Cunard Cruise Line marks 100 years of sailing to Australia
Cruise line Cunard is marking 100 years of sailing to Australia this year.
But it hasn't all been about lavish holidays.
The company started out bringing both cargo and passengers Down Under from the UK.
It later converted ships to carry troops in World War II, carrying soldiers from Sydney.
It then carried 'Ten Pound Poms' Brits to the nation for new life.
These days it runs upmarket cruise holidays.
Maritime historian, Chris Frame, details the firm's historic link to Australia.
"Cunard's first mainline voyage to Australia was on a modestly sized combination liner called the Albania (pictured), one hundred years ago this year," Chris tells 9Travel.
"A combination liner carries both cargo and passengers. This sounds odd today, but what is often forgotten is that container ships didn't exist 100 years ago, so any goods and raw materials being moved around the world by sea often went on ocean liners.
"Cunard's ships at the time carried lots of cargo and Albania was used to transport wool during her Australian voyage."
Australia was a major part of the Cunard service in World War II.
"When RMS Queen Mary (pictured) was requisitioned as a troop carrier in 1940 the ship was sent to Australia for its wartime conversion," Chris says.
Once in Sydney the ship was refurbished by the Cockatoo Island Dockyards transforming it from a luxury liner to a troop ship, able to carry up to 10,000 people at a time, Frame says.
Pictured are troops ready to embark in Sydney in 1940.
"RMS Queen Elizabeth joined RMS Queen Mary in Sydney and the two ships transported Australian servicemen to war. Australia also hosted other Cunarders during World War II including Aquitania, which served in both World Wars, and the second Mauretania," Frame says.
Pictured are troops leaving on Queen Mary on February 2, 1941.
Another ship, the Mauretania, packed with soldiers in Sydney in 1940.
Then came the Ten Pound Poms, a scheme to bring Europeans for a new life in Australia.
"By the time the Assisted Passage Scheme was developed in post-war Australia, ships had linked every major port across the world and Cunard was a big player in global shipping," Chris says.
"Cunard had merged with the White Star Line in 1934 and after WWII Cunard used the former White Star liner Georgic on the Aussie ten pound pom service."
Pictured are children from Britain arriving on the Georgic in 1955.
There was an historical moment in 1985 for Cunard in Australia.
Supersonic plane Concord flew passengers in on Valentine's Day to board two Cunard ships, the QE2 and Sagafjord.
Concorde broke the speed record on the journey, making the trip from London in 17 hours, 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
Round the World cruises from Cunard have also regularly stopped in Australia.
Pictured is the dining room on the Cunard/NAC liner, Sagafjord in Sydney on February 8, 1986.
This is what the cabins looked like on that ship. They even boasted a TV and video recorder, which was lavish for the time.
