1933 Riding tour over the Blackall Range to Bribie Island

The following article gives a glimpse of Bribie Island in the 1930s within a description of the broader environs of the Blackall Range – a distance that travelling by horse afforded people at that time. A view of Bribie Island from the Glasshouse Mountains afforded Helena a wonder that was matched by the view she had of the Glasshouse Mountains from Bribie Island!

Over the Blackalls. Riding in Queensland.

By Helena Cass

1933

It was folly to plan a riding tour with Mystery over the Blackall Range. But there is a special providence for helpless women, and a guide presented herself. She was short and very fat. She wore a flop hat and a grey ulster, and on her undersized grey pony she looked like a pilgrim from the Canterbury Tales. Having made my will, I placed myself in her hands. We turned our backs on the little fishing village, still unspoilt, which one day will draw the world to see the sun set behind the Glass Houses – those vast pillars of rock which loom in splendid isolation like pyramids against skies of cerise and primrose and purple-blue. Our way lay through bush thick with wildflowers. We rode past groves of magnificent palms, tangled lawyer-vines and water-vines, nests of the white ant several feet high, and tall gums with thin, straight trunks like columns in a Gothic nave. It was strange, in this depth of bush, to hear the roar of a 'plane and see, in the narrow lane of sky, the mail 'plane pass south. In one clearing was a section of a house, with people living in it as they built. The garden was being kept in boxes upstairs until the chickens, could be fenced in.

At Landsborough, with its three timber mills in action, we gave our bush ponies their first shoes, and pushed on up the range for the night. Below us stretched 80 miles of coastal scenery, clear as in an aeroplane photograph - the blue of Moreton Bay, that quiet arm of water called The Passage, cut from the sea by the long length of Bribie Island, low hills in the foreground, and behind and above us the Montville Range. 

Aerial view of Bribie Island and hinterland.
Description: Earth observation views taken from shuttle orbiter Endeavour during STS-67 mission.
Date taken: 3.5.1995
Source: The U.S. National Archives

A new guide took me in charge next morning, a bush girl riding a spirited animal which she had broken in herself, and leading another which she was training to follow like a dog. The country rivalled the land of "Swiss Family Robinson.'' We passed banana gullies, pineapple fields, and orange groves. When we were hot and thirsty we bought pineapples and ate them by the wayside, in the only way to eat a pineapple – by cutting off the top and eating the pulp with a spoon.

The Glass Houses

Suddenly we gained a plateau and stopped to gaze at the amazing scene. Below, on a great plain, were the Glass Houses and a multitude of lesser mounds. These are no ordinary mountains, nor, speaking accurately, are they mountains at all. They are solidified lava, which has choked the vents of old volcanoes. Seen closely there is something awe-inspiring about them; they belong not to our age, but to a past world, what we know as Mesozoic times. I have seen them in the early morning, their hard surface gleaming in the sun. It was so that Cook saw them and named them more than 150 years ago. At Maleny, the heart of the dairy country, we stopped to see the show. Ten years ago, when I rode through the fruit country, a stretcher case had to be carried over the roughest of tracks 13 miles to the railhead. Now Maleny has a modern hospital, and patients are brought by ambulance on a metalled road. Next day we were passing through the most heavily timbered country in Southern Queensland. We met teams of 18 to 26 bullocks dragging the huge logs. In one place a man had just been killed: he had misjudged the fall of a tree. In the late afternoon we were descending the range into Conondale. With no warning my guide plunged down a deep slope, exactly like Italian cavalry in the films. The grade there was one in two; there was no track, only an occasional wallaby trail. Feeling thankful about my will I urged Mystery to get it over. He at once began to tack. Presently my haversack with a week's supplies, was brushed from the saddle by a tree. It could have stayed up there as far as I was concerned. But the bush girl was magnificent: she came back at the double and retrieved it for me.

Five minutes more and we were trotting across newly cleared country, with wood smoke rising here and there in the quiet air. Long lines of white ash marked the place of many fallen trees. The last rays of the sun threw a welcoming gleam on the windows of the bush girl’s studio high up on iron capped logs, and set upon a hill. The night was full of the noises of the bush – the eerie call of the curlew, the cry of an opossum or a disturbed plover the howl of the dingo, the scamper of a drove of wallabies at dawn. We rested our horses for a day and went wallaby shooting in the scrub. The bush girl got one with her first shot. The air was already hot, though it was easily spring: a family of bellbirds was chiming overhead, and we rested at a little green pool on the banks of the River Mary which flows to Maryborough. Over the range we went, with wonderful views of great extent, and in to Woodford. The pioneers must have faced difficulties in this countryside, for some houses were without front windows. One man had a primitive sawmill made by taking an engine from a Dodge car and coupling the saw spindle directly to the universal of the tail-shaft. The next day's ride to Beerwah was a lovely stretch of 30 miles. There were jungle gullies, lunch at a lily pool, and a well-graded road down the range, with Crooked Neck, one of the Glass Houses, rimmed in trees, looking like an ancient castle.

At Beewah we went over the Government forestry reserve, where, for five years, experiments have been made and where 500 acres have been planted with pinus caribacea.

Bribie Island

We crossed to Bribie Island by a ford called the Shallows, and galloped down the surf beach. We were met by some aborigines, who grilled fish for us on pronged sticks. They took us to the nets on the other side of the island, in the passage, and showed us baby sharks and the dreaded stingray. We saw "oysters growing on trees”; there were pelicans, ibis, and hawks. Lulu, with the quick eyes of the native, saw bees about a tree, which, when cut down, gave a kerosene tin of honey. A large iguana was up one tree, and a recently discarded snakeskin hung from another. As we swam our horses across the channel to the mainland, the soldier crabs were swarming in millions on the sandbanks, maneuvering, with human ardour their miniature armies. Moreton Bay was still blue, even in moonlight, when we gained the beautiful headland which was the end of our journey, the lovely length of Bribie's beach was still golden and I waved good-bye to my Bush Girl with the surf breaking lazily below pandanus trees.

REFERENCE
Over the Blackalls. Riding in Queensland. By Helena Cass. The Argus (Melbourne) 7.1.1933 p. 9 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4518239

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Helena Cass (nee Holmes) was born in 1887 in Toronto, Canada and was a serving army nurse when she married Australian Major Walter Edmund Hutchinson Cass in October 1916 in London, England. Their only child Angelia was born in 1926. Brigadier General W.E.H. Cass died in 1931 and he was given a full military funeral service. In her widowhood Helena established a career in Melbourne as a freelance journalist.

This story is one of 27 stories presented in Describing Bribie Island 1865-1965: historical first-hand accounts of visiting Bribie Island produced by the Bribie Island Historical Society in 2017.  

PHOTO: Description: Earth observation views taken from shuttle orbiter Endeavour during STS-67 mission. Date taken: 3.5.1995 Source: The U.S. National Archives sts067-730-010-sts-067

FURTHER READING
State Library of Victoria appeals for funds to conserve Walter and Helena Cass collection. By James Hancock. ABC Online, Wed 16 May 2018. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-16/state-library-victoria-walter-helena-cass-collection-appeal/9763720

Walter and Helena Cass Collection appeal - State Library of Victoria.
https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/cass-appeal

Story 18 Describing Bribie Island

The following story is one of 27 stories presented in Describing Bribie Island 1865-1965: historical first-hand accounts of visiting Bribie Island produced by the Bribie Island Historical Society in 2017.  

Reminiscences of Wendy McNeil (1988) 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Wendy McNeil nee Harrison’s (1931-1994) parents were John Harrison (1882-1956) and Kathleen Harrison (1895-1983). Kathleen Harrison nominated Charlotte street be named for local identities Charlie Brown and Lottie Tripcony (Char-lotte). 

For the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Bribie Bridge in 1988, Wendy McNeil shared her personal reminiscences in an article entitled The Harrison family – Reminiscences which was published in the Bribie Times, 3 October 1988, page 22. 

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My mother used to travel to Bribie way back in the days of the Koopa for holidays and did so over fifty-five years ago. 

As a child, I have lovely memories of going to Bribie on the Koopa, staying at the cafe boarding house on the beach near the jetty and throwing my line in from the cafe verandah and catching my first fish! (A gar.) 

We used to go out on the second jetty up near the creek entrance and watch 'Old Deafie' catch pilchards in his net to sell for bait. 

In those days, there was a little kiosk right at the end of the jetty selling fish and oysters freshly caught and crabs too. 

We used to ride on an old tilly with seats across the back (wooden of course), no roof; over to Ocean Beach and that was joy untold. 

The first road to Woorim beach.
Photo: Wendy McNeil

Outside Winston's store on the corner (First Avenue and Toorbul Street) that is now a supermarket, there were seats and a flight of 4 wide steps up into the shop and a big tree just in front with seats around it and all the old identities used to gather under the 'tree of knowledge' and expound on world affairs. 

In later years when the Koopa ceased to run, we came across on the barge for 50 cents later $1. That was in our old utility and the road from Caboolture was unsealed and corrugated and one time my brother lost a wheel barrow out of the back and we were always 'doing in' springs etc. 

Whiting used to be very plentiful and easily caught from the beach. I remember on our honeymoon at Bribie thirty-two years ago my husband and I caught very large delicious rock whiting up at White Patch and some flathead as well. 

My mother had lived on Bribie at Charlotte Avenue for thirty-two years up till the 6th Jan 1983 when, due to failing health, she came to live at Gatton with me. She rode her push bike for many years up till she was 84 years and was a well-known sight on it. 

She learned to ride the bike when she took over the postal run (66 years old) at Bribie while my sister Alice who was the mail contractor had her daughter Sylvia. Mum helped Alice sort the mail for a long time too. 

She and Alice inaugurated and ran the Bribie youth club for years and very successfully too. She belonged to and held office in the Pensioners League, the Progress Association, G.A.P. Country Womens, Toc H and raised funds for the school, ambulance and the Methodist church. She was organist at the church for many years also. At 79 she asked to be made Scout Mistress but was turned down due to her age! 

I know she was the only person who publicly stood up against the bridge being put over to the island as she foresaw, and rightly so, that it would be the end of an idyllic age when life was peaceful, calm and unhurried. 

It spoilt the Bribie that we knew and loved so well but created a new Bribie that the modern generation enjoy in a different way.

Story 26 Describing Bribie Island

The following story is one of 27 stories presented in Describing Bribie Island 1865-1965: historical first-hand accounts of visiting Bribie Island produced by the Bribie Island Historical Society in 2017.

Bribie Walkabout by Zena Turner (1963)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Zena Turner (b. 1911) lived on Bribie Island with her husband Ernest Turner (handicraft worker) from 1949. Zena continued to reside on Bribie after her husband passed away in 1958. Zena lived at Ocean Beach and contributed many articles to The Bribie Star in the 1960s.

Zena’s love of nature can be seen clearly in the following article, published in the Bribie Star v.2(9) 19th October 1963 (Bridge special edition) page 17.

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Although Bribie is the Mecca of many thousands of near-by city dwellers, there are surprisingly few who turn away from the water-lapped fringes of the Island and go into the bush which, at no place on the Southern end of the Island, is more than one and half miles from the water. Anyone wanting to evade civilisation for a day can find no better place to go than into the Bribie bush where the atmosphere is as remote as the never never, and the chance of meeting another human being is as equally remote. The southern end of the Island is laced with tracks suitable for a day’s tramping in the bush, and the best ones are within easy access from either Bongaree or Woorim. Some of them are suitable also for vehicular traffic but many of the good tracks, made when the army was on the Island during war time, have become overgrown for want of use.

Bushcraft

Trackless walking on the Island is for those with a sense of direction and experienced in bushcraft. A few yards off a track in the Bribie bush and every tree and every shrub looks alike, so anyone who goes bushwalking on Bribie should follow a track unless familiar with the bush and swamps which will be encountered.

The track best known and most used by bushwalkers is that from Cotteril Avenue, Bongaree, to the centre road which runs north and south through the entire length of the Island. From this road a number of tracks branch out to different places of interest, the two main ones leading to Woorim and Dingo Creek.

Along the track from the centre road to North Street, Woorim, is the springtime beauty spot of the Island. Here is a vast garden of wild flowers, predominantly Boronia, fringed with Tea-Trees and Banksias, with a clump of tall, slim Tea-Trees standing sentinel-like in its midst. Here, too, grows the beautiful wild blue Iris, the dainty Sun-Orchid and many little ground-hugging plants, colourful little things upon which one is reluctant to walk.

Brilliant Flash

To add to this panorama of colour are the Rainbow Lorikeets which make a brilliant flash as they sweep screeching overhead. In contrast to their screeching is the beautiful Throated Warbler. As the delicate, falling cadence comes drifting across the distance it is difficult to believe that such a melody, considered to be one of the sweetest of all Australian bird songs, can be produced by such a tiny bird. After passing through the Boronia plain the track winds on to Freshwater Creek where the Dusky Coral pea runs riot over shrub and tree, and the wild Lasiandra vies with tall, green bracken for a place in the sun. Here, too, are colourful little Wrens – the Blue and the Redbacked – flitting about in the reeds of the creek. A true family man, the Wren, for he is never alone. Always Jenny and the family are there with their happy, high-pitched twittering. A short distance past Freshwater Creek the track joins North Street and Fifth Avenue Woorim, and here, at the meeting of the roads, is another sand track leading north to the First lagoon.

Grove of Pines – The Cathedral

Some distance along the track is a grove of pines standing on the edge of the sea –beautiful, gnarled old trees that have withstood countless years of seasonal salt-sea winds and cyclones. It is to the credit of the many who picnic here that these beautiful old Pines are as yet untouched by man. This cannot be said of the grove that stands parallel with it across the water of the lagoon and which is reached by passing the sand-locked entrance to the lagoon and traversing trackless Pine Ridge on its western bank. Surely it was here in this Pine grove, known for many years as The Cathedral that a small part of Nature died. It was a place of beauty – tall Pines etched the sky, sun-dappled pine-needle carpet underfoot, Orchids, Staghorns and Ferns grew green and beautiful, and over all the still quiet of the bush broken only by the low murmur of the sea and the singing of birds. But, unlike the windswept old pines on the edge of the sea, most of the trees grew straight and tall – so straight and tall that their beautiful sky-reaching greenness marked their doom. No Pine trees could grow so high and so green unless they were millable. And so they died.

Today [1963] The Cathedral has no semblance of its former beauty and few go there. Those who do venture along Pine Ridge do so because of a remembered beauty, and with the hope that Nature may perform one of her rare miracles and restore what man destroyed.

Another one and a half miles north from the First Lagoon by beach or by trackless bush walking is the Second Lagoon which may be reached also by following the centre road north to the signpost giving directions to Dingo Creek and Second Lagoon. It is necessary if going by this road to go to Dingo Creek and then walk back a half-mile by beach to the lagoon.

Undisturbed

This is a lovely spot lying undisturbed and looking much as it must have looked centuries ago when the black man roamed here. The harsh browns and olive greens of the bush and the lagoon lie hard against the silver and blue of the sea with Moreton Island hanging like a purple backdrop in the distance. Misty grey-green Casuarinas lining the seashore and the entrance to the lagoon lend a redeeming softness to this almost too brilliant picture, and a civilisation-left-behind atmosphere pervades the whole area – an atmosphere that belies a city of some 600,000 population lying just fifty miles to the south, and a progressive Sunshine Coast to the north.

Here in the environs of the Second Lagoon the Palm Lily grows. It is an oddity of nature that this plant with its spike of delicate, orchid-like pink blooms should curve swan-like and graceful to open its beauty to the ground and not to the sun. Behind the Second Lagoon the bush is trackless and wild with tangled bracken and undergrowth, but there are surprises here for the intrepid bushwalker. A picturesque little fern-tipped swamp nestles at the foot of a pine-clad ridge, and a Pandanus Palm, too far from its natural place by the sea, grows disproportionately high seeking the sunlight through the foliage of its towering bushland companions, while a King Orchid, oddly out of place in this Bribie wilderness, struggles for existence in the hot sand. No doubt it grew at one time in a shady Pine until ravaged by bushfire.

Oak Walk

Further north and over the terrace from Dingo Creek is the Oak Walk which, as the name implies, is a track winding its way through a thick belt of she-oaks. The track was made when the army was in occupation of the Island and it is still there, but only those who know of it can find it now for it has become overgrown at both ends and there is nothing to show that it is there.

Some three miles north of Dingo Creek is Mermaid Lagoon, and a few miles north again is Welsby Lagoon, or, as it is sometimes called, the Bird Lagoon. Here many aquatic birds, black Swan and wild Duck predominating, swim serenely through reeds and water lilies sheltered from the sea by high sand dunes, and from the west by high Tea-Trees so regular in growth that they lie against the sky like a straight, dark wall. On rare occasions a Jabiru may be seen stalking quietly about Welsby Lagoon in search of prey. If frightened it will take off into seemingly effortless flight and alight on the other side of the lagoon where it will stand motionless for so long that it seems to merge with its surroundings.

Welsby Lagoon

Welsby Lagoon is the ultimate of remoteness on Bribie, for it lies halfway between the northern tip of the Island near Caloundra and the southern tip in Moreton Bay. It is some 10 miles from Woorim by beach, but if alternating the walk by bush and beach it is some 13 or 14 miles.

The track from Dingo Creek back to Campbell Road, Bongaree, and Woorim is usually in good condition for vehicular traffic as well as for walking. It passes through large areas of Boronia, and in a reasonably clear section between Dingo Creek and the sign post are hundreds of grass trees growing luxuriantly in an area which had previously been swept by bushfire. Here, when the grass trees bloom, the parrots come to feed. It is a magnificent sight to see hundreds of Lorikeets feeding on the tall, cylindrical spikes of bloom, as many as six at each spike. They keep up an incessant chatter as they feed, fluttering their rainbow wings in an endeavour to gain a precarious foothold among the thousand minute blooms.

Common Sight

Emus, Kangaroos and Wallabies are a common sight along this track, and on rare occasions a flock of Brolgas may be seen. These beautiful birds take off into flight at the first sign of intrusion, and always their flight is northward to the far end of the Island, where, in a clearing in the vicinity of the lighthouse, they have been seen performing their graceful, long-legged dance.

The only track branching off to the sea once the Dingo Creek track joins the centre road is the one leading to Woorim. There are, however, several leading off to the Passage side of the Island. These have become rather overgrown and unless they are used by experienced bush-walkers it is well to bypass them and continue on to the track leading into Cotteril Avenue.

Some half-mile before reaching Cotteril Avenue along this track the whole bush is redolent of a delightful perfume identical with that of the wild Cherry Blossom. Nothing has been found to account for this perfume, so it is referred to simply as “a delightful bush fragrance”.

Overgrown

South of Campbell Road there are more good walking tracks, a number of which were made when the army was on the Island. Most of them had become overgrown, but last year some of them were cleared and it is now possible to leave Campbell Road at Boyd Street, Woorim, and re-join it at Bongaree, via Skirmish Point, Woody Bay, Bald Point and Red Beach.

These are interesting tracks for walking as they give access at intervals to the Bay beaches, and one branches off to what is considered to be the best Pine grove now standing on the Island. This is at Bald Point tucked well back from the south-east winds behind a protective line of Casuarinas and Banksias which stand well back from the waters of Moreton Bay.

It is from the Red Beach section of this track that an entrance to Skirmish Swamp is found. Tree-ferns grow luxuriantly here, but it is seldom possible to penetrate far into the swamp. During the 1946 drought it dried out completely and then it was possible to walk anywhere in the area.

Beautiful Beach

Although there are many miles of bush tracks for walking there are also many miles of beautiful beach for walking – clear, unbroken beach right to the northern tip of the Island, and picturesque Bay beaches from Skirmish Point to Pumicestone Passage.

Looking from Skirmish Point across Woody Bay is like viewing a vast, remote painting tinged with sadness, for Woody Bay is a graveyard of trees. Each year the encroaching sea, pushed on by the south-east winds that run rampant across Moreton Bay, cut further into the low, unresisting terrace and one after another the rangy old Tea-Trees and Pines topple to the beach where they eventually become sea-washed ghosts of their former beauty.

Nature is both bountiful and cruel here, for while Woody Bay is being cut away by the sea,

Bald Point which lies a few hundred feet away is building up. This build-up has been taking place over the years since the 1952 cyclone sliced through Bald Point so that it was possible to see, from the one vantage point on the beach, both Skirmish Point and the beacon at the entrance to Pumicestone Passage.

Bald Point

Marram grass and Beach Spinifex took control of this section of the beach, held the drifting sand, and now hundreds of young Casuarina trees have grown until Bald Point is better able to withstand a cyclonic gale than it was before the last cyclone ravaged it.

Sunset is the time for walking on Ocean Beach, for it is here that it is possible to walk on a rainbow. As the waves recede the reflections of the sunset light up the wet sand into a rainbow ribbon that stretches mile after mile into the distance until it loses itself in the sky. As the sun sinks the colours on the sand are ever-changing until the darkness blots out the sunset splendour which is equalled on Bribie only by the magnificent sunsets that encompass Pumicestone Passage and the Glasshouse Mountains.

Story 10 Describing Bribie Island

The following story is one of 27 stories presented in Describing Bribie Island 1865-1965: historical first-hand accounts of visiting Bribie Island produced by the Bribie Island Historical Society in 2017.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: William Main (1860-1946) was born in Glasgow, Scotland and arrived in Queensland in 1887.  In 1911, William was appointed by the Queensland Government to be an Immigration Agent and obtained agricultural emigrants for Queensland. During the 1920s William was associated with the Commercial Travelers’ Club in Elizabeth Street, Brisbane city, and from about this time he contributed verse and other literary articles to The Queenslander, Sydney Mail and other Australian and overseas periodicals.  William spent his retirement years on Bribie Island and according to the Visitors’ Book for Shirley’s Guest House at Ocean Beach, stayed there on 8 December 1939.  Another guest that day was Thomas Welsby.

William Main’s article The Unnamed Lakes was published in The Queenslander, 9 February 1928, page 8 and his photos of The Nameless Lagoons of Bribie on page 31.

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The Unnamed Lakes of Bribie by William Main, 1928 (with illustrations)

Unnamed lakes and streams, in these days [1928], belong to the "Never Never"; but they are still to be found on the main beach of Bribie Island, 35 miles from the city of Brisbane.

Historically, Bribie is the most important island in the Bay.  On July 16, 1799, Captain Matthew Flinders landed at Skirmish Point, the first white man to land on Moreton Bay, and this point of Bribie was named by him because of a short and almost harmless engagement he and his boat’s crew had with the natives after landing.  In his sloop Norfolk Flinders made a wonderfully accurate chart of the Bay and islands, but he missed the Brisbane River, which, after an interval of 24 years, was discovered by Oxley.

Map of Bribie Island showing
William Main’s “Unnamed Lakes”.
Source: The Unnamed Lakes of Bribie. The Queenslander, 9 February 1928, p. 8.

   The island was not named.  It simply got to be known as Bribie’s Island, the name of a convict settler who made his home on it for years.

   During recent times the steamers of the Brisbane Tug and Steamship Company have made the island accessible four days a week, and a township has been formed at the jetty, in the passage between the island and the mainland.  This township has been named Bongaree, although the name is unknown to most of the visitors.  The passage itself is a famous fishing ground, and was supposed by the explorers to be the mouth of a river, and consequently was named the Pumicestone River, but is now more commonly known to its frequenters as Bribie Passage.  The scenery and sunsets are beautiful, with fine views of the Glass House Mountains in the background.

   The Tug Company of late years has opened a road across the island to the main beach, and established a motor service.  This is the only road on the island, and as the time between arrival and departure is so short it permits little more than a dip in the surf and lunch at the kiosk before returning to the Passage to join the steamer.

   The main beach, stretching over 20 miles north to Caloundra, is practically undiscovered country.  As far as the eye can reach the beach shows an unbroken fringe of casuarinas.  Behind the casuarinas is thick scrub and timber, which, in the south of the island, stretches from the main beach to the Passage.  The road is through timber all the way.  About three miles north of the road the thick scrub forms but a narrow belt, and beyond, for miles and miles, the island is open country, like a Scottish moor, covered with heath, with occasional clumps of banksia and ti-tree.  Instead of grouse, one starts an odd kangaroo or wallaby, and sometimes an emu.  Dingoes are common, as their tracks prove, right down to the shore; but they are seldom seen in daylight.  In the topmost branches of a dead cypress pine, not far from the open country, is an eagle’s nest of many years’ standing.  There are two young eagles in it as I write, and they are bred by larger eagles than can be found in any other part of the world.

How No. 1 lagoon meets the sea in a wet season.
Photo and caption: W. Main
Source: The Nameless Lagoons of Bribie. The Queenslander, 9 February 1928, p. 31.

The Lagoons

   Three miles along the beach, north from the road, there is a break in the casuarina fringe, and No. 1 lagoon opens out.  It is the smallest of the saltwater lakes, but a fine sheet of water at times.  It has but one arm running into it, from the south.  This arm is over two miles long, and joins up with fresh water lagoons and swamps in the wet season, when it becomes a rushing river, breaking through the sand barrier to the sea.  This lagoon broke through in April last year, after being closed for three years, and the photographs were taken at that time.  There is also a photograph showing it closed up again.

No. 1 lagoon closed from the sea.
Photo and caption: W. Main
Source: The Nameless Lagoons of Bribie. The Queenslander, 9 February 1928, p. 31.

No. 2 lagoon.  Photo and caption: W. Main
Source: The Nameless Lagoons of Bribie. The Queenslander, 9 February 1928, p. 31.

   Two miles north of No. 1 lagoon there is a second gap in the coastline, and one comes on a beautiful sheet of water, which is No. 2 lagoon, the largest of the four lagoons along the main beach.  This lagoon has two large feeders, one stretching south until it almost joins the waters of No. 1 lagoon, and in wet weather, draining swamps and numerous fresh water lagoons that join up to make a river, carrying the accumulated rubbish of the island to the sea.  At such times the ocean changes colour, and becomes a sea of mud and debris along the coastline.

  Sometimes, while the break remains open to the sea, fish rush in, and, when closed, the lagoons are full of bream, whiting, and mullet.  They have always eels.  At the last break the fish were not available, and there are few in any of the lagoons this year.  One whiting, caught in No. 2 last year, measured 18in., and scaled 1 lb. 11 oz.  The flavour of the lagoon fish is inferior to the fish caught in the sea.

No. 2 lagoon looking north.
Photo and caption: W. Main.
Source: The Nameless Lagoons of Bribie. The Queenslander, 9 February 1928, p. 31.

The north branch of No. 3 lagoon.
Photo and caption: W. Main
Source: The Nameless Lagoons of Bribie. The Queenslander, 9 February 1928, p. 31.

   Then, two good miles north of No. 2 lagoon, one reaches the gem of the main beach, No. 3 lagoon.  The permanent water in No. 1 and No. 2 lagoons is dark, like strong billy tea; but the water of No. 3 lagoon is clear as crystal, and makes the finest swimming pool imaginable.  It is not more than 10ft. deep in any part, and there is a beautiful island that one can reach by the aid of a friendly sandbank.  The banks are covered with scrub and beautiful trees, with here and there a group of dark cypress pines, stretching above the surrounding bush and forming a delightful contrast to the lighter shades of green.  

The waters of No. 3 lagoon come mostly from the heathland, and at times there are whiting to be caught, if they are in a biting mood.

No. 4 lagoon.
Photo and caption: W. Main
Source: The Nameless Lagoons of Bribie. The Queenslander, 9 February 1928, p. 31.

  The No. 3 lagoon, the beauty of the bunch, entails a 10-mile walk along the beach; but, when the tide is suitable, the sands are firm, and with a day before one there is no need to hurry.

   

No. 4 lagoon is much the same as No. 2 lagoon.  It has two feeding areas, and is in the neighbourhood where the wild “Christmas bells” bloom in their season.  Unfortunately, “there ain’t no ‘buses running” and it is a long way to carry Christmas bells seven miles, mostly against a south-easter.

   The main beach itself is a mighty attraction, and a plunge in the surf is available at any stage of the journey.  Sometimes there are rare shells to be found; but often the beach is bare.  And what a beach it is – the finest surfing beach in Queensland!  

REFERENCE:
An Unknown Island. The Unnamed Lakes of Bribie published in The Queenslander, Thursday 9 February 1928, page 8 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22943972  and the photos The Nameless Lagoons of Bribie appear on page 31 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22943811 of the same issue.

Story 9 Describing Bribie Island

The following story is one of 27 stories presented in Describing Bribie Island 1865-1965: historical first-hand accounts of visiting Bribie Island produced by the Bribie Island Historical Society in 2017.

Bribie Passage: a wonderful waterway by Vance Palmer (1926)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Vance Palmer[1] (1885-1959) was born at Bundaberg to Henry and Jessie Palmer. His early education was in several Queensland towns and his school-teacher father Henry Palmer was a strong influence. Though Vance worked in jobs that varied from a city office clerk to tutor and book-keeper on a Queensland cattle-station, he found success through his writing. He married Nettie Higgins in London in 1914. From 1925-1929, Vance and Nettie lived economically, by their pens, at Caloundra with their small children. Vance published The Man Hamilton in 1928 and The Passage in 1930 both books probably set in the Pumicestone Passage. The couple knew Andrew Tripcony and Dick Dalton, were interested in aboriginal folklore and visited the Petrie family at Murrumba[2].

Vance Palmer submitted this article to The Daily Mail and it was published in The Daily Mail (Brisbane) 20 February 1926, page 16.

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On all the east coast, from the lakes and inlets of Mallacoota in the south to the tiny islands of the Barrier Reef, there is no more delightful stretch of smooth water than the long and narrow passage running between Bribie and the mainland. It is astonishing that it is so little known. Up to the present, though, there have been few means of access to it.

The excursion boats, with their loads of day trippers, regularly make the passage to Bongaree, the flat, little settlement on the southern end of Bribie, wait for a few hours, and then turn homeward again; but anyone wanting to make the full journey up the wonderful waterway to Caloundra has to trust to an arrangement with a casual motor boat.  There are a couple of larger boats it is true that run with stores the whole way from Brisbane, but they are dependent on the tides, and cannot conform to a schedule that would suit passengers.

Yet those who have only glimpsed the passage from the southern end of Bribie can have no conception of its charm.  It is when the broad gates of the southern entrance have been left behind, and the tree-lined shores begin to close round the boat, that the passenger is moved to sit up and take notice. The wind-ripped surface of the water changes to an unruffled calm; little green islands appear on all sides; the blue, transparent shapes of the Glasshouse Mountains loom up in the sky like gigantic figures brooding over a magic lake. The very atmosphere of the sea is forgotten. It is a lake one imagines oneself to be drifting over – a lake so secret and sheltered that it is immune from the operations of wind and tide. Of course it is not, but that is the impression. Even the quiet movement of the current is hidden from the eye. The boat winds between islands so numerous and scattered that the traveler is liable to lose his sense of direction and forget which portion of the tree-studded shore is Bribie and which is the mainland of the continent. It is a low-lying shore, but varied. Sometimes a forest of mangroves hides the near view, and at other times there are sandhills thick with sheoak pines, or stretches of open forest where the eye travels over a dark green sward into depths of shadow.

A few cattle stare at the boat from openings in the timber. Occasionally a couple of kangaroos hop along the shores pause and listen to the chug-chug of the engines, and then make back without unnecessary panic to their secret haunts. The armies of black swans feeding into the mullet-weed near the shore do not show the faintest sign of alarm, or even interest, and the stately pelican, sailing in company with its shadow over the still water, only hastens its progress slightly to get out of way of the boat.

The glimpses of wild life are a reminder that once these waters, and the low-lying country around them, were a happy hunting-ground for the blacks. It is said that a few generations ago, at least a thousand had their headquarters here, and that they never had to go short of food. There was game of all sorts in abundance; the waters were teeming with fish and oysters; the thick, flowering shrubs were alive with honey-bees.

Emus are still to be seen on the open flats, and probably the boles of rotting trees held the favoured wichetty-grub in plenty. Altogether it was a natural paradise for those who came before us. But, where are their descendants now? Where, indeed? Probably the game, plentiful enough still, is shyer and more scattered than it used to be. The rich oyster-beds are staked out and leased, and sometimes for large rentals, and the only sign of human presence is the occasional whitewashed bungalow of an oysterman, set in a clearing and surrounded by a vivid green patch of buffalo grass.

One or two curious relics of the blacks’ camps remain, though. Here and there is a green knoll, not very large, but standing out prominently because of its height and smoothness.  The place of some tribal religious rite, you guess. No, not exactly. Inquiry has proved them to rest on a solid basis of oyster shells, the remnant of gargantuan feasts of the past. The loose sand has drifted over these heaps, the grass has sprouted, and they remain now as the only monuments those happy, care-free people have left behind them.

About half-way between the southern end of Bribie and Caloundra the passage suddenly narrows, the boat gliding between islands so closely placed together that you could almost pull a mangrove twig from either bank. Often there is a choice of half a dozen channels, but it is wise to follow the beacons. Yet even in the staked passage the water becomes ominously shallow in places. Beneath the boat’s keel the clear sand shows up, and looking over you can see shoals of frightened fish making for the mullet weed.

This is the place where the tides meet, and at low water it is often a case of having to get out and push behind. The larger boats time their passage, of course, to pass over these shallows at highwater, but their presence lends an uncertain factor to the navigation of the channel. An uncertain factor, and, it must be added, a rather humiliating one!

It is disquieting to reflect, for instance, that this passage was once regularly used by timber boats coming from the little ports along the northern coast, and that is can be used in this way no longer.  What had made the change?  The chief cause, it is said, was the mammoth flood of 1893, that brought down logs and timber from the coastal creeks, depositing them in the passage where the sand has silted over them. That was more than 30 years ago, though, and nothing has been done since in the way of dredging.

It is appalling that a waterway like this should have been allowed to pass out of regular use, except for small boats. Even if its charm as a pleasure resort were not allowed to count in the balance it would still have its commercial value in opening up places not easily approached except by water. And for years its oyster beds have provided a rich source of revenue for the State, so that any expenditure on the passage now would only be a partial repayment of what it has produced in the past. The shallow portion is limited, and if it were thoroughly dredged there does not seem likelihood of it silting up badly again.

But these reflections only occur in passing. Gliding along over the still water, it is easy to surrender to the charm of the place as it is now. Memories of other sheltered stretches of blue sea come back. I have a vision of approaching the shores of Finland in the quiet dawn through an archipelago of spruce-covered islands, with the little red roofed chalets of summer visitors from Helsingfors showing through the dark trees; another vision of evenings in the land-locked Japan Sea, with the queer-shaped sails of fishing smacks showing along the shore.

Yet, for pure natural beauty, Bribie Passage can hold its own with these places, in one pair of eyes at least, and it has its own distinct quality. That quality is closely connected with the impressive shapes of the Glasshouse Mountains. Beerwah, Crookneck, and Tibrogargan changing their positions at every turn of the boat, like figures in some stately minuet, and dominating the whole landscape by their very air of deliberate design.

We lose them for a while in the last few miles run to Caloundra. The stretch of water narrows again, and even above the purring of the engine comes the heavy pounding of seas on the outer bar, where Bribie thins and comes to a point, nearly touching the mainland. A white beam from the lighthouse on the hill pierces the dusk, with half-a-hundred other lights twinkling at its base, and the journey comes to an end. Only a 25-mile run, altogether! One leaves the passage feeling that, though its coves and islands have been known for at least two generations, still another will pass before their charm and mystery are really discovered. It is possible, even in the height of the holiday season, to make the whole journey without seeing anyone but a few fishermen dragging the sandy shallows with their nets, or fossicking in the clayey banks for crabs.

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[1] Edward Vivian (Vance) Palmer, biography by Geoffrey Serle, 1988, Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1988.

[2] Fourteen years: extracts from a private journal 1925-1939 by Nettie Palmer, ed. V. Smith, 1988.

New book Describing Bribie

New book

Describing Bribie Island 1865-1965

: historical first-hand accounts of visiting Bribie Island

Over the century from 1865 to 1965 many different people have written fascinating first-hand accounts recording their personal experience of visiting Bribie Island. Each story provides a special insight into both the writer and the events they experienced during their time here and this insight reveals many different aspects of life and times on Bribie over those 100 years.

Section of the cover of new book
Describing Bribie Island 1865-1965

Following extensive research and document selection the Bribie Island Historical Society has published a book containing a number of these unique first-hand accounts.  





Over the last ten years Donna Holmes, Coordinator of the BIHS Historical Database Project has recorded over 10,000 references to photos, documents and articles mentioning Bribie Island. Donna selected 27 historical accounts in various formats including articles, letters and poems containing descriptive details of what Bribie Island was like when their writer visited.

The earliest stories are two letters written in 1865 on an Easter trip to Bribie by four men in a row boat. What an adventure they had rowing up the Pumicestone Passage! One man was the first premier of Queensland, another was manager of the Bank of NSW in Brisbane. The second letter was originally sent to a niece on the other side of the world and is illustrated with a series of delightful sketches and a wonderful map of Moreton Bay showing the journey stops.

Another narrative tells of an old man and a boy on a week-long trip from Beaudesert to Bribie Island in a horse and cart in 1909.  There are accounts of journeys on excursion steamships from Brisbane while other stories are written by early settlers, soldiers who were posted here and pioneers of families who descendants still live on Bribie today.

The authors include famous people like Thomas Welsby though mainly they are ordinary people who came to Bribie Island to do a job, make a new life or escape from an old one. Many of the documents have been sourced from newspapers of the time, through the John Oxley Library or from items donated to the Historical Society by descendants of the writer.

The selected accounts are all so different and provide insightful understanding of the various eras of Bribie's history. What it was like in the 1890s, during the First World War, the Depression years, the Second World War, the struggles of the 1950s and the boom years after the Bridge. The most recent account is a poem written in 1965 by the Island's Librarian.

This is the first published book by the Bribie Island Historical Society, which will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2018. The book has over 80 pages of well-referenced material with numerous footnotes and several illustrations from the original stories. Copies are available to members of the public for $20 plus postage. For further information please contact BIHS on bribiehistoricalsociety@gmail.com 

Describing Bribie Island 1865-1965

CONTENTS

01. Robert Herbert and three friends visit Bribie Island (1865)
02. Sandy Archer and three friends visit Bribie Island (1865) 
03. A Cruise round Moreton Bay – Bob S., Bill W., Frank O., A.B. (1873)
04. Seeing Bribie Island in 1909 by Ronald Patterson
05. Harry Johns and the Cary family, 53 Toorbul Street (1917-1918) 
06. Reminiscences from 1919-1988 by James Ormiston
07. Bribie Island in the 1920s by Ronald Patterson 
08. Bribie Island by Phoebe Kirwan (1924) 
09. Bribie Passage: a wonderful waterway by Vance Palmer (1926) 
10. The Unnamed Lakes by William Main (1928)
11. The Island Itself by Thomas Welsby (1928)
12. Childhood memories (1930s-1940s) from Alex Barnett 
13. A Trip to Bribie Island by Irene Cuthbert (1930) 
14. Reminiscences from 1930-1988 by Sally and Bernie Brennan 
15. The Passing Show: a visit to Bribie Island by “Verity” (1931) 
16. Historic Island. Attractions of Bribie. (1932) 
17. Riding tour over the Blackall Range to Bribie Island by Helena Cass (1933)
18. The Harrison Family - Reminiscences from 1933-1983 by Wendy McNeill
19. G.A. Beale stationed at Toorbul Point (1942)
20. Lou’s Wartime Bribie (1942-1945) 
21. My Bribie Island Year (1942-1943) by Graham R. Lovegrove 
22. Reminiscences of Bribie (1946-1950) by R.E. Simpson 
23. Reminiscences of Bribie (1940s-1950s) by Ted Clayton
24. History of “Kiama” Bribie Island (1946-1970S) by Mrs. Keith Price 
25. Bribie Island . . . where Flinders lost his hat by Harry Frauca (1962)
26. Bribie Walkabout by Zena Turner (1963) 
27. poem Bribie by Lou Young (1965)