holiday

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...

Neil Chesney was born into a caravan family and for as long as he can remember he always wanted to build them. His father Alex was a successful caravan salesman, establishing what grew to become “Chesney Corner” at the busy intersection of Gympie and Rode Roads in Brisbane’s Chermside. Alex Chesney initially sold kit caravans that were popular in the early 1950s and was also the Queensland manager for Carapark caravans. Neil left school at age 14 to do an engineering apprenticeship and five years later he began making parts for his father to sell. His first factory space was underneath the family’s Queenslander home, however, demand increased quickly to the point where he had to find bigger premises and moved into an old boat shed at Breakfast Creek in Brisbane. It was there Neil Chesney built the first complete Chesney caravan, which proved to be a little too ahead of its time. In 1960 production moved to a new factory at Stafford as Chesney moved away from timber construction and started building stylish lightweight aluminum caravans. In 1965 Chesney received the biggest order of his career when he was commissioned to build 500 caravans to be used as temporary housing for workers at the new aluminum smelter at Gladstone. He later bought the vans back for a fraction of the sale price, refurbished them and held one of Queensland’s biggest caravan sales of all time. Source: www.timetoroam.com.au/neil-chesneys-60-years-caravans/#:~....

An ox-wagon or bullock wagon is a four-wheeled vehicle pulled by oxen (draught cattle). It was a traditional form of transport, especially in Southern Africa but also in New Zealand and Australia. Ox-wagons were also used in the United States. The first recorded use of an ox-wagon was around 1670,[citation needed] but they continue to be used in some areas up to modern times. Bullock wagons were important in the colonial history of Australia.[2] Olaf Ruhen, in his book Bullock Teams remarks on how bullock teams "shaped and built the colony. They carved the roads and built the rail; their tractive power made populating the interior possible; their contributions to the harvesting of timber opened the bush; they offered a start in life to the enterprising youngster". Bullocks were preferred by many explorers and teamsters because they were cheaper, quieter, tougher, and more easily maintained than horses, therefore, making them more popular for draught work.[3] Frequently comprising long trains of bullocks, yoked in pairs, they were used for hauling drays, wagon, or jinker loads of goods and lumber prior to the construction of railways and the formation of roads. In the early days the flexible two-wheeled dray, with a center pole and narrow 3-inch (8 cm) iron tires was commonly used. The four-wheeled dray or box wagon came into use after about 1860 for loads of 6 to 8 long tons (6.7 to 9.0 short tons; 6.1 to 8.1 t) and was drawn by 16 to 18 bullocks. A bullock team was led by a pair of well-trained leaders who responded to verbal commands as they did not have reins or a bridle.[4] The bullock team driver was called a bullocky, bullock puncher, or teamster. Many Australian country towns owe their origin to the bullock teams, having grown from a store or shanty where teams rested or crossed a stream. These shanties were spaced at about 12-mile (19 km) intervals, which was the usual distance for a team to travel in a day.[5] Source: www.wikiwand.com/en/Ox-wagon

Romeo Watkins Lahey (1887-1968). Founding President (1930) of NPAQ, Engineer, Businessman, Timber merchant, Veteran of WW1 and WW2, Conservationist, National Parks Advocate, Founder of the ‘Save the Trees’ campaign in 1946. ‘In October 1915, he delivered a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia Queensland Branch titled ‘Some reasons why national parks should be established in Queensland, with special reference to Lamington National Park’, and called for other large areas to be preserved as national parks as well as an extension of the state forest system. While enlisted in WW1 with the 11th Field Company Engineers AIF, Lahey continued to steer discussion about the park’s management, protection of all species, its access, and the naming of locations (he suggested Aboriginal words be used as placenames.’This year the lecture will be delivered by NPAQ Councillor, Steve Noakes who is also Chairperson of Binna Burra Lodge and also a member of the Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and a member of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland. Steve’s address will comment on key issues and themes from the past half-century of expert speakers who have delivered the Romeo Lahey Memorial Lecture and some of the major current issues facing Queensland’s national parks. The Lecture this year will also reflect on the end of another Lahey legacy. It comes some two years after the central heritage lodge and pioneer cabins at Binna Burra were destroyed at the early stages of the six months of the Black Summer Australian bushfires. The original building at Binna Burra was Leighton House built in Canungra in 1902 and owned by the Lahey family. In 1934 it was transported piece by piece on horseback up the track to Mt Roberts and remained at the Binna Burra Lodge reception and lounge until it was burnt down in the bushfires on Sunday 8 September 2019. The ‘Black Summer’ bushfires across Australia saw over half of the 366,500 total hectares of the Gondwana World Heritage forests destroyed or damaged. Source: npaq.org.au/rhl/