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Isolated: aerial view of South Solitary Island with lighthouse and keepers cottages – Image supplied by Precision Helicopters
South Solitary Island Lighthouse Considered the most isolated lighthouse along the New South Wales (NSW) coast, the South Solitary Island Lighthouse is located 18 kilometres off the coast from Coffs Harbour. Sitting at the peak of the elevenhectare island, the lighthouse is exposed to some of the harshest weather conditions on the east coast of Australia, making construction of the lighthouse and delivering supplies by steamer, extremely challenging. Architect James Barnet designed the lighthouse compound, and its construction was completed in 1880,
the first in Australia to be built from cement and sand. It stands 18 metres from the ground to its cap, and its internal structure measures 12 metres in diameter.
The only time the light has been extinguished was briefly during the Second World War in 1942 to deter enemy submarines that had been lying in wait and torpedoing Australian ships.
The original lens was a Chance Brothers first-order dioptric Fresnel lens. The lighthouse was also the first in NSW to be fuelled by kerosene, which continued to power the lighthouse until it was automated in 1975.
In 1910 a Morse signalling lamp was installed in a small wooden cabin beside the keeper’s quarters and at one point in time a lighthouse worker used this to court his future wife across the way in Coffs Harbour, in Morse code. Working Boats January 2020
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