SS Canberra at Gibraltar, Sept. 1997 - Picture of the Week 15 Feb 2014

SS Canberra at Gibraltar in September 1997

SS Canberra visited the port of Gibraltar on her final cruise in September 1997 . Originally built as a trans-oceanic liner in 1960, she made her first voyage from Britain to Australia in 1961. On this maiden voyage she visited the port of Aden, where I was living. We children were taken to the harbour to see the new liner. We weren't allowed on board, but I remember her, and the SS Oriana which we had seen on her maiden voyage in December 1960. All the big liners called at Aden, it was a major shipping port in those days.

Postcard showing SS Oriana at harbour in Aden C1960
 (photograph by Rahmin Bensoor)

Years later, I visited Gibraltar to make a photographic record of work carried out to remedy problems with the Harbour Views apartments on the right of the top photograph. Staying in a flat opposite the Safeway supermarket, I woke one morning to see the Canberra had docked. She was one of many cruise liners to come and go from Gibraltar. She had been converted to a cruise liner after service in the Falklands war; larger, more efficient aircraft had made the flight to Australia possible and the transatlantic ocean voyages became unviable.

My photograph shows Canberra's last visit to Gibraltar. She was on her final cruise, the following month she was scrapped.