Point Danger (Tweed Heads)

Point Danger is a headland at the southern end of the Gold Coast on the east coast of Australia. Point Danger is separated from the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales in the center. The northeast is located Rainbow Bay with its popular with surfers Snapper Rocks in Queensland and the Tweed River estuary in south-eastern New South Wales.

Point Danger is since 1863 border between the two states. At Point Danger also the Centaur Memorial is located. The monument commemorates the launch of the Australian hospital ship " Centaur " in 1943 by a Japanese submarine.

The "Walk of Remembrance" form a semicircle around the Point Danger Lookout and is reminiscent of some lost Australian ships that were destroyed in the Second World War by the Japanese and the Germans.

History

The term " Point Danger " goes back to James Cook. This had on 16 May 1770, when he hit the reef east of the present " Cook Iceland " and " Fingal Head ," dodge and therefore turned towards the east, and thus to open sea from. The Cook Island and Fingal Head located about 10 km south of present-day Point Danger.

In his logbook James Cook names the day before umfahrenen riffs with Point Danger. This passage, ten kilometers south is, but nowadays "Danger Reef ".

The exact location of the Points Dangers there for many years different views. Currently is argued that Point Danger is not the place at its present location, so in Tweed Heads, the Cook in 1770, known as Point Danger. It is true, therefore, that the original Point Danger today on the southern as "Danger Reef " designated Fingal Head.

Cook wrote on May 17, 1770 in his log:

We now saw the breakers again They lay two Leagues from a point under Which is a small Iceland, june Their situation always be found by the peaked mountain before Mentioned them from this mountain or hill, and on this account I have named Mount Warning it lies 7 or 8 Leagues inland the land is high and hilly about it, but it is conspicuous enough to be distinguished from everything else. The point off Which thesis shoals lay I have named Point Danger.

Lighthouse

Since 1971 there are at Point Danger is a 20 m high lighthouse with James Cook Monument connected. Originally the lighthouse was operated for test purposes with lasers. Thus, the luminance and range should be increased.

The project failed, however, and the lighthouse was finally converted to electric light. Every ten seconds, the lighthouse emits a double white flash of light.