The North Head Quarantine Station is one of a few sites listed on the National Estate - that's one step below World Heritage! This place, 20 minutes from the centre of Sydney, is one of a network of sites built in the mid 1800s to protect Australia from incoming immigrant carried infectious diseases. The site once functioned self-sufficiently to accommodate and care for over 1,000 people, and still contains some 65 buildings, beach and wharf, machinery, museum collection and over 1,000 inscriptions carved or painted into the cliff faces by immigrants and staff.