Fraser Island

Sid Melksham – the man who dreamed big on Fraser Island

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Early struggles and bare hands

In 1959, a young newlywed named Sid Melksham visited Fraser Island for his honeymoon. Back then, for most people, the island was wild, sandy, and remote. There were no resorts, no four-wheel-drive buses, and no ferries full of tourists running back and forth. Getting there was tough, facilities were minimal, and unless you were a fisherman, a forestry worker, or one of the few locals making a living, the place wasn’t on many people’s radar.

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Early communication on the island

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Life on Fraser Island was very isolated and lonely before access improved with combustion engines, regular flights, and ferries to transport cars and trucks. Communication was only by boat, telephone, radio, and aeroplane. In the case of accidents, help was six hours away by boat in Maryborough.

The age of telegraphy

The first breakthroughs in communication came with the spread of telegraph technology.

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Tide and timber: the punts and puntmen of Fraser Island

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Before four-wheel drives began churning through Fraser Island’s sandy tracks, before tourists arrived and the World Heritage listing was established, the timber industry thrived. Tall, straight blackbutts, satinays, and tallowwoods rose from the sandy soil, destined for sawmills across the strait in Maryborough. The unglamorous, hardworking punts carried the weight of this industry, one load of logs at a time.

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Lighting the way – the fledgling colony’s early beacon

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In the years leading up to Queensland’s separation from New South Wales in 1859, the political mood across the continent’s northern reaches was restless yet hopeful. From the sunbaked cattle runs of the Darling Downs to the pine-timbered ridges around Moreton Bay, there was a low murmur that grew louder.  Why should decisions for the north be made from distant Sydney?

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Wathumba’s Shark Factories – a forgotten history of Fraser Island

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A false start: Captain Kent’s grand plans

Many might be surprised to learn that Fraser Island, famous for its pristine beaches and towering sand dunes, was once suggested as the location for a shark factory. Not just once, but on two occasions.

The first proposal came from an unexpected entrepreneur. Captain Herbert C.

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The slow disappearance of one of Fraser Island’s tourist icons 

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Every Fraser Island visitor has seen or knows about the Maheno wreck on the eastern shore about five kilometres north of Happy Valley. These days it is a tourist attraction and photographic stop. It must be the most photographed piece of rust in the world. The rusted remains, however, bear no resemblance to the luxury liner that plied its trade between Australia and New Zealand and the war-time hospital shipping the Mediterranean.… Read more

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The aristocratic satinay

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Fraser Island is a beautiful place. It is the world’s largest sand island and vegetated dune system. I had the opportunity to work on Fraser Island in the mid-1980s and have had several recreational visits to the island over the years. I still pinch myself these many years later on how fortunate I was to spend two weeks bush-bashing through the satinay (Syncarpia hillii)-brush box (Lophostemon confertus) forests while doing regeneration surveys.… Read more

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