There is no doubt that the historical geographies of quarantine and racial nationalism overlapped at Sydney's North Head Quarantine Station. To conflate these practices into a single narrative of immigration restriction, however, obscures other stories and agendas. Drawing upon inscriptions left in the Sydney sandstone by those detained at North Head, we argue that for many Pacific voyagers, quarantine was merely a temporary interruption rather than an exclusionary endpoint or affront. Citing the shuttling trade of ships and crews from New Zealand, Japan and China, this article re-locates North Head from a continental gateway to a Pacific outpost.