Australian_Geographic_-_October_2015_

52 Australian Geographic

shifted to the Canberra-based Australian Maritime

Safety Authority (AMSA). One by one Australia’s light-

houses were mechanised and unmanned. That transition

was completed on 22 August 1996 when Chris Richter

• the nation’s last head keeper – and his wife, Ailsa,
  switched off the light in Maatsuyker Island’s historic
  lighthouse, built in 1891. It was replaced by a smaller,
  solar-powered beacon nearby.
  So ended an extraordinary 178-year tradition of
  lightkeeping; a poignant time for all who’d known this
  exceptional life of vocation and service. No longer was
  there a reassuring human presence in these far-flung
  outposts – the guardian families who kept lanterns burn-
  ing tracked our weather and wildlife and reached out to
  seafarers during moments of distress or tragic shipwreck.

T

ODAY, IN AN AGE when satellites can track our

every move and ships are directed by pinpoint

navigation systems, lighthouses can seem no more

than quaint markers of a bygone age. Yet they remain a

vital strand in our maritime safety net.

AMSA continues to operate more than 350 lights and

beacons around our shores. In its own way, technology

has made it possible to sustain this effort. Supremely

efficient and low-maintenance LED lights now deliver

the message from more than 75 per cent of our

navigational aids.

For larger ships threading through narrow seaways

and yachts, fishing boats and vessels of every stripe, these

visual references are invaluable insurance. Compared

with the abstract glow of instrument panels and computer

screens, lighthouses are tangible, rock-solid landmarks.

And on a night of squalls and thumping seas there is no

more consoling vision than a beam of guiding light.

This emphatic presence – on mainland shores, distant

islands and reefs – also offers the rest of us a compelling

course to navigate the past. There’s nothing like a light-

house for tightening our grip on the reality of life at sea.

Visiting their locations can be a deeply humbling expe-

rience – such as sailing in Tasman Island’s haunting

shadow after leaving Hobart’s Storm Bay, or approaching

Deal Island, where a stout 22m-high white tower

beckons from a cliff 305m above

South-west outpost. Towering above an apron of wave-washed

granite, Cape Leeuwin’s lighthouse (above and below), in WA, is at the junction

of the Indian and Southern oceans. Operational since 1895, its 39m-tall tower

once housed one of the world’s largest kerosene-wick lanterns, with a range

of nearly 40km. A later vaporised-kerosene lamp was finally replaced in the

early 1980s by a 1000-watt electric light, which increased its power to 1 million

candelas (units of luminous intensity). Fully automated since 1992, it remains a

popular landmark at Australia’s most south-westerly point. Here it rewards the

many visitors who climb its 186 steps with coastal outstanding panoramas.

So ended a 178-year tradition

of lightkeeping, a poignant

time for all who’d known this

exceptional life of service.

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