expedition

The Great Barrier Reef gained some attention in the early 1890s. In 1893, scientist William Saville-Kent published, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia: Its products and potentialities, generating international interest from a commercial perspective. It featured pages of techniques for pearling and oyster cultivation, discussing the viability of those industries as potential business ventures. But it was the drawings of the unusual coral and reef fish, hand-painted with bright colors that captured the wider imagination. Saville-Kent’s book also stirred the scientific community and in 1928 a yearlong expedition was led by British marine biologist, Sir Charles Yonge to officially study the Great Barrier Reef. Yonge’s team spent a challenging year living on Low Isles, off Port Douglas. In addition to exhaustive findings published in scientific journals, Yonge produced a supplementary book for the public, A Year On the Great Barrier Reef, which included an impressive 70 photographs. The interest in his images and a firsthand account of living on the reef encouraged the idea of larger-scale organized reef tourism. At the end of 1928 schoolteacher Monty Embury from Cumbalum, New South Wales, organized a holiday expedition to the reef, especially for teachers and friends. A farming family on Lindeman Island in Queensland had already recognized the potential for holidaymakers. Happy to share in Embury’s venture, the Nicholsons made their woolshed available to these early intrepid joy seekers as a cookhouse and supplied them with launches to explore outer islands. There was no electricity or running water, accommodation was in tents and everything the group required had to be brought in. But these privations did not stop 110 people from heading north by bus and train – which was an adventure in itself in 1928 – to become the first large tour group to the Great Barrier Reef. The advertisement by Monty Embury for that first expedition promised:1 Torres Strait Island pigeons will be nesting in their thousands near Lindeman Island. Anyone interested in photography, marine and reef life, corals and shells, angling … turtles, beachcombers, crustaceans, exposed granite islands, jungle-covered, bower and birds of paradise, jungle birds and fruit pigeons, orchids and ferns, jungle botany and entomology, is asked to write to the organizer. The trip was a combination of holiday and discovery. It was comprised largely of teachers, their friends, and scientists such as Melbourne Ward from the Australian Museum. Side-by side these two groups spent a month exploring and documenting the reef, fishing, and shooting. The nights included more traditional holiday activities such as fancy dress ‘balls’ and games – there was even an entertainment committee. It was by no means ‘glamping’ but it was agreed at the end that everyone had coped well:2 There was no distinction between old and young, rich and poor, all worked together. What one was prepared to submit to, the others were … One could scarcely imagine people who were used to every comfort, food dished up in dainty fashion, and probably never even saw camp life, to go through this camp life as they did. The women were just wonderful; no complaints either about the conditions or the food, and they agreed that they enjoyed every day in camp. This inaugural Embury Expedition was memorable in a number of ways. It signaled the viability of large-scale tourism to the region and importantly captured the first underwater photographs of the Great Barrier Reef, taken by Otto Webb and Arch Embury. Here at last was the secret world that existed beneath the water. By 1932 the Embury Expeditions were popular trips with travelers looking to enjoy the reef in an informal ‘gypsy life experience’. But Embury’s initial foundation of combining scientific understanding with a holiday atmosphere remained at the core of the tours. There was the allure of having:3 Source: www.sea.museum/2020/02/17/frolicking-and-fossicking-touri...

trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/163799609/16798677 - this pic appeared in the Sydney Mail on 25th December, 1897...in a 'Sketcher' article titled 'Kosciusko in Spring Time', by photographer Charles Kerry...see pic on 2nd page of link...bottom rhs... Several other pics in the PHM's collection also appeared in the Sydney Mail's pictorial...see comments/links here www.flickr.com/photos/powerhouse_museum/3593606829/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A similar pictorial, titled 'The Ascent of Kosciusko', appeared in the Australian Town and Country Journal on this same date...see comments/links here... www.flickr.com/photos/powerhouse_museum/3594416848/

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