Malabar Beach - Sydney Australia

Malabar was named after a ship called the MV Malabar, a Burns Philp Company passenger and cargo steamer that was shipwrecked in thick fog on rocks at Miranda Point on the northern headland of Long Bay 2 April 1931. The ship itself was named after Malabar, a region in the Indian state of Kerala famous for its history as a major spice trade centre. Prior to the wreck, the suburb was known as either Brand or Long Bay. Long Bay is reputed to have been the local Indigenous community’s principal camping/healing place between Sydney and Botany Bay. Malabar Headland is the site of a number of Aboriginal engravings. Historian Obed West claimed in 1882 that Aboriginal people referred to Long Bay as ‘Boora’ and that a rock overhang on the south side of Long Bay had been used as a shelter by Aboriginals suffering from a smallpox epidemic in the late 1700s