This charming weatherboard educational establishment sits atop a pleasant hill overlooking the sea and is reached by steps leading up from a small foreshore carpark. It actually owes its existence to the arrival in Australia in January 1919 of Spanish flu with troops returning from the Great War. As the pandemic spread from Melbourne up the east coast, quarantine measures became enforced including a halt to all travel north across the New South Wales-Queensland border. One of many quarantine camps was set up at Point Danger in Tweed Heads and border crossings were patrolled by mounted police. The “stranded Queenslanders” even had their own committees to represent them against the state authorities. Immediately north of the border, the children of Coolangatta were suddenly left without a school, until this time having had to travel south across the border to the Tweed Public School. The local Town Hall was used as a school and, although quarantine restrictions were lifted in July 1919, parents lobbied the state government for new premises. In October the following year the Coolangatta State School was officially opened. In 1977 the school was moved to its current site nearby. The buildings were later restored and transformed into the Kirra Hill Community and Cultural Centre.

Image source: Ashley Watson

Date visited: 9 January 2019

  • The Queenslander, 15 February 1919