Rockingham
A satellite city in Perth s southwest, Rockingham has a beachside location at Mangles Bay, the southern extremity of Cockburn Sound. To its north stretches the maritime and resource-industry installations of Kwinana and Henderson. Offshore to the north-west is Australia s largest naval fleet and submarine base, Garden Island, connected to the mainland by an all-weather causeway. To the west and south lies the Shoalwater Islands Marine Park.
Since the nineteenth century, abundant sightseeing and recreational attributes have been the basis of a thriving tourism industry. Visitors can launch small boats or board ferries to view dolphins, seals, pelicans and penguins in the adjacent Marine Park. The coast at nearby Safety Bay is ideal for windsurfing and kitesurfing. Free barbecues and picnic facilities are provided on the seafront, supplementing a choice of hotels and restaurants. The locality got its name from the sailing ship Rockingham one of the three vessels bought by Thomas Peel to carry settlers to Western Australia (the others being the Gilmore and the Hooghly), arriving in May 1830. The Rockingham was blown ashore and eventually abandoned after failed attempts to refloat her. She eventually broke up, having sunk in shallow waters. Settlers supposedly camped near the wreck used the name Rockingham Town as their address.
A memorial on Rockingham beach commemorates the Catalpa rescue, a famous escape of six Irish Fenian convicts from Fremantle Prison on 17 18 April 1876. After journeying south from Fremantle by horse-drawn cart, the escapees were rowed from Rockingham beach to theCatalpa, an American whaler. The perilous flight succeeded in the face of an overnight storm and naval interception at dawn. The memorial is a statue depicting sixwild geese in flight, the design of which was initiated by an Irish-Australian Perth citizen, the late Francis Conlan, whose name is also recorded on the memorial.
Geting There: Rockingham is serviced by the Rockingham Train Station on the Mandurah Line. The Rockingham Shuttle Bus 555 is a frequent service which connects the train station with the Rockingham Beach foreshore. Frequent services connect Rockingham with Fremantle via the bus service 920 (via Kwinana, Spearwood) running at 15-minute intervals Monday-Friday and the 825 (via. Coogee). All three of these routes service the Primary Centre (including the Rockingham Shopping Centre via dedicated bus lanes.
Garden Island lies off the coast of Rockingham, separated by Mangles Bay. In 1942 the Australian Army commenced heavily fortifying Garden Island with coastal gun batteries, military facilities, additional jetties and searchlights at strategic sites as part of the fixed defences safeguarding the bustling port of Fremantle.
Challenger Battery, consisting of two single 155-millimetre guns, and Beacon Battery, with two single four-inch guns, became operational early in 1942-43 whilst construction went on above and below ground on the heavy Scriven Battery, which comprised two large 9.2-inch guns in single gunhouses.
Scriven Battery
Careening Bay Camp became a major training base for the secretive Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), also commonly referred to as "Z Special Unit". The base was officially known as the Special Boat Section and was used to train operatives in the advanced use of folboat folding kayaks as well as top secret British midget submarines such as the "Motorised Submersible Canoe" ("Sleeping Beauty"), "Welman" and "Welfreighter" submarines. SRD Parties staging out of Careening Bay Camp were sent on clandestine missions into Japanese-occupied territory.
After the end of World War II, Garden Island's fortifications were abandoned. The present day naval base on Garden Island came into being in the 1970s. The first stage, the construction of a 4.3-kilometre causeway linking the island with the mainland at Point Peron, was completed in 1973. The Naval Support Facility was completed in 1978 and HMAS Stirling was formally commissioned in the same year.
Since completion of the facility, public access to the island has been restricted to daylight hours, and those areas open to the public are only accessible by sea via private boat under curfew conditions.
The last sizeable piece of coastal sand dunes in the Perth region to survive in its natural state. Surrounded by the Shoalwater Islands Marine Park, this peninsula marks the southern end of Cockburn Sound. For generations of Western Australian school children, Point Peron holds special memories as the location for school camps. It is a safe location for swimming, snorkelling and exploring its small bays and rocky outcrops and for spotting the odd dolphin swimming past.
Numerous World War II gun placements, that are connected by a series of tunnels, dot the sand dunes are worthy of exploration. A causeway to the naval support facility on Garden Island extends from the point s northern shore. Though by no means a tourist attraction, Pt. Peron is worth a visit if you are in the area and want to spend some time alone with nature. Location: Pt. Peron Rd, Shoalwater. How to get there: via Parkin St., Rockingham.
Perth s most visited eco-tourism destination, and focal point of the Shoalwater Islands Marine Park. Birdwatching, Fairy penguin viewing, exploring the island s limestone cliffs and sea caves are just some of the activities to be enjoyed onshore. Offshore, there s sea kayaking, snorkelling, scuba diving, boogie boarding, fishing, wind surfing and kite boarding, with tours to view the sea lion colony at Shoalwater Bay or spot dolphins, cormorants, pelicans and sea eagles for those who prefer not to get their feet wet. Tour operator Rockingham Wild Encounters runs a ferry service to the island, tours to the Marine Parks breeding grounds and swims with wild dolphins.
Kwinana Beach
The nearby Kwinana district derives its name from the steamship Kwinana. The Kwinana was originally the S.S. Darius and was bought in 1912 by the State Government. At first it was decided to rename her Kimberley but there were too many ships of this name in Lloyds' Register of Shipping. On Christmas Day, 1920, the Kwinana was damaged by a fire at Carnarvon. A year later she was brought to Fremantle, where she was stripped and towed to a mooring at Careening Bay, Garden Island. During a westerly gale in 1922, a mooring shackle was parted and the vessel drifted across Cockburn Sound to where she lies today. The rusting hulk of the Kwinana ship was cut down to low water level, and the centre was filled with limestone to form a platform as part of the jetty at Kwinana.
Kwinana Beach is surrounded by heavy industry such as oil and aluminium refineries, and the northern area were these occur is generally closed to the public. The southern section, just north of Rockingham, is quite accessible with calm water to swim in and to watch the big ships come and go. It has a jetty, a boat ramp. The picnic area adjacent to the Kwinana ship wreck was named Wells Park in the honour of the then post-mistress, Mrs Clara Wells, who in 1922 first marked mailbags Kwinana Wreck at her general store opposite to the wreck.
Suburban street in Medina
Kwinana was planned in the early 1950s by the State Government to accommodate the development of industry in the area. It was created to house the families of those who would take up employment at the quickly developing Kwinana instrial area, many of which would be assisted passage migrants from Britain. The first suburb to be created, Medina was opened up as a state housing area, and predominantly the families that moved there were newly arrived migrants of Anglo Celtic descent.
The residential neighbours in the main townsite of Kwinana were named after the early sailing ships which brought settlers and others to Western Australia in the early 1800's, such as Medina, Calista and Parmelia. The streets in these neighbourhoods have been given the names of some of the crew and some of the passengers in those early ships. Pace Road, for instance was named to commemorate the Captain Pace, the Master of the sailing ship Medina, which arrived in Fremantle on 16 July 1830.
Alcoa Kwinana refinery
BP was the founder of the industrial area, in conjunction with the state government. The latter ensured that port facilities were developed to enable the offloading of significant amounts of oil, and that BP and other businesses who moved into the area had the workforce needed for their opertions.
Kwinana is a Kimberley Aboriginal word meaning either "young woman" or "pretty maiden". The ship SS Kwinana was wrecked on Cockburn Sound in 1922 and blown onto Kwinana Beach. The nearby area acquired the name and it was officially adopted for a township in 1937. Some of its suburbs take their names from the sailing ships that first brought immigrants to Western Australia, for example, Medina, Calista and Parmelia.
