Eden's got the Ships

Twenty-eight years after James Cook sailed north along the east coast, Matthew Flinders ventured south towards Tasmania. His ship started life as a longboat that was salvaged from the wreckage of the HMS Sirius which hit a reef at Slaughter Bay, Norfolk Island, on 19 March 1790. Exactly 233 years ago, as it happens. The Sirius was the flagship of the First Fleet and between 1778 and 1788 had led the eleven ships of the fleet, transporting the convicts, sailers and soldiers who would become the first European settlers in the colonies.

The salvaged longboat was repaired in Norfolk Island, decked with Norfolk pine, fitted out as a 27 ton sloop and christened the HMS Norfolk. She was sailed to Sydney where she was promptly confiscated by the government.

In 1798 Matthew Flinders, George Bass and eight crew sailed the Norfolk south to determine whether Tasmania was an island or part of the mainland. Dutchman Abel Tasman had first sighted the land mass he named Van Dieman's Land after months sailing the Southern Ocean on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. He charted the land mass as part of the terra australis continent and then sailed off to discover New Zealand.

On their way to Tassie, Flinders and Bass put in at Twofold Bay to shelter from bad weather, and anchored in what Bass named "Snug Cove", now Eden's harbour.

Nowadays the only sloops to be found around Snug Cove are the million-dollar luxury variety. And then there are numerous fishing vessels, charters, sightseeing cruises, whale watching tours, and humble tinnies. In 2005, the cruise ship industry threw a lifeline to Eden's struggling economy, with the P&O cruise liner, Pacific Princess, anchoring in Twofold Bay. Eden was the ship's final stop on an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of Australia, departing Sydney, and 700 passengers came ashore to spend a day visiting various tourist spots in the area.

In 2017, excited by the potential economic boost to Eden and the region, authorities started construction on a new wharf in Snug Cove to allow cruise liners to berth in the cove and making it easier for cashed-up international passengers to disembark and spend time exploring Eden and surrounds. In 2019 the first passenger cruise liners carrying 2000 or so passengers began docking in Snug Cove. Then the pandemic hit and the cruising industry, like most others, ground to a halt.

But now the ships are back and a very loud early morning honk (technical term) lets us know that there's a ship coming in. That, and the thousands of American, English, Japanese, Scandinavian, European, Australian and Kiwi tourists with day-leave passes hanging around their necks.

We've seen several big ships sail into town and from our vantage point, can just about hear the wheezing of passengers as they climb "our" hill to get to the lookout over the bay. Hours of entertainment. And it's great to see the town buzzing every time a ship's in port. Here's a selection of photos of various cruise ships and beautiful Twofold Bay.

Sidebar: Sometime around Federation, there was a squabble between Sydney and Melbourne (unthinkable!) over which city deserved to be the nation's capital. Neither, it turned out. Someone important decided that the capital should be located half-way between the two cities. Eden is pretty close to half-way (556 km to Melbourne and 474 km to Sydney) and Twofold Bay is the only deepwater harbour between the two, so it was mooted as the obvious choice to be the capital. But there was a bit of concern about having the capital on a harbour where it could be easily be attacked. It's unclear who, other than the All Blacks, would care enough about us enough to attack, but someone was worried. So they decided on a dusty, dry, cold (or stinking hot) inland valley that was much closer to Sydney than Melbourne. But the Ngunnawal name for the area meant "meeting place" so that must have been some kind of sign. Having spent the past six weeks in Eden, I can't help but wonder how different our lives would be if our founding fathers hadn't been so worried about being pillaged by our enemies. I'm pretty sure Eden's residents are grateful it went the way it did.