OPINION: When ships were Geraldton’s lifeline to the rest of the world

There would have been a time in Geraldton when most citizens knew when a new ship was in port. They would see it tied up at the town jetty, perhaps the original one at the end of Gregory Street or a little later at the second jetty built off the end of Durlacher Street. Most, I imagine, would have known the vessel’s name. It was important to know that a ship had arrived. It carried people and supplies for the small town which even then, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was already a centre of agricultural and mining importance. I can imagine that everyone needed to know that a ship had arrived, whether from Fremantle or other places. The ships were our lifeline to the rest of the world. The railway was yet to arrive and the creation of the automobile still somewhere in the future. When the railway eventually did come in 1894, joining the existing line from Geraldton to Walkaway the reliance on ships was lessened a little, but not substantially. The ships were still important. And as many of you know the ships are still very important to this day, but for a totally different reason. With few exceptions, and I am not referring to cruise ships, the sea traffic in the Geraldton Port is mainly for the export of grain and minerals. And I would wager that the vast majority of us would have little knowledge of where those ships currently sitting in the harbour at Champion Bay come from or what their names might be. In my mind, they suggest we have lost touch with an essential part of our history and our reasons for being here in this the most blessed of places. I don’t claim any great accuracy in this but in the past month there have been about 30 ships in and out of the harbour. Let’s say a new ship every day. A keen ship spotter might have noted names such as Vipha Naree, Great Resource, Peace Ark, Ikan Jubil, Hebei Quinhuangoao and the like. For security purposes, enacted after the New York twin towers bombing in 2001, the public is no longer allowed into the port. For most of us it is a virtual impossibility to get any closer to a visiting ship than a pair of binoculars will allow.