Presumably Cobb & Co also used this beach route as well as the inland road. The track went along Ferry Road (naturally enough) to Meyer’s ferry, across the Nerang River to Elston (Surfers Paradise), and along the hard sand on the beach to Burleigh Heads, and finally along the creek to Tallebudgera. There was also an alternate route to Tallebudgera via Southport from 1881. Image courtesy of the State Library QLD.Ĭobb & Co extended its route from Nerang through the hills and dense forests to Mudgeeraba and Tallebudgera in 1883. A Cobb & Co coach on soft sand near Southport in the 1880s. Still, the number of ‘tourists’ grew along with Southport itself. A sojourn to the South Coast was only for those who could afford the cost of travel and a couple days away from work. It was a wealthier clientele than the Sandgate afternoon trippers. The attractions at this time were more akin to fishing, paddling and taking in the fresh air and scenery than swimming, which was only done discreetly and out of public view if at all. The coach route to the growing seaside town of Southport terminated at Fred Shaw’s pub! Indeed it turned out to be a fine public house, the Labrador Hotel (6). All members of the party suffered minor injuries (5), but it may have been a fortuitous accident for Cobb & Co for soon the Nerang – Southport road was improved and designated a mail route.Ĭobb & Co manager Fred Shaw had stables erected in Southport in mid-1879, and had himself constructed ‘a fine house’. The dignitaries were sandwiched between the carriage and a slip rail fence.
#Qm courier driver#
The covered wagonette, hired from Cobb & Co for the trip and driven by experienced driver Roderick McRae, overturned when the road gave way on one side. When a visiting Brisbane cricket wanted to play a combined local team in January 1878 Cobb & Co had to send Hiram Barnes, a veteran of 20 years and ‘the cleverest driver in Cobb & Co’s employ…’ to drive the coach and five horses (4).Ī visit by the Minister for Lands and two other members of Parliament the following year may have led to improvements in the road. Unfortunately, the track to Southport was in a very primitive condition. Reaching another seaside destination for Cobb & Co was tantalisingly close, just a few kilometres from Nerang. A Cobb & Co coach at Pimpama, circa 1875, William Boag Collection. A steam boat was under construction at Nerang to carry goods and passengers down to Southport, as the settlements first hotel opened (3). A newspaper article in 1876 listed the attractions of the area, not least of which were the rock oysters, crabs, whiting, bream and rock cod. A town was surveyed in 1874 and the first land sales for the ‘Village of Southport’ were held in 1875 (2). Downstream from Nerang was the timber milling settlement known as ‘Nerang Creek Heads’.
(Today’s Luscombe Park and Shaw’s Pocket Road are in the vicinity.) The coach route was extended to Nerang in 1871. He established a sugar cane plantation called ‘Luscombe’ on the Albert River in the early 1870s, and represented the area in Queensland Parliament in 1875-1876. Again Cobb & Co manager Fred Shaw saw opportunities as new areas were opening up for settlement. Cobb & Co had already relinquished this route in late 1879, in anticipation of opportunities south of Brisbane.Ĭobb & Co had a coach route down ‘the Logan road’ from Brisbane to Pimpama from 1870. Sandgate was connected to the rail network in 1882, thus ending the coach traffic. The 16 km coach service along ‘the Sandgate road’ had stops at the little settlement of Albion, and German Station (Nundah) in the centre of pineapple farms and fruit groves. Extra coaches ran on public holidays (1). Rail passengers from as far afield as Toowoomba, Warwick and Dalby joined their Brisbane cousins for a paddle in ocean and picnic by the sea, for 2 shillings and sixpence each way.
Coaches ran twice daily and once on Sunday to coordinate with the trains from Ipswich. He started a service from the new railway station to Sandgate.
The opening of the railway between Brisbane and Ipswich in 1875 spelled the end of Cobb & Co’s original route in Queensland, but the manager Fred Shaw leapt on a business opportunity. Cobb & Co delivered mail and passengers to some of the most remote and dusty corners of Queensland such as Boulia, Croydon, and Thargomindah, but Cobb & Co was just as important to settlements around Brisbane and southeast Queensland.
0 kommentar(er)
