The Amazing Floating Forest of Sydney

Everything in life is cyclical, and sometimes it happens that the death of one is the birth of something new.

There are a lot of shipwrecks in Sydney’s Homebush Bay, near the Olympic village, but none quite like the SS Ayrfield, also known as “The Floating Forest” for the lush mangrove vegetation that now covers its rusty hull.

 So it was with the British steamship SS Ayrfield, which for many years was abandoned off the coast of the Olympic Village in Sydney, and its rusty body during this time has become a true mangroves.  The ship was built in Britain in 1911 and was used by the Australian government for the U.S. troops stationed in the Pacific during World War II. It was sold in 1950 and was used to transport coal from Newcastle to Sydney, while in 1972 it was decided not to send it to Sydney Homebush Bay, where it remains to this day.

It is noteworthy that prior to the Olympic Games in 2000 in the Gulf shipwrecks occurred on a regular basis, this place is even called the graveyard of ships. Despite this SS Ayrfield still afloat, for years mangrove trees had grown on it. Of course, the “Floating Forest” is especially beautiful at sunset, photographers from all over the world come to Sydney to film a unique testimony of how nature transforms everything that man has created, but not able to fully convert.