To rust and ruin! The forgotten things left to crumble

To rust and ruin! From ships and fighter jets to shopping malls and mines, the forgotten things left to crumble

• The Namib desert is home to a whole host of forgotten goods, including classic cars and even bathtubs
• In Homebush Bay, just west of Sydney, there are several abandoned boats including the SS Ayrfield
• The abandoned Canfranc Railway Station in Spain was once the second biggest train station in Europe 

Once prized objects of adoration and splendour, these forgotten buildings, cars, planes and ships are slowly crumbling – and there’s something eerily fascinating about them.

Covered in rust, mosses and sprouting trees, the wreck of the SS Ayrfield wallows in the shallows of Homebush Bay, just west of Sydney.

The bay has become a graveyard of once illustrious boats that fell into disuse in the 1960s and 1970s and it is now a popular tourist attraction.

Meanwhile, the Namib desert in southern Africa is home to a whole host of forgotten goods, including vintage cars and even bathtubs dumped in the sands from tumbledown shacks.

Abandoned buildings also make for haunting sites, with some of the eeriest spots including the dishevelled  New World shopping mall in Bangkok and the dormant mining stations dotted around Longyearbyen in Svalbard.

Scroll down to see MailOnline Travel’s round-up of intriguing objects and buildings around the world left to rust and ruin…

The wreck of the the SS Ayrfield in Homebush sits in the shallows of Homebush Bay, just west of Sydney

The antique train cemetery, which is located about two miles outside the Bolivian city of Uyuni, has become a popular tourist attraction with the rusting carriages and sparse landscape making for a surreal sight 

The New World Mall in Bangkok was closed in 1997 after it was found to have breached building regulations, then a fire in 1999 left it without a roof. Rainwater slowly filled the building, causing a major mosquito problem. In an effort to rid themselves of the pests, the locals introduced freshwater talapia fish to eat the insects

This photograph of a rusting, moss-covered car was taken by French photographer Antoine Jacquiaux

The Namib desert in Namibia is home to whole host of forgotten goods, including classic cars and even bathtubs dumped in the sands from tumbledown shacks

Disused coal mining stations are dotted around the town of Longyearbyen in Svalbard, Norway

The Keys Ranch in Joshua Tree National Park, with its water tank and wooden structures, has been abandoned since the 1950s

An abandoned building is shrouded by trees along a hiking path in the Amalfi Coast region of Italy

An old military fort slowly sinks into the sands along the Baltic Sea coast by the port city of Liepaja on Latvia’s west coast

An abandoned rusty anti-aircraft gun points to the sky at the stunning Paklenica Canyon in Croatia

An abandoned car cooks in the desert heat in Namibia, with its paint slowly peeling away 

The abandoned Tkvarcheli power plant in Abkhazia, Georgia, is overgrown with weeds and mosses 

Once a closed city home to 5,000 Soviet soldiers, technicians and their families, Skrunda-1 in Latvia is now an empty town being destroyed by nature after it was abandoned in 1998

The abandoned Canfranc Railway Station in Spain was once the second biggest train station in Europe but now it is home to derelict carriages instead of paying passengers 

An unknown shipwrecked tugboat sits in the golden sands on the coast of Vila Nova de Milfontes in Portugal

An abandoned Ford pick-up truck from the 1960s sits decaying in the middle of a forest in Olympic National Park, Washington

A drone view of the former restaurant on top of Mount Akhun in Sochi, Russia, as it sits crumbling amid the trees

Located on the south coast of Sydney, the old Helensburgh Tunnels are a popular sightseeing attraction. The railway station linking the tunnels was deserted more than 100 years ago and left to ruin

Abandoned cars are piled up in a forest with no word on where the exact location is

Old Antonov An-2 aircraft are here engulfed by plant life as they sit rusting at an abandoned airport in Russia

Two ships sank 22 years apart are one of Bruce Peninsula’s top tourist attractions. The submerged vessels can be found at the Fathom Five National Marine Park in Ontario, Canada, which seeks to protect and display shipwrecks and lighthouses

A green abandoned van at an unknown spot blends into the scenery, entwined by weeds and trees

In 1973 a U.S. military plane ran out of fuel and crashed on the black beach at Sólheimasandur, in the South Coast of Iceland. Fortunately, everyone survived the crash and the remains are still visible on the beach with tours to the site available 

The wreck of a Japanese fighter airplane from the 1944 Battle of Peleliu, Palau, fought between the U.S. and Japan during World War II

A number of Iraqi Mil Mi-2 helicopters are abandoned at Camp Warhorse, a few miles to the northwest of Baqubah

An abandoned rusted car sits on Route 66 within the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

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