Cruise line Cunard is marking 100 years of sailing to Australia this year. But it hasn't all been about lavish holidays. The company started out bringing both cargo and passengers Down Under from the UK.
It later converted ships to carry troops in World War II, carrying soldiers from Sydney. It then carried 'Ten Pound Poms' Brits to the nation for new life. These days it runs upmarket cruise holidays.
Maritime historian, Chris Frame, details the firm's historic link to Australia. "Cunard's first mainline voyage to Australia was on a modestly sized combination liner called the Albania (pictured), one hundred years ago this year," Chris tells 9Travel. "A combination liner carries both cargo and passengers.
This sounds odd today, but what is often forgotten is that container ships didn't exist 100 years ago, so any goods and raw materials being moved around the world by sea often went on ocean liners. "Cunard's ships at the time carried lots of cargo and Albania was used to transport wool during her Australian voyage." Australia was a major part of the Cunard service in World War II.
"When RMS Queen Mary (pictured) was requisitioned as a troop carrier in 1940 the ship was sent to Australia for its wartime conversion," Chris says. Once in Sydney the ship was refurbished by the Cockatoo Island Dockyards transforming it from a luxury liner to a troop ship, able to carry up to 10,000 people at a time, Frame says. Pictured are troops ready to embark in Sydney in 1940.
"RMS Quee.
