The Flying Boat Factor

You be the judge...

My last post concerned a wonderful night Alex and I spent recently at a friend's wedding reception at Catalina, a waterside restaurant in Rose Bay, a Sydney Harbour-side suburb.

I mentioned that Rose Bay was originally home to the Qantas Flying Boat base which operated domestic and international flights with Empire and Catalina flying boats for many years. Sadly, these giant, lumbering waterborne birds with their distinctive throaty call, are now extinct in these parts although a smaller related species, the two-floated minor seaplane has taken up residence (see the pickie of Alex in my previous blog - there's a couple perching on the waterfront in the background).

Interestingly, both Alexx and I have connections of a not dissimilar kind with Rose Bay. I'm calling it the "Flying Boat Factor"

Alexx's mum and dad arrived in Australia from Greece via Cairo as emigrants on an Empire flying boat in 1946. Alexx had, in fact, already been conceived and arrived in the plane as well - albeit as a secret stowaway in his mum's belly!

Just a few short years later, in 1950, my mum and dad flew out of Rose Bay on their honeymoon to Yamba, on the north coast, in a Catalina flying boat. I had wondered if, perhaps, I was a secret passenger on that plane, even if only as a twinkle in my father's eye! Alas! A check on my sources (mum) assures me that was definitely (mum's tone was most emphatic!) not the case as I was not born until 1952! Gee! Mum! Not even a twinkle? Sheesh!

Oh! Well, I always have been slow at coming round to things - even it would seem - to being twinkles in father's eyes! But, hey! it might have taken a while but that flying boat trip musta started sumpink 'cause here I am!

Oh! Dear! I feel my memories congealing into a grandmother's now seemingly ancient and now barely comprehensible stories of "the old days" in the withered belly of my mind. "Wotsa flyingboat, nan?"!

Club Marine feature on The Golden Age of Flying Boats at Rose Bay

Some interesting by-notes on this excellent article:

1) The little girl in the cabin photo, looking like Shirley temple, is not me!

2) In the aerial photo of the Rose Bay base, down in the Catalina section of the article, the large square structure on the water's edge is just to the right of the present location of the Catalina restaurant we went to. Catalina restaurant was originally built in 1957 during the last years of flying boat operations.

3) The article mentions the famous Australian aviator, Captain PG Taylor. The pilot of mum and dad's Catalina was none other than the famous "PG"!

4) Pehaps mum and dad were the origin of that old joke about pyjamas being in case there's a fire on your honeymoon 'cause that's exactly what happened to them! The Ritz hotel in Yamba actually burned down one night while they were sleeping and they had to escape only in their nightwear! The reason they were staying in the Ritz was that the main hotel where they had intended to stay had recently been destroyed by floods (mmm! Yamba was a hazardous honeymoon destination in the '50's!). In true Aussie style though, one part of the main hotel survived the flood - the bar! Mum and dad and the other honeymooners used to traipse up the cliff each night to drink in what was left of the hotel bar! Onya aussies!