Sandgate a Seaside Town

The Turrbul people were the inhabitants of the seashore, creeks and lagoons streatching from Nudge Beach to the Pine River. They were a branch of the clan of the Yugarabul speaking people, who were a larger clan, inhabiting the area from North Brisbane and along the coastline from Nudgee, Sandgate to Caboolture. In their language the local Turrbal clan called their coastal land "Warra" meaning "an open sheet of water". Their existence depended upon their tribal knowledge of the seasons and their understanding of the flora and fauna found in their surroundings. Native spears, nullas and boomerangs were used when hunting and defending their lands and woven nets were used for fishing in the sea and creeks.

The early British settlers called the area Cabbage Tree Creek after the creek bearing the same name. The town was named Sandgate by James Burnett, an early surveyor in the region after the seaside town of Sandgate in Kent, England. Sandgate in Kent had a military camp, named the Shorncliffe Camp, on top of the adjacent cliffs. Sandgate in Brisbane has an adjacent suburb called Shorncliffe also named after the camp in Kent, again by Burnett, after the similarity of the adjacent cliffs. The third neighbouring suburb is Brighton. The suburb takes its name from the Brighton Hotel, which is believed to be named after Brighton in Sussex, England. The Brighton Hotel, located along Beaconsfield Terrace, was believed to be built by David Rowntree Somerset.

An early settler, Captain William Townsend, bought the Brighton Hotel and used it as his home and, once sold in 1893, it was used as an orphanage. It resumed being a hotel in 1912. Since 1935, one or more of three adjacently positioned bridges have connected Brisbane to Redcliffe Peninsula between Brighton at their southern end and Clontarf on the peninsula at their northern end. The first of these to be built, the Hornibrook Bridge, has since been demolished upon completion of the Ted Smout Memorial Bridge in 2010, which now stands alongside the Houghton Highwaay, which opened in 1979. The bridge was named 'Ted Smout Memorial Bridge' after Ted Smout, Queensland's last surviving World War One veteran, who lived in Sandgate and died in 2004.

These seaside towns, encumpass the “open sheet of water” and have become a popular destination for the Brisbane people due to its coastline, along Bramble Bay a part of the larger Moreton Bay. The waters are usually calm and offers ideal conditions for boating and swimming. Peaceful walks along the foreshore, family picnic areas, boating, fishing and sailing are all recreational persuits many families find rewarding in this lovely area.

My visit to this remarkable area, from early morning to late afternoon, allowed me the opportunity, to witness scenes of misty solitude to the vibrant bustle of families of children swimming and picnicing through to the fierceness of a late afternoon storm. I have tried to capture them in an effort to share this marvellous and special place with the rest of the world.