(In the 1950s, the rockshelf at this beach was blasted to create a safe bathing pool. We have no images of this pool, which is probably now a ghost pool)
Historical Notes
1893
This beach was named for its most distinctive feature, the wreck of the SS Dicky driven ashore during a cyclone in 1893.
1947
The area around Dicky Beach was developed for housing.
1952
In April, the Landsborough Council overseer estimated the cost of the boring and shooting to create a pool on the rockshelf at Dicky Beach was only £54. Although the proposed pool site was only 150 feet from the lifesavers’ clubhouse, the overseer thought that window damage could be avoided by careful blasting.
By November, the office of the Marine Board of Queensland insisted that construction details in duplicate were required before the Marine Board could consider the swimming pool proposed for Dicky Beach.
In December, the North Caloundra Life Saving Club asked the Landsborough Shire Council ‘to blast the rocks on that beach, which would be cleared by voluntary effort by local residents with the object of making a safe bathing pool’. By 24 December, Dr J. H. B. Henderson’s complaint about ‘damage to his residence at Dickey [sic] Beach Caloundra, through blasting operations on the rock pool’ was referred to the Landsborough Shire Council engineer.
1953
By September, Queensland’s Marine Board was asking whether the Council ‘will accept responsibility for control and maintenance of the pool that the North Caloundra Life Saving Club propose making in the rocks at Dickey [sic] Beach, Caloundra’. Landsborough Council agreed that it would accept this responsibility.
By November 1953, Landsborough Council’s overseer was reporting on ‘blasting of swimming pool at Dickey [sic] Beach’
1954
In February, Landsborough Shire Councillor G. A. H. Watson informed the Caloundra Chamber of Commerce that ‘the swimming pool under construction at Dickey [sic] Beach … was being excavated by the North Caloundra life savers and local residents, who had asked the Council to have the rock blasted and remove any surplus rock of use for road purposes’.
In August, the fourth annual report of the North Caloundra Life Saving Club reportedly stated that ‘Real work has begun on the proposed rock pool under the direction of the Landsborough Shire Council, and surface rock has been blasted over approximately the whole of the area surveyed (165ft. x 45ft.)’.
In September, the North Caloundra Life Saving Club’s suggestion that Council resume work on the Dicky Beach rock pool was referred to the Council Overseer.
By October 1954, the Council overseer was reporting on ‘clearing swimming pool at Dickie [sic] Beach’.
After 1954
We have no information about this pool after 1954.