1924 Ocean Beach Open

Many Watering Places within easy reach provide rest and recreation. An appreciation by Phoebe Kirwan

Beautiful Bribie - Ocean Beach Open

1924

"Bribie Island is historic as the place where the Southern Queensland aborigines found their last refuge from the ever-encroaching white man on the mainland to the southward of the Wide Bay district.  They were a wild tribe, living chiefly on fish and oysters, which then, as now, swarmed in the surrounding waters. Its southern extremity (Skirmish Point) obtained its name from a stubborn resistance put up by the locals, to the landing of a number of white men, and there are still a number of aboriginal kippar rings, clearly and unmistakably defined, to be found on the island.

To-day Bribie is one of the favourite seaside resorts of the Brisbane residents, and during the summer months, its boarding house and furnished residence accommodations taxed to the utmost. Surrounded as it is by seawater, the climate is healthy and bracing to the invalids, 10 degrees cooler in the summer and 10 degrees warmer in the winter than the mainland. The fishing and bathing facilities – including surfing on its Ocean Beach – are second to nothing in the State, whilst the botanical and shell curio collectors can indulge in their special hobbies to their hearts content.

The Simple Life on Bribie Island
The Telegraph 27.10.1924 p.3

Bribie Island is divided from the mainland by Pumicestone Passage, open to the ocean at both ends and navigable by boats of light draught throughout.  It is some 30 miles in length and from one to three miles in width, with a number of small and picturesque islands in its course.  The trip through in a well-equipped motor boat from Bongaree to Caloundra in smooth and land-locked waters, is picturesque and enjoyable to a degree.  Mr Harry Wright, a well-known Brisbane man, was the first to take up land on the island, some six to seven hundred acres in extent, under the Dutton Act in 1907, and for some time afterwards he, with his family, where (excepting the lighthouse keepers at the Caloundra end) the only permanent residents.  He named his selection Mountain View, from the fact that 13 out of the 18 peaks of the Glasshouse Mountains were visible in clear weather from the veranda of his residence.

Steamer Koopa at the Pier Head, Bribie Island.
The Telegraph 27.10.1924 p.3

This has all changed of late years.  The township of Bongaree, in the centre of which is situated the Tug Company’s wharf, has sprung into existence, and is now a rapidly rising and flourishing place, with a post and telegraph office, a special telephone service, a State school, a State farm, five boarding houses, a dozen or more unfurnished shacks, and innumerable furnished flats and houses for the accommodation of visitors. There are three general stores and a butchering business. On the esplanade frontage there are ladies and gentlemens bathing sheds, a kiosk, restaurant, dancing and concert pavilion, tennis court, etc., for the use and convenience of residents and visitors.

A two-chain wide roadway, cleared from end to end, with a macadamized motor track in the centre, has recently been completed right across the island from the township jetty to the Ocean Beach.  

The new [private] road constructed by the Brisbane Tug and Steamship Co., Ltd.,
from Bribie Passage to the Main Ocean Beach.
Brisbane Courier 5.12.1924 p.20

Upon this [private] road the Tug Company are now running motor ‘buses at frequent intervals at a moderate charge for the return journey, which enable day excursionists to leave Brisbane at 9.30 a.m., have a pleasure trip down the River and across the Bay, enjoy a six-mile (there and back) motor drive across the Island, an hour’s surf fishing or bathing, and return to town for their 6 o’clock tea – a programme which probably cannot be equaled on the whole Australian coast line."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Phoebe Kirwan, b. 1896, Queensland. Phoebe was a journalist in the 1920s/1930s in Brisbane. Phoebe was married to cinema photographer Bert Kirwan from 1917 to 1933.

REFERENCES

Beautiful Bribie. Ocean Beach open.
The Daily Mail 12.10.1924 p. 14 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article219015825

Bribie Island.  ILLUSTRATIONS. Picture 4: Steamer Koopa at the Pier Head, Bribie Island.  Picture 5: The Simple Life.
The Telegraph 27.10.1924 p. 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article179598892

Happy Island. Bribie’s Lure.  ILLUSTRATION - The new road constructed by the Brisbane Tug and Steamship Co., Ltd., from Bribie Passage to the Main Ocean Beach.
The Brisbane Courier 5.12.1924 p. 20. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22877599  

FURTHER READING

Brisbane Tug & Steamship Company (1912-1952)
https://www.bribiehistoricalsociety.org.au/records/brisbane-tug-%26-steamship-company-inc