Coolangatta facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Coolangatta Gold Coast, Queensland
Coolangatta in 2003
Coolangatta Location in Queensland
Population	5,948 (2016 census)
• Density	3,300/km2 (8,500/sq mi)
Established	1883
Postcode(s)	4225
Elevation	6 m (20 ft)
Area	1.8 km2 (0.7 sq mi)
Time zone	AEST (UTC+10:00)
Location	27.2 km (17 mi) SSE of Surfers Paradise 23.0 km (14 mi) SSE of Southport 101 km (63 mi) SSE of Brisbane
LGA(s)	City of Gold Coast
State electorate(s)	Currumbin
Federal Division(s)	McPherson
Suburbs around Coolangatta: Bilinga Coral Sea Coral Sea Bilinga Coolangatta Coral Sea Tweed Heads West (NSW) Tweed Heads (NSW) Tweed Heads (NSW)

Coolangatta is a coastal suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. It is the Gold Coast's southernmost suburb and it borders New South Wales. In the 2016 census, Coolangatta had a population of 5,948 people.

History

Early settlement

Estate map of the town of Coolangatta, Queensland, 1885

Coolangatta was one of the earliest settlements on the Gold Coast. Once again focused on a steep headland at Point Danger the area was occupied by Europeans from at least 1828 by a convict station and red cedar getters soon followed. Selectors followed in the 1860s and a small settlement at Coolangatta was established. In 1883 a township was surveyed.

Schooner Coolangatta

Anchor from Coolangatta wreck site memorial; creek at right

A topsail schooner of 83 feet (25 m) in length and 88 long tons (89 t), Coolangatta was built by John Blinksell in 1843 for Alexander Berry whose property, Coolangatta Estate, adjoined Coolangatta mountain located on the northern bank of the Shoalhaven River, New South Wales. Coolangatta was wrecked on Kirra / Bilinga Beach adjacent to a creek during a storm on Wednesday August 18, 1846.

On July 6, 1846, the ship sailed under Captain Steele from Brisbane, carrying two convict prisoners (George Craig in irons, and William George Lewis), to load red cedar logs at the Tweed River for Sydney. Steele found the river entrance closed by silt forming a bar, so he anchored in the lee of Point Danger off Kirra Beach. Red cedar logs were then hauled overland from Terranora Inlet and rafted from the beach, but in six weeks less than half of the contracted 70,000 feet of red cedar had been loaded. Meanwhile, five ships loaded with red cedar were bar-bound inside the river.

On August 18, 1846, while Steel was ashore, a south-east gale blew up. Steele's boat was damaged while getting through the surf and he watched from the beach as the gale intensified. Eventually, the prisoners were freed and all hands abandoned ship and swam for shore as the anchors dragged. The ship parted its anchors and washed ashore near what was later called Coolangatta Creek.

The survivors walked 70 miles (110 km) north to Amity Point in six days, fed each night by different groups of friendly indigenous Australians, and were taken into Brisbane on board the Tamar. Government surveyor Henry Schneider named the area Coolangatta while surveying in 1883 for the land auction in March 1884.

Border town

Border Gates between Coolangatta and Tweed Heads, 1943

Border marker between two states, dividing the "Twin Towns"

As a border town Coolangatta included a customs office, boatshed and government wharf. Extension of the South Coast railway from Nerang railway station to Tweed Heads opened on 10 August 1903. The Coolangatta railway station was located to the south-west of the intersection of Griffith and Dutton Streets (28°10′08″S 153°32′09″E / 28.16880°S 153.53595°E / -28.16880; 153.53595 (Coolangatta railway station)) in New South Wales resulting in a Queensland Railway Station being located in another state. The railway guaranteed the success of Coolangatta as a holiday township and it flourished from that time forward. The Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club opened on 13 September 1911. Guesthouses and hotels were erected and a commercial centre soon followed.

In January 1919 the border between Queensland and New South Wales was closed to all traffic in response to the 1918 flu pandemic in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease north into Queensland. People found themselves stranded on the one side of the border unable to return to their homes or employment on the other side. Quarantine stations and camps were established to house travelers and stranded residents. One impact on the border closure was the need to duplicate services across the twin towns on the Queensland side of the border. The border remained closed until May 1919. One of the services that required duplication was a school for children living north of the border and a school was established at 1 Garrick Street. The school buildings have been re-purposed as a Community Centre and are on the Gold Coast Local Heritage Register.

An unnamed cyclone crossed the coast at Coolangatta on the night of 20 February 1954. The storm quickly cleared from Queensland skies but moved south, causing widespread loss of life and flooding in New South Wales. The railway line closed in 1961 due to the rising use of cars.

Little remains of the earliest structures at Coolangatta but some evidence remains of subsequent development in the early years of the twentieth century including the Coolangatta Hotel, Kirra Beach Hotel and St Augustine's Catholic Church (Coolangatta). In addition to the former Coolangatta State School, the Anzac Memorial (Coolangatta), Jazzland Coolangatta, the Kirra Beach Pavillion, Kirra Beach Shelter Shed and the remains of Jack Evans Porpoise Pool are on the Gold Coast Local Heritage Register.

The border fence and gates that until recently were a characteristic of the area have now been removed but the sense of the border remains at Boundary Street running along the ridge of the headland between Queensland and New South Wales. The headland itself is an important landmark and tourist destination and is the site of the Point Danger Lighthouse. Coolangatta symbolises the terminus of the Gold Coast and the long strip of beach that begins at Main Beach forty kilometres to the north.

Coolangatta and its surrounds were the home of two early tourist attractions on the Gold Coast. Jack Evans Porpoise Pool which was built at Snapper Rocks in 1957 and Gilltraps Auto Museum which was established at Kirra in 1959.

Centenary commemorations

To commemorate the centenary of Coolangatta, in 1984 a stone from the Coolangatta Estate homestead was donated by the citizens of Coolangatta near Berry, New South Wales and was mounted on a plinth of granite from Aberdeen, Scotland, the birthplace of Alexander Berry.

Demographics

According to the 2016 census of Population, there were 5,948 people in Coolangatta.

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 2.2% of the population.
• The median age of people in Coolangatta was 50 years.
• 67.6% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were New Zealand 4.3% and England 4.0%.
• 80.2% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Portuguese at 1.7%.
• The most common responses for religion were No Religion 32.3, Catholic 21.9% and Anglican 15.4%.

Climate

Coolangatta has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa) with warm, wet summers and cool, moist winters. Although there is four times as much rainfall in March as there is in September, Coolangatta is still considered to have no dry season because there is more than a tenth of the rainfall of the wettest month in the driest month of the year.

Sport

Coolangatta has many sports teams.

Coolangatta Tweed Heads Australian Football Club is a Gold Coast based club competing in the AFL Queensland Australian rules football competition.

The Coolangatta Tweed Barbarians compete in the Gold Coast and District Rugby Union.

The Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club compete in the Winter Swimming Association of Australia Championships.

Coolangatta Bowls Club is on the corner of Scott and Warner Streets (28°10′11″S 153°32′20″E / 28.1698°S 153.5390°E / -28.1698; 153.5390 (Coolangatta Bowls Club)).

Coolangatta Croquet Club is at 42 Lanham Street (28°10′11″S 153°32′14″E / 28.1696°S 153.5372°E / -28.1696; 153.5372 (Coolangatta Croquet Club)).

The Coolangatta & Tweed Heads Golf Club is at Soorley Street in Tweed Heads South.

In popular culture

Coolangatta is featured in the song It's Hot in Brisbane but it's Coolangatta, recorded in 1953 by Gwen Ryan, Claude Carnell's Orchestra and additional vocals from Doug Roughton's Hokey Pokey Club. Funded by 39 businesses, it is believed to be the first jingle written to promote an Australian tourist destination. In 2008 the song was used as the theme for a Gold Coast Heritage exhibition about the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s on the Gold Coast, featuring oral histories and objects of Gold Coast residents.

Coolangatta was also used as the fictitious town of Porpoise Spit in the 1994 film Muriel's Wedding.

Education

Coolangatta State School is a government primary (Prep-6) school for boys and girls at Stapylton Street (28°10′19″S 153°31′43″E / 28.1720°S 153.5287°E / -28.1720; 153.5287 (Coolangatta State School)). In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 184 students with 19 teachers (14 full-time equivalent) and 11 non-teaching staff (8 full-time equivalent).

There is no secondary school in Coolangatta. The nearest secondary school is Palm Beach Currumbin State High School in Palm Beach to the north-west.

The Coolangatta campus of TAFE Queensland is a technical college at 5 Scott Street (28°10′14″S 153°32′24″E / 28.1705°S 153.5399°E / -28.1705; 153.5399 (Coolangatta TAFE)).

Images for kids

• 

  Aerial view looking towards Point Danger, Coolangatta, ca. 1952. Tweed Heads (New South Wales) is to the left. The main road running inland from the headland is Boundary Street, which marks the state border.

• 

  Snapper Rocks, a popular surfing and sea-bathing area in Coolangatta

• 

  St Augustine's Catholic Church at its opening, December 1926

• 

  Rainbow Bay seen from Greenmount Hill, Coolangatta

• 

  Lighthouse at Point Danger, Coolangatta, Queensland – a heritage-listed memorial to Lieutenant James Cook of HM Bark Endeavour who named the Point and described the area during the voyage of 1770.

See also

In Spanish: Coolangatta para niños