As we walked along the jetty we passed the warders' swimming enclosure. It is made of old iron railway tracks put up at the end of the original causeway to protect them from sharks. Now it provides an excellent stopping spot for the passing birdlife. |
A visit to St Helena Island in Moreton Bay was an exciting outing for our walking group as all but one of us had never been before. We boarded the Cat-O-Nine-Tails at Manly and took 40 minutes to get to the island. The island, known as Nogoon by the local Quandamooka people and mapped by Matthew Flinders as No 2 of 6 ‘Green Isles’ in Moreton Bay, was intended to be a quarantine station, but overcrowding in Brisbanes gaols resulted in the conversion of the buildings into accommodation for prisoners. It functioned as a high-security colonial prison from 1867 to 1932 and is now a national park. The island was renamed St Helena after an Aboriginal man who resembled Napoleon was exiled there in 1827 by Captain Logan. The St Helena island Penal Establishment was focussed on making a profit, and maintained a high standard of workmanship and productivity. It had prize Ayreshire dairy cattle that constantly won awards at the RNA show and the island’s olive groves yielded prize-winning oil at shows in Italy. Long term prisoners were trained in trades of bootmaking, sail-making, tailoring, saddle making, tinsmithing, candle making, book-binding and carpentry. The entire establishment was kept with an eye for perfection. Some of the buildings were made from beachrock quarried on the island, or from bricks made on site from clay found at the northern end of the island. Others were constructed of timber imported from the mainland. Today approximately 7% only of the original structures remain
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