, picnic and BBQ area
No dumping
No golf
No intoxicating liquor
No lighting of fires
No motor vehicles allowed on site, authorised vehicles only
No spear fishing
The cache is a quite big small, with room for small swaps, a TB or so (the cache started with Canada Loon coins TB), the logbook, a small pen (please note this is not for swaps) and one dollar for the FTF. The logbook is a raffle ticket book, that’s all we could find!
Enjoy your visit at Little Manly Point Park! If it’s a hot day, take a stroll to the nearby beach at Little Manly Cove, or take a slightly longer walk to the more secluded Collins Flats Beach.
Please replace the cache exactly where you found it and try not to leave any junky swaps 
Please contact us if the cache is in need of maintenance and we will fix the problem soon. Please report DNF. No spoilers please.