Cooks River 2

Looking east along the Cook's River and the bridge at Tempe. The island is called Fatima Island.

Fatima Island and Tempe House

Boats on the Cook's River east of Tempe bridge (visible in the background)

Update - 4 July 2008.

I wondered how Fatima Island got its name. according to this Marrickville Council website:

"It was formed in 1901 and named after October 1951. Hundreds of Catholic nuns and children bearing torches made a ‘Rosary Crusade’ on the river banks in homage to the Virgin Mary symbolised in a statue of Our Lady of Fatima from Portugal. Pope Pius XII asked Catholics across the globe to pray to the Virgin Mary ‘with greater fervour of the heart as is demanded by the increasing urgency of the need’ as well as the conversion of Russia back from Communism."

At the time Tempe House, on the Arncliffe side of the river (see Tempe House blog entry) was a Good Sisters of St Benedict retreat.