Peninsula's Past: Campers discover holiday haven

SOURCES: History Redcliffe, and Pictorial History of Redcliffe and Moreton Bay.

Main image: CA1920 Suttons Beach from Margate. Courtesy City of Moreton Bay Ref: RLPC-000 000021

Long before holiday apartments dotted the foreshore, Redcliffe was a popular destination for visitors happy to bring their own accommodation.

The Peninsula became a tent city from the 1930s to 1960s, when many industries in Brisbane and Ipswich closed for Christmas leave.

Campers were inventive, making collapsible furniture, which could fit into the back of a small ute.

Long-time Peninsula resident and business owner the late Ken Peters told History Redcliffe his family often travelled to Redcliffe for holidays when he was a child and were frequent Sunday picnickers well into the 1950s.

The tent was large and well-equipped with a raised wooden floor. It had a stove, sink, bed bunks and ‘dressing room’ and was a home away from home.

The family camped on the Johnson property at Redcliffe Pde, near the Ambassador Hotel, and later further south along Redcliffe Pde.

He estimated 15-20 families spent their holidays there.

Others have similar memories of camping at Scarborough in the 1940s, as one contributor to the Pictorial History of Redcliffe and Moreton Bay Facebook page recalled.

“A typical camping day would be: breakfast, game of cricket on the beach, community morning tea, swimming with cousins then whole families, lunch, sitting in a deck chair enjoying the afternoon breeze and view, at low tide, exploring the reefs collecting samples, maybe a last game of cricket, evening meal, or movie at Scarborough theatre,” he said.

“Often the day was interspersed with rowing the small boat or paddling the canoe, visiting a jetty, fishing/exploring. On the cool of the evening, after the meal, many families would stroll along the beach, catching up with friends and neighbours.”

Conditions were basic, with kerosene or carbide lamps and kerosene stoves. Most of the furniture was homemade and only a few campers had a battery-operated radio.

“A common practise was for the families to spend up to six weeks camping. Workers, when their holidays finished, (then generally a maximum of 2/3 weeks) would travel by Hornibrook buses to Sandgate to catch trains to Brisbane for their work,” the man said.

“The weather was mostly balmy, with warm days and cooling breezes from midday. Occasionally a cyclone or very severe weather would arrive. Tents along the beach front, especially on the Southern end of the beach would often be swamped by waves breaking.

“Heavy sustained rain would cause tents along the roadway to be flooded as the land sloped down from the beach front to the road. The men would dig trenches in the rows between the tents to the beach to provide drainage.”

Artist Joy Harris, whose painting which depicted people camping along the foreshore was displayed as part of the Redcliffe Arts Society’s First Fifty Years exhibition, has fond memories of Peninsula holidays.

“The happiest days of my childhood took place holidaying at Redcliffe in the community of folk who swam, fished, talked and made ‘volcanos’ on the beach at night,” she said.

As a child her family would travel from Ipswich to Redcliffe during the Christmas holidays. Her father would drive a truck to a reserved space in Mayor Bob Bradley’s yard in Sutton St, south of St Mary’s Church. Joy and her mother would travel by train and bus.

As time went on and camping set-ups became more advanced, council limited camping along the foreshore and designated sites became caravan parks.