Originally Posted by
FloppsyTopsy
The sandy clearing referred to at Cabarita is an old disused army training strip once used for caribou; most of the entire area was fairly treeless until after the 70's.
Aviation arrived in the Tyagarah area fairly early with joy flights being flown off the beach at brunswick heads in the 1920's. Even Smithy visited the area with the Southern Cross, landing at Tygalgah which relocated itself to become Murwillumbah.
There have been many small ag strips in the area over the decades. Esplanade at South Golden beach started off as a clay strip. Wallum near Brunswick Heads had a small ag strip till the 70's; and another on the corner of MCauleys Ln and Myocum Rd which is now a macadamia farm. Another now unusable private strip at Wooyong is still there. And another two unusable opposite Mullumbimby golf course; and another just to the north of that. There are two private strips in Commissioners Creek, and another in Knobbys Creek.
Both Bashforth and Ward earthmovers were sand mining all along the coast from Belongil right up to Kingscliff and performing earthworks throughout the area from the 40's up to the mid 70's and are both still operating today. Both ventures built most all of the strips in the area with Tyagarah being fashioned out in the mid 60's after being gazetted by the Crown as a Landing Place in July 1961.
Prior to 1961 Tyagarah's earliest aviation history started with Allan Ellis in the early 1930's with two aircraft in a shed at the eastern end of where the field is today. Ellis who was trained to fly by Kieth Virtue built and flew one single seat aircraft on his own and the second being an Avro-504. A hurricane hit the area in 1936 and destroyed the shed. Ellis remained involved in local aviation forming a group in 1947 to build an airport at Byron Bay where the industrial estate now resides. The project was bankrolled by the Australian Banana Growers Association and after numerous attempts and years to complete the project it was finally abandoned due to the ground proving unsuitable to support the heavy machinery required to create the strip.
An earlier proposal put fourth in 1937 to build an aerodrome at either one of Byron Bay or Mullumbimby's racecourses never gained enough traction due to financial challenges of the time.
Kieth Virtue perished along with Cpt Holden and Dr Hamilton in a tragic aircraft fatality at Myocum in 1931. The three fig trees planted in 1932 by the community at the accident site near the Barlow farm are still there to this day.
Floppsy
PIC was Ralph Virtue, Keith’s younger brother.