A while ago, Sue and I were watching the evening news on TV when our attention was suddenly caught by the very unexpected appearance of two familiar faces on the screen in front of us. We couldn’t believe our eyes! They were the faces of Sam and Zoe, a couple whom we have come to know well since my introduction to the community which gathers around the Shorncliffe Pier early each morning.
Sam and Zoe have been “regulars” of this community, coming to meet up with friends who share similar interests, whether it be fishing, exercising or walking their dogs. For Sam and Zoe, I think that exercise, both for themselves and their beloved dog, Miley, is a high priority, along with the companionship with others which this community offers. Miley is a very striking looking dog, a Ridgeback Steffi Mastiff, who is always at their side.
Returning to the unexpected appearance of Sam and Zoe on our TV screen during an evening news bulletin, we were certainly caught by surprise. We hadn’t seen them for a while and, suddenly, there they were, right in front of us, “talking to the world”. We learned later that they had happened to be on the pier in the Moreton Bay seaside village of Woody Point, when a reporter had pushed a microphone towards them, asking them to comment on a proposal for a new ferry service to Brisbane from Woody Point, and, from further up the Bay.
Woody Point is a very attractive suburb on the Redcliffe Peninsula, across the Bay from us. From our pier we can see it in the distance. I understand that the piers, both in Woody Point and in Shorncliffe, have been there in their respective locations since 1882.
The presence of the TV reporters on the Woody Point pier was prompted by an announcement made by the Moreton Bay Council in July last year. It stated that it would begin investigating the viability of a ferry service linking Bribie Island to Brisbane. To help people to understand what exactly they had in mind, the Council had published a map which showed that this ferry service could possibly connect not only Bribie island but also other locations around Moreton Bay, including both the Woody Point and the Shorncliffe Piers.
It sounds like a great idea, but whether it will ever happen remains to be seen. I wish the Council luck and would love to become a regular passenger, however ferries between Shorncliffe and Woody Point have been in operation before and eventually, due to the construction of much better road connections between the two locations, they were found not to be economically viable any longer.
The Shorncliffe Pier still has a sign about “The Old Ferry”, which reads:
“The ferry service from the pier to Woody Point was operated by the Redcliffe and Sandgate Steam Ferry Company and ran from 1883 to 1928.”
On a recent visit to the Sandgate Museum, I was able to access a good deal of information about the ferry connection between Shorncliffe and Woody Point, including photographs of the different boats used on this service. The first ship, the Redcliffe, was launched in 1883 by the Redcliffe and Sandgate Steam Ferry Company. It was followed by other boats from different companies, until the final ferry boat crossed the Bay in 1928.
Two boats which are frequently mentioned in the various articles which appeared over the years were the Beryl and the Olivine. Both were reported to be popular and often very crowded. The Beryl was a motor launch of 25 ton which could accommodate up to 150 passengers. The trip across the bay could take anything from one to two hours, depending on the direction of the wind. Sometimes people “would be clinging to the upper deck section, bared to the wind and spray”.
Moreton Bay, as we know, can be windy and in those conditions even the boarding of the boats was difficult, as, according to one article, “alongside the chop of the bay lifting the decks, passengers had an unsteady gang plank to negotiate”.
People travelled by train to Sandgate Railway Station and horse-drawn cabs connected them with the Shorncliffe Pier and the ferry for Woody Point. Some of the old photos of that time, although not very clear, give us some idea of how crowded the boats could be.
The photo in today’s post was scanned from a newspaper clipping which forms part of the collections held by the Sandgate Museum. What struck me most when looking through the archives of the museum was how much information there is and how busy and important a township Sandgate was, more than a century ago.
O.P.
P.S. Next Sunday we’ll hear about the British Raj and a fish called “Bombay duck”