Sir Reginald Barnewall was a man of the air long before he ever set eyes on Fraser Island. He was born into a wealthy Victorian grazing family whose history went back to the Norman conquest. A baronet, he carried himself with the confidence of privilege but also with the restless ambition of a man who wanted more than land and cattle.
The rise and fall of Fraser Island’s forgotten resort Read More »
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.
Sid Melksham – the man who dreamed big on Fraser Island Read More »
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 first breakthroughs in communication came with the spread of telegraph technology.
Early communication on the island Read More »
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.
Tide and timber: the punts and puntmen of Fraser Island Read More »
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?
Lighting the way – the fledgling colony’s early beacon Read More »
On the morning of Wednesday, July 22, 1970, Jack and Eileen Reville were going about a typical day at their successful Fraser Island tourism business. They readied their tour boat, the Island Queen, for a scenic outing with 46 tourists — mainly elderly holidaymakers — to the island.
Fraser Island’s darkest day – the 1970 tourist bus tragedy Read More »
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.
Wathumba’s Shark Factories – a forgotten history of Fraser Island Read More »
Sir Reginald (Reg) Barnewall’s ambitious dream of developing a resort on Fraser Island is a fascinating chapter in the island’s history. In the 1960s, Barnewall envisioned creating a high-end resort that would attract visitors to the island’s natural beauty, which was then known more for its timber industry and fishing than for tourism.
The greatest piscatorial event in the world Read More »
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
The slow disappearance of one of Fraser Island’s tourist icons Read More »
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
The aristocratic satinay Read More »
