Albany 2026: Quarantine station-turned summer camp Camp Quaranup’s history, ghost tales, and tourism revamp

Camp Quaranup is still used and fondly remembered by schoolchildren and tourists alike, but its past as a quarantine station stretches almost as far back as Albany’s colonial beginnings.

With Albany’s port established as one of WA’s main reception points of ships, immigrants and travellers from around the world, the need for a permanent quarantine station was apparent by the mid-1870s.

The station was established in 1875. Rumour had it the plans were pushed along after a group of high-ranking government officials were forced to quarantine at the temporary station on Mistaken Island in tents in challenging Albany weather.

Originally, the station comprised two cottages, one being the caretaker’s, and a small stone building on Geake Point designed to store ammunition in case it was needed to defend Albany.

The RMS Lusitania sailed into King George Sound on July 8 1895, flying the yellow flag indicating a sick passenger.

It was coming from Colombo, and reported a suspected smallpox patient aboard.

A passenger on the RMS Lusitania spoke to the Advertiser about their experience at the quarantine station.

The account was then published in the August 10, 1895 edition of The West Australian, and gave a clear insight into the conditions at the station before extra works were undertaken by the State Government.

The passenger recounted difficulty landing on the peninsula because of the lack of a proper jetty, and having to squeeze more than 30 passengers into a single cottage.

“On arrival at Albany the pilot declined to come on board, and returned to port for the health officer, who, after a brief conversation with Dr Hudson, instructed that the passengers should be landed at the Quarantine Station in the ship’s boats,” the account read.

“Now came an unwelcome surprise.

“It was found that the only accommodation on the rock was a small four-roomed cottage, into which 31 passengers were expected to squeeze, nine being female.

“Two ladies from the first saloon, with nurse and baby, were allotted a lofty front room, the roof of which is in a perfect condition.

“A second room with single beds was set apart tor the other five ladies.

“Fifteen slept in the third room, which was about 14 feet square.

“The remainder found rest as best they could on the kitchen floor or under the veranda exposed to the inclemency of the weather.

“There was nothing to be obtained on the station in the way of food and drink.”

The account went on to detail passengers sleeping in tents and going days without showering, though the passenger partially blamed the ship company for the inadequate conditions.

“The want of food and preparation for the reception of the passengers is undeniably due to the gross negligence of the Orient Steamship Company in failing to notify the Health Officer at Albany by cable that a case of smallpox had been landed at Colombo,” they wrote.

“Only half an hour’s notion had been given to the Quarantine keeper of what he had to expect, a totally inadequate time for such extensive preparations as were necessary.”

A major upgrade was undertaken from 1896, with a new isolation hospital and jetty completed that year and a stone kitchen block, third-class quarters, luggage store, laundry and new quarters for the medical officer completed in 1897.

By 1898, the station encompassed four dormitories for married couples, one for single men and one for single women, a detached kitchen block containing a cookhouse, scullery, servant’s dining hall, cook’s room, and three storerooms, additional rooms in the caretaker’s separate block for medical officer and attendants, a large laundry block, luggage storage block, a female bathing shed, disinfecting house with patent disinfector and laundry, a mortuary, and isolated infection hospital with special wards and nurses’ quarters.

In 1909, the station’s operation was transferred to the Commonwealth Government, and it was used intermittently as a quarantine station, including during the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918, but its original purpose slowly became less important as immigration slowed and medicine became more advanced.

The camp became a popular place used by community groups and schools when it was not operational as a quarantine facility.

The outbreak of World War II saw US Navy soldiers billeted at the station during their time away from the fighting.

In 1957, the Wheeler family leased the property to convert it into a hostel, giving it its new name, Camp Quaranup.

When their lease ended in 1969, several other groups leased the property from the City of Albany, but it was handed over to the newly established Department of Youth, Sport and Recreation in the late 1970s.

The camp was also used as a set location for kids TV series Lockie Leonard in 2006.

It is still believed by some to be haunted, with more than one TikTok ghost hunter spilling the site’s eerie ghost tales and paranormal phenomena resulting from a past full of sickness and death to intrigued viewers on the internet.

The isolation, hospital, morgue and nurses’ quarters are said to be the camp’s most haunted spots.

Camp Quaranup, on the Vancouver Peninsula, is still run by the WA Government’s Department of Creative Industries, Tourism and Sport, and hosts school excursions and camps, tourist and local community groups, and even weddings and functions.