Queensland (South East Coast)
St Helena Island
Small, low and triangular, St Helena Island sits 8km from the mouth of the Brisbane River. Once the hunting ground of local tribes, the island took its name from a parallel drawn with the exile of Napoleon Bonaparte to St Helena in the South Atlantic – in 1828 an Aborigine known as Napoleon was dumped here after he became too troublesome for the jail at Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island.  037052.jpg (132228 bytes)
Forty years later, the spectre of overcrowding in mainland prisons prompted the government to turn St Helena Island into a penal settlement, and after clearing rainforest for timber and to prevent escapes, gardens were planted and houses built from coral blocks and clay. In some respects it was a model system: prisoners were taught a trade and were even paid for their labour, and there were only three escapes in 65 years. The government found it particularly useful for political troublemakers, such as the leaders of the 1891 shearers’ strike and, with more justice, a couple of slave-trading “Blackbirder” captains.

A tour of the prison island, endearingly tagged the “Hell Hole of the South Pacific” during its working life, leaves you thankful you missed out on the “good old days”. A clue to why there were so few escapes is provided by the rusty swimming enclosure at the jetty, which was constructed to protect warders from the sharks whose presence was actively encouraged around the island. Evidence of the prisoners’ industry and self-sufficiency is still to be seen in the stone houses, as well as in the remains of a sugar mill, paddocks, wells and an ingenious lime kiln built into the shoreline. 

The Deputy Superintendent’s house has been turned into a bare museum, displaying a ball and chain lying in a corner, and photographs from the prison era. Outside, the gardens that once produced prize-winning olive oil are now sparse, and the two cemeteries have been desecrated: many headstones were carried off as souvenir coffee tables, the corpses dug up and sold as medical specimens. The remaining stones comprise simple concrete crosses stamped with a number for the prisoners, or inscribed marble tablets for the warders and their children. The last inmate left in 1933.

Cat-o’-Nine-Tails (tel 07/3393 3726) offers day-trips ($38 including lunch; departing 11am and returning 4pm) and night-tours ($79) to the island several times a week, the latter including a three-course meal and a theatrical sound-and-light show on the island. Boats leave from the public jetty in the suburb of Manly, a ten-minute walk from Manly train station.

Maps
BAYSIDEB.jpg (1524341 bytes) Moreton Bay Area