Veterans join Anzac Day March in Sydney
Veterans have joined Sydney's Anzac Day March, marking 110 years since Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli.
Approximately 10,000 service men and women have braved the chilly weather to march today.
Among the participants are six World War II veterans, proudly taking part in the commemorative event.
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West Australian
a day ago
- West Australian
Eucla community servant receives award in King's Birthday Honours
Eucla's long-serving volunteer fire brigade captain is among those recognised in this year's King's Birthday Honours. Simone Conklin has been awarded an Australian Fire Service Medal for distinguished service as a member of an Australian fire service. The award citation said Mrs Conklin had been involved in emergency services since 1994 and been the captain of Eucla Volunteer Fire and Emergency Service since 2010. Located in one of the most remote areas of WA, on the border with South Australia, Eucla VFES covers 550km of the Eyre Highway, responding to a range of emergencies that include aircraft and road crashes, bushfires, hazardous material spills, and structural fires. Mrs Conklin has attended more than 98 per cent of incidents since 2014, with the isolation of the area meaning she often handled critical incidents with minimal support, frequently being the sole responder for hours until help arrives from distant brigades. 'She has shown outstanding leadership, decision-making and calmness under pressure in numerous emergency situations,' the citation said. 'One example (was) a truck fire at Border Village in 2021, which put the roadhouse at serious risk due to the proximity of the fire to the fuel bowsers, increasing the potential for explosion. 'Mrs Conklin's actions in isolating the area and ensuring that those present were kept at a safe distance, as well as leading her crew in extinguishing the blaze, saved the roadhouse and ensured everyone was unharmed.' The citation said she had also responded to serious road and aircraft crashes in both WA and South Australia which involved casualties with serious, life-threatening injuries who required airlifting. 'In addition to responding to incidents, Mrs Conklin was involved in securing funding for Eucla's airstrip upgrade, which plays a vital role for emergency services and the community,' the citation said. 'Mrs Conklin's dedication sees her constantly seeking ways to improve and increase public awareness. 'In 2023 she consulted with the Eucla community, Eucla police and the Department of Fire and Emergency Services on a suitable evacuation plan for the town. 'This has now led to discussions with the SA Country Fire Service for them to develop evacuation plans for Border Village as well.' Several people who served part of their careers or community service in the Goldfields-Esperance were also recognised in the King's Birthday Honours. Those who received a Medal of the Order of Australia included Esperance Museum co-founder and Esperance Bay Historical Society co-founder and life member Marjorie Barker, Kalgoorlie Golf Club life member and Inner Wheel Club member Lorraine Winchcomb, and Roy Dowsett, who served with the Kalgoorlie Scouts in 1962-64. Senior Aboriginal Police Liaison Officer Ian Tullock, who served at Kalgoorlie police station from 2018-22, received an Australian Police Medal for a career of nearly 50 years, as did Det-Sen. Sgt Gregory McDonald, who served in the Goldfields during a career that spanned more than 40 years. Anthony Dodd, who served as a volunteer firefighter in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Kambalda during his career of more than 40 years, received an Australian Fire Service Medal.
Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
Grit and determination characterises women honoured
Grit, determination and a lot of teamwork are credited by several women as the secrets to their success. Notable women in business, banking, the law and tertiary education, have been recognised in the King's Birthday Honours List for their leadership contributions and gender-equality advocacy. Jennifer Westacott served as chief executive of the Business Council of Australia for 12 years before becoming chancellor of Western Sydney University in 2023. Having grown up in public housing and as the first person in her family to attend university, Sunday's appointment came as a full-circle moment. "Getting the opportunity to study at university changed my life," she told AAP. "(Universities) have that responsibility to produce the most skilled people in the world … so people have fulfilling and thriving lives." Ms Westacott's career has included time as a public servant, a variety of director roles and as patron of Mental Health Australia and Pride in Diversity. But a career highlight has been changing the stigma around public housing. During her time at the housing department she met with public-housing residents who told her they could not let their kids play in the gardens because there were no fences to keep them safe from traffic. "After we put the fences up I would often drive past and seeing the kids all playing there was a highlight for me," she said. "What I've tried to do is turn my difficult childhood into a life-long mission to see better lives for people and fight for equality, and to turn around the stigma of people living in public housing and in poverty." Ms Westacott is appointed a Companion (AC) of the Order of Australia, along with Kathryn Fagg, former CSIRO chair, Reserve Bank board member and non-executive director of NAB. Early in her career, Ms Fagg was often questioned on whether she got her role because of her gender. "We have come such a long way but that doesn't mean there aren't still challenges for women in the workplace," she said. Gender-equality advocate Helen Fisher said her time as a discrimination and human rights lawyer opened new ways of thinking. But it's her work undertaking gender impact analysis for federal government policy that she is most proud of. It means every government policy and expenditure is looked at in terms of how it will affect Australian women and girls. "It was really important to get the government to think actively about women," she said. "We've gone from developing an idea of gender impact analysis to formalising it in the budget process and now using the budget to improve gender equality." While Australia had made real progress, Ms Fisher - who has been appointed an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia - said there were still challenges for women. "We need more men to be working on gender equality," she said. "The next frontier of feminism is to move beyond the idea of a binary opposition between 'us' and 'them' towards investigating how we overcome patriarchy to the benefit of all." Former Bendigo and Adelaide Bank chief executive Marnie Baker has always been a keen advocate for regional Australia and the opportunities it provides. She is being recognised as a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for significant service to the financial and banking sectors. "I grew up on a dairy farm in northern Victoria and because kids in regional and rural areas didn't really have the same infrastructure and opportunity as kids in the city, you had to have a bit of grit and determination," she said. "I've grown up thinking if you needed something done, you do it yourself." Her work at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is her proudest achievement as she stayed true to her purpose and saw firsthand how finance could be a force for good.
The Advertiser
2 days ago
- The Advertiser
Salvaging stories from the region's watery graveyards
MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship.
