Australia So Much to See
We returned to the Cape to Cape region to follow up on our visit to Augusta and touring in the area during 2016, spending a week based at Gracetown Caravan Park. This park is a family orientated holiday park, three kilometres from the beach Gracetown settlement on Cowaramup Bay and fourteen kilometres from the town of Margaret River.
Margaret River region, an area known worldwide for it surf, wines and fine foods
Gracetown is a fairly new settlement. Prior to the 1960’s Cowaramup Bay was a camping holiday area. The town of Gracetown was gazetted
in 1961, and the first houses were built in 1963. The majority of houses are holiday cottages or holiday accommodation.
The name Gracetown was chosen in honour of Grace Bussell #, a local hero who in 1886, at the age of sixteen, rode her
horse into ferocious surf at Redgate and rescued the survivors of the SS Georgette shipwreck.
Gracetown settlement and Cowaramup Bay above, with a surfer at South Point above right.
Grace Bussell is famous in Western Australia for riding her horse into thunderous crashing waves to rescue survivors from the SS Georgette
ship wreck off Redgate Beach in 1876 when she was sixteen years old.
Samuel Isaacs played an equally important role in the rescue
alongside Grace Bussell. An Aboriginal stockman on the Bussell’s farm, he was the one who first sighted the troubled ship out to sea,
and after alerting Grave and her mother Ellen Bussell, he too rode his horse into the waves and saved many lives.
With only the two women at home, upon hearing the news of the stricken vessel in grave danger, young Grace volunteered to help in a rescue mission. She and Sam gathered ropes, and after saddling their horses, rode twenty kilometres to the coast and down the cliffs to the scene of the wreck.
By the time they arrived, the Georgette had run aground at Redgate and was breaking up in the surf. All the survivors
were in very real danger, with the ship breaking up around them and the lifeboats being constantly swamped by huge waves. Grace and
Sam swum their horses out into the sea, battling through the powerful surf.
They managed to reach a lifeboat where Grace encouraged
as many people as possible to hold onto the ropes and the horse for the swim back through the breakers to the safety of Redgate Beach.
One man was left on the life boat who was later rescued by Sam.
Captain Godfrey continued to launch lifeboats as the ship went
down. Grace, Sam and the horses returned into the dangerous surf several times over four hours until the last of the ship wreck’s
survivors were safe on dry land.
The survivors were taken in by the Bussell family at Wallcliffe house where Ellen Bussell looked
after them while they recovered from the ordeal. Of fifty passengers, according to the memorial at Redgate Beach,
eight lives were lost, however some other media record twelve lives were lost.
Accounts of the events of the wreck of the SS Georgette and the subsequent rescue vary in the details in some media.
Further
and slightly differing accounts of this event can be read on
To the west of the town of Margaret River, Prevelly is near the coast and the rivermouth of the Margaret River (Wooditchup Bilya). A surf school is based at the rivermouth beaches.
In the Nyitting, or the Dreaming, a magic man named Wooditch created
the Margaret river, which the local Noongar people know as Wooditchup.
At left, looking towards the rivermouth.
Below, the rivernouth with seasonal closed sandbar at left, and looking up the estuary of the Margaret River at right.
With a number of popular surf breaks at Prevelly, Surfer’s Point is the most well known. Despite cold weather there were a number of surfers out catching the waves. As a group of surfers in their wetsuits swam out, I commented to one surfer who had just come in, that they looked like a group of shark fins.
Sharks are common this coastline, and subsequent to our visit, the 2018 Margaret River Pro international surfing contest was abandoned at the location due to a shark attack.
We visited Gnarabup Beach which stretches from the headland northwards to Surfer’s Point. White Elephant Beach Café at the southern
end is a popular lunch stop.
The Cape to Cape walk track crosses the rivermouth at this point.