DID YOU KNOW?

Some interesting facts and information on a few of the islands of the southern atoll:

HORSBURGH ISLAND or PULU LUAR was almost continuously inhabited from 1826 until after World War II. Initially Alexander Hare put people on the island to grow vegetables and fruit for other islands. This tradition was maintained by the Clunies-Ross proprietors and George Clunies-Ross kept deer on the island for hunting. In 1941, gun emplacements were installed on the southern point of the island and manned by Ceylonese troops. A feature of this island is the small lagoonlet which occurs within the interior of the island to the north east. A stand of mangroves grow here and were reputedly planted by George Clunies-Ross.

DIRECTION ISLAND or PULU TIKUS (Malay for Rat Island) appears to have been the first island to be inhabited, for it was on Direction island that the crew, together with rats, of the Mauritius were marooned after their ship was wrecked in 1825. The island was also inhabited for a short time by Alexander Hare and his followers in the same year.

This island was the site of the Cable Station, with undersea links to Australia, Singapore and South Africa which came into operation in 1901 and ceased in 1966. In the late 1960's buildings on the island were either translocated to Home and West Islands, or bulldozed into the sea along the ocean ward margin, and considerable building rubble is conspicuous along the ocean ward shore.

Cricket match on the lawns of the Cable Station - Direction Island 1965 image courtesy of Mrs Meg Murray

PRISON ISLAND or PULU BERAS (Malay for Rice Island) or PULU TUAN (Master's Island) is the tiny island to the north of Home Island. It is now considerably smaller than when Alexander Hare moved his house there from Home Island in 1827. He had a number of buildings constructed for him on the island. Some were used to store the settlement's provisions. He lived in a two storey residence, and smaller huts housed the children of his "family" (harem). When Hare left the atoll in 1931 the housing was abandoned.

HOME ISLAND or PULU SELMA has been a centre of habitation since Alexander Hare chose it for his first permanent settlement in 1826. The burial island, PULU GANGSA, was artificially joined to Home Island by placing coconut logs and concrete-filled drums across the channel in the late 1940's. Parts of the island have been reclaimed from the sea; the landing area north and south of the present jetty, and part of the kampong baru, reclaimed by teams of women earlier last century. Oceania House was designed and built by George Clunies-Ross in 1893.

SOUTH ISLAND or PULU ATAS (Malay for Top Island, in reference to it being upwind). It was the site for the first settlement by Captain John Clunies-Ross in 1827, who dredged a boat channel through the southern lagoon to the centre of the island. The long lagoonal shore is a popular site for a number of Home Islanders pondoks (week-ender shacks) and was also home to a regiment of Kenyan soldiers, the Fifth African Rifles, who were stationed at the south-western end near the highest point called "Gunong", as coast watchers in World
War II.

Qantas comes to Cocos images courtesy of Mr Allen Jenkinson

WEST ISLAND or PULU PANJANG was settled in 1826 by some of Alexander Hare's followers probably in the vicinity of Rumah Baru, and has been inhabited continuously ever since. It was home to more than 7,000 troops from Britain, Canada, Australia and India in 1944. The airstrip was built initially in1944, but seeing little action in the war, was revamped for use by Qantas in 1951.

PULU MARAYA - just east of the southern end of West Island, is named after one of the two European children who disappeared without trace from the island shores in the 1860's. The island now has a pondok which is used as a weekender by one Malay family.