DAY 6
EDEN
With the weather having improved, our group headed to Green Cape Lighthouse in Ben Boyd National Park. We made the short walk from the car park to the lighthouse and lookout, which offered a spectacular view over the Tasman Sea.
Green Cape Lighthouse is the southernmost lighthouse in New South Wales. It made the record books when it was built in 1883 as Australia ' s first concrete lighthouse tower. Standing 29m tall, the whitewashed tower overlooks a rugged stretch of the Sapphire Coast.
Despite the presence of the lighthouse, a major shipwreck occurred in May 1886. The SS Lyee-moon, en route to Sydney from Melbourne, struck a reef close to the Green Cape at night. Seventyone people were lost, with the lighthouse keepers only being able to save 15 people.
Cape Green Lighthouse.
After Green Cape, we headed off to Boyds Tower, which was built in 1847 and stands 23m tall. It was constructed from Pyrmont sandstone brought by steamer from Sydney. It was originally built as a lighthouse, but the government considered it unsuitable and therefore it was never used as a lighthouse, although it did serve as a whalespotting site.
We headed back towards Eden and stopped at Boydtown and Seahorse Inn for lunch. The Seahorse Inn was built for Ben Boyd in 1843 using convict labour. Boyd had arrived in Sydney in 1842, set up a bank, bought a paddle-steamer named Seahorse and decided that Twofold Bay would be ideal as the harbour for his operations. However, the cost of establishing Boydtown began to affect him financially and in 1849 the liquidators were called in.
The Seahorse Inn was abandoned that year and the incomplete hotel lay vacant for nearly a century. Inevitably, it suffered the ravages of decay and vandalism. It wasn’ t until 1936 that the Whiter family renovated the ruin, added an extra storey and created the modern building it is today.
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