Lighthouses, for obvious reasons, are usually in remote and lonely places.
While they signal danger and a warning to seafarers, lighthouses and their guardians themselves often have colourful and dramatic histories.
None more so than Queensland's oldest lighthouse, at
Bustard Head the southern
Great Barrier Reef coast. It has a tragic history of shipwrecks,
murder, abduction, suicide and drownings that marked the lives of
its lightkeepers and their families over
more than a century.
Even before the lighthouse was completed in 1868, the lighthouse station, atop a 102-metre high, windswept hill south of Gladstone, took its first life - that of a workman fatally injured in the tower.
Then for an unbroken 118 years until its demanning in 1986, a lightkeeper would climb the steps of the 16-metre lighthouse every evening to light the oil lamp to warn ships of the treacherous rocks which lay out to sea from the headland.
A visit to the Bustard Head lighthouse is a fascinating trip back into Australia's history as well as a great environmental, cultural and heritage experience.
It can be reached only by small boat, or by LARC (Lighter Amphibious Resupply Cargo), vessels which are at home on land or water.
In 1994, local charter boat operator Des Mergard, from the Town of 1770, a two-hour drive north of Bundaberg, bought an ex-military LARC and fitted it out to carry tourists comfortably on day trips.
Des' son Neil and his wife Katherine now run the 1770
Environmental Tours business which has won a gold cultural and
heritage tourism award and is a major attraction on the
Discovery
Coast.
In the mid 1990s vandals all but destroyed the two empty houses
which had accommodated lightkeepers and their families. Incensed by
the vandalism, former Bustard Head lightkeeper Stuart Buchanan,
wife Shirley, and Des Mergard, in 1999 launched the Bustard
Head
Lighthouse Association to restore and preserve this priceless piece
of Queensland history.
They battled red tape but finally won when in 2002 they were granted a 20-year lease on the old lighthouse and land. They began restoration, using much of their own money, to breathe life back into the site. Today the lighthouse is automated and is national and state heritage listed.
So, we're on one of two, 11-metre-long, 32-seater LARCS on a full day motoring 25kms up the beach, crossing tidal creeks and pushing through white surf to climb, finally, up the steep hill leading to the lighthouse.
"Are you ready for adventure?" asks Dave our guide as our amphibious craft painted in brilliant pink - and registered as a boat - plunges into the bay where Captain Cook made his first landfall after leaving Botany Bay. Of course we are.
Cook's log records that his party shot a bush turkey, or bustard, here on May 23, 1770, and that "we all agreed that it was the best bird we had eaten since we left England". So the head got its name.
Our LARC climbs out of the bay to follow the beach coastline of Eurimbula National Park. The coffee-coloured sand looks pristine. We dodge tangled, sun-bleached deadwood as we drive the beach, leaving only tyre tracks which will be erased with the incoming tide.
We keep watch for dolphins. If we find any, we might just go out to play with them.
A pair of beautiful sea eagles looks down on us from their perch in a dead tree. They take off as if to give us a show of their mighty wingspans. Battalions of soldier crabs march across the sand watched by strolling pied oyster catchers.
Our LARC dives back into the sea to cross Jenny Lind Creek, named for a 130-ton ship which came to grief here in 1857.
Again we climb out of the water into a shady island stop for morning tea among the casuarina trees.
At the lighthouse we are greeted by volunteer caretakers Warren and Marianne who take us on a tour of the restorations. A team of volunteers looks after the lighthouse year-round.
The lighthouse was designed and built in England and shipped to Australia. The three-metre lens in the lighthouse itself weighs five tonnes.
The complex once comprised three houses for three families. One family had at least 11 children and at times up to 18 children lived in the lighthouse houses - enough to warrant a school building and a fulltime teacher.
The little community found it very hard to keep teachers in such an isolated place and turnover was constant.
Fire destroyed two of the three dry, timber houses in 1930. Only one was rebuilt, in 1935 - the same year the light was converted from oil to electricity.
One hundred metres or so downhill from the station is the tiny cemetery. Headstones spell out some of the Bustard Head tragedies between 1879 and 1940.
Seven-month-old Henry Phillips, son of lightkeeper James and his wife Emma, died of "constitutional weakness". Another child, of just 20 months, died after being scalded.
The wife of yet another lightkeeper was found in 1887 in the bush with her throat cut. Was it murder or suicide? Two more women of lightkeepers' families died, along with a friend, when their boat capsized in 1889.
All are buried in the lonely cemetery.
Yet another lighthouse story involves love, jealousy and a double-murder and a massive hunt for the culprit.
Among the many characters identified with the lighthouse were the Bowton family.
Captain Frederick Bowton was the third lighthouse superintendent. When he died in 1905, his widow and two daughters, Bertha and Elsie, moved to a grazing lease on nearby Middle Island.
The sisters lived like hermits there for 70 years. Home was a tin shed. (Elsie is said to have gone into town only twice in that time.)
On our return journey we stop for a sandwich lunch under the casuarinas.
We head for home but not before sandboarding down towering,
15-metre dunes of Middle Island. This is fun for all
ages.
If you go...
1770 Environmental Tours operates
tours from the Town of 1770 to Bustard Head lightstation year round
on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, departing at 9am and
returning at 4pm. Adults $AU121.50 (including heritage and parks
charges); Children $AU76.50.
Concessions are available for seniors and students.
The Town of 1770 is about a six-hour drive north of Brisbane. Flights operate daily from/to Gladstone, Bundaberg, Rockhampton and Harvey Bay.
Accommodation, from camping to backpacker, budget and luxury is available at 1770 or nearby Agnes Water.
