The town of Seventeen Seventy is so named because on 24 May in that year, Lieutenant James Cook, captain of His Majesty's barque HMS Endeavour, came ashore and landed on the beach of Round Hill Creek in the vicinity of the present village.[1]
In the morning of Thursday May 1770, the Lieutenant in his pinnace (with Mr Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander) and Second Lieutenant John Gore in the yawl left the ship for the shore and made their first landing in what is now Queensland and their second landing in Australia. Cook made eleven landings on the eastern seaboard and ten of these were in Queensland. Cook's landing spot at Bustard Bay was in the vicinity of the present caravan park (developed in 1978), where a stream at the southern end enters the beach just north of the remaining mangroves.[1]
Cook described the countryside as "visibly worse" than at Botany Bay, with dry and sandy soils, woods free of undergrowth, the same sort of numerous "birch" tree (coastal ironbark), mangroves skirting the lagoon and palm trees on low, barren, sandy places. He also noted bustards, black and white ducks, small oysters and other shell fish - mussels, pearl oysters and cockles.[1]
Botanist Joseph Banks, who accompanied Cook on his "little excursion in to the woods", noted the great variety of plants even though the plant cover was not thick. He recognised plants already seen in the Tropics, and described many birds on shore including one species of Bustard. Some of the 55 specimens collected in the general area were illustrated and described in Banks' Florilegium, which was printed from copperplates under Banks' direction from Parkinson's unfinished sketches. (Parkinson died of dysentery on the voyage home.) As the woods behind Round Hill Head and adjacent to Round Hill Creek are the locality of the first botanical type-specimens collected in Queensland, they are of great scientific value. This was recognised in 1989 with the gazettal of Joseph Banks Environmental Park.[1][2]
In August 1802 Matthew Flinders in HMS Investigator, accompanied by the Lady Nelson under the command of Lt John Murray, resurveyed Hervey's Bay. They reached the south head of Bustard Bay (Round Hill Head) on 2 August and anchored in nearly the same spot where the Endeavour had lain in 1770.[1]
Subsequent early mariners visited Bustard Bay and noted the prominent landmark of Round Hill from Round Hill Head: Captain Phillip King in the Mermaid' ' in 1819, Captain Stokes in HMS Beagle in 1839 and 1841, and Colonel Barney in the steamer Cornubia in 1846, when he was looking for a site for northern settlement.[1]
Port Curtis was proclaimed a district in January 1854. Most European settlement by-passed Bustard Bay and Round Hill Head, but pastoral runs were taken up in the hinterland. In 1867 a lighthouse was erected at Bustard Head because of increased coastal shipping, and a sawmill was established at Eurimbula Creek. By 1894, Agnes Water beach was a popular weekend resort for sawmill employees. There was a timber shoot down Round Hill and pine logs were hauled by teamsters to the rafting grounds on Oyster Creek and Round Hill Creek. The first cottage at Round Hill was erected in 1915.[1]
In July 1925, the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland resolved to erect a monument at Bustard Bay to commemorate the first landing of the British on the Queensland coast. With the support of the Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan, a public appeal for funds was launched on 1 September 1925, and proved so popular that a cairn was ordered the following month. This was erected early in 1926, on the point of land overlooking Bustard Bay to the north. In response to a request from the RGSQ for the reservation of an area of land surrounding the Cook Memorial, the Department of Public Lands set aside an area of 1,790 acres (720ha) as a Recreation Reserve under the control of the Miriam Vale Shire as trustee, February 1927. This did not include the site of the actual landing in Bustard Bay.[1]
An area was surveyed adjacent to Round Hill Creek for the site of a township in the mid-1930s. It was named Seventeen Seventy, re-emphasising that this was Cook's first landing place in Queensland in May 1770.[1]
The significance of Round Hill Head, at the time considered the birthplace of Queensland, drew the attention of those planning the 1970 Bi-Centenary Celebrations. The Queensland Government made available $2,000 for a monument additional to the cairn, to be erected and maintained by the Department of Local Government. The site selected for the new monument was about a mile nearer the tip of Round Hill Head on the western or inshore side, overlooking the spot where the Endeavour had lain.[1]
The new monument was not to imitate the existing cairn as simply a marker for the site of Cook's landing, but was intended to symbolise that in landing at this place, the British first opened the door of opportunity in Queensland. A four-sided concrete portico in classical style was erected, with the words Doorway to Destiny on the top-piece. In 1975, the area surrounding the monument was gazetted as the Captain Cook Memorial and Park Reserve. The monument later developed concrete cancer, and was demolished in August 1994.[1]
In 1989 the Joseph Banks Environmental Park (now Joseph Banks Conservation Park) was gazetted.[2] It covered about 114 hectares (280 acres), but did not include Cook's actual landing site.[1]
Description
Round Hill Head is a distinctive granite landform at 54 metres (177ft) above sea level, a landmark for mariners as the north west extreme of Hervey Bay and the bluff termination of hills, well covered with wood and grass, sloping down around Round Hill, which is 289 metres (948ft) high 12 kilometres (7.5mi) due south. The headland has naturally grassy areas running from the ocean on the east to the sheltered creek on the west and this swathe has been referred to as "Mrs Cook's Drive" since the turn of the century.[1]
Round Hill Creek on the western side of the headland has a very narrow channel, which has maintained its depth at soundings taken since 1770, but is encumbered with shifting sandbanks. The sandy beach is fringed by mangroves and backed by cotton woods, paperbark and palms in the wetter gullies, with ironbark on the drier slopes.[1]
From Monument Point extensive views may be obtained of the picturesque inlet with boats at anchor, wisps of smoke from the cottages screened in the bush, distant blue mountains and across the sand spits to the west the dense lowland vegetation of Eurimbula National Park with the jagged Munro Range towering in the distance. At night the Bustard Head lighthouse flashes its warning presence across Bustard Bay.[1]
When viewed extensively, European occupation of the land has not altered the landscape irretrievably. Very few of the recent houses intrude into the landscape, mature trees have been retained, and the bush has regenerated on the lower slopes.[1]
Very few clumps of mangroves remain in the lower reaches of Round Hill Creek along the western margin but the caravan park developed in 1978 has a cover of mature native trees while the unreserved Crown land along the foreshore adjacent to Captain Cook Drive has an impressive covering of mature tall Cabbage palms, probably predating Cook's landing.[1]
The spring which fed a streamlet rising on the slope above Captain Cook Drive and running out on the beach only stopped flowing in 1992. It had yielded a bucket of water every 25 seconds at peak flow in 1989. This was probably the stream mentioned by Cook. The nearby area of houses and the 95 site caravan park is now sewered to prevent ground water contamination.[1]
The road reserve retains its vegetation and the picnic area opposite the shop is shaded and attractive. Murgard's marina and the public boat ramp in the "lagoon" of the upper reaches of the creek are not intrusive but the approach to the township is messy, despite driving through tall forest along the base of the ridge immediately before entering Seventeen Seventy. The upper reaches of Round Hill Creek are meandering, shallow, mangrove fringed, and backed by tall paperbark forest.[1]
Captain James Cook was a British explorer, cartographer and naval officer famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to New Zealand and Australia in particular. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.
The Kamay Botany Bay National Park is a heritage-listed protected national park that is located in the eastern part of Botany Bay in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The 456-hectare (1,130-acre) national park is situated approximately 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) south-east of the Sydney central business district, on the northern and southern headlands of Botany Bay. The northern headland is at La Perouse and the southern headland is at Kurnell.
Cape Palmerston is a national park in the Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia.
Endeavour River National Park is a national park in Queensland, Australia, gazetted to protect and preserve some of the natural and cultural resources in and around the mouth of the Endeavour River, immediately north of the small town of Cooktown. The park is located 1,561 kilometres (970 mi) northwest of Brisbane.
Eurimbula National Park is a protected area in the locality of Eurimbula, Queensland, Australia, in the Gladstone Region near Agnes Water, 411 km north of Brisbane.
Glass House Mountains National Park is a heritage-listed national park at Glass House Mountains, Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Beerburrum Forest Reserve 1. It is 70 km (43 mi) north of Brisbane and consists of a flat plain punctuated by rhyolite and trachyte volcanic plugs, the cores of extinct volcanoes that formed 26 million to 27 million years ago. The mountains would once have had pyroclastic exteriors, but these have eroded away.
Seventeen Seventy, sometimes inaccurately written as 1770 or Town of 1770, is a coastal town and locality in the Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, the locality of Seventeen Seventy had a population of 125 people.
Agnes Water is a coastal town and a locality in the Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, Agnes Water had a population of 2,729 people.
Kurnell is a suburb in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 21.4 kilometres (13.3 mi) south of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Sutherland Shire along the east coast. Cronulla and Woolooware are the only adjacent suburbs. La Perouse is located opposite, on the northern headland of Botany Bay. The Cronulla sand dunes are on the south eastern headland of Botany Bay. The eastern side of the peninsula is part of Botany Bay National Park, and Towra Point Nature Reserve is located on the western side of the suburb.
Shoalwater Bay is a large bay on the Capricorn Coast of Central Queensland, Australia 100 km north of the coastal town of Yeppoon and 628 km north-north-west of the state capital, Brisbane. Since 1966, the land surrounding Shoalwater Bay has been under the ownership of the Australian Defence Force, for the purpose of military training exercises. Shoalwater Bay is also a noted dugong habitat and is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The bay is bounded by the Torilla Peninsula to the west and the Warginburra Peninsula and Leicester and Townshend islands to the east.
Broad Sound is a large bay on the east coast of Australia, in the state of Queensland, 675 kilometers northwest of the state capital, Brisbane. It is about 50 kilometers long and 20 kilometers across at its widest point. The Torilla Peninsula forms the eastern side of the bay; Shoalwater Bay is on the other side of the peninsula. The sound has a large tidal range of about 10 metres (33 ft). This is the largest variance on the eastern Australia coastline.
The Gweagal are a clan of the Dharawal people of Aboriginal Australians. Their descendants are traditional custodians of the southern areas of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun, and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land".
Cooktown is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. Cooktown is at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs in 1770. Both the town and Mount Cook which rises up behind the town were named after James Cook.
Bustard Head Light is an active lighthouse located on the southeast tip of Bustard Head, a headland, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) northwest of Seventeen Seventy, in the Australian state of Queensland, within the Eurimbula National Park and locality of Eurimbula. Built in 1868, it is the second-oldest lightstation in the state, following Cape Moreton Light, and the first to be built in Queensland after its formation in 1859. It is also one of the first in Australia to be constructed using bolted prefabricated segments of cast iron, and one of only two such lighthouses in Queensland, the other being its sibling, Sandy Cape Light. It serves as the central relay for Dent Island Light, Pine Islet Light and Lady Elliot Island Light and as the radio check post for Cape Capricorn Light, Sandy Cape Light and Double Island Point Light.
Eurimbula is a coastal rural locality in the Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Eurimbula had a population of 4 people.
Friend Park is a heritage-listed park at Friend Street, Barney Point, Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1854 to 1856. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 3 December 2003.
Cooks Monument and Reserve is a heritage-listed memorial at Charlotte Street, Cooktown, Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. It was designed in the office of the Queensland Colonial Architect and built by Hobbs and Carter in 1887. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 30 April 1997.
Gallop Botanic Reserve, incorporating Cooktown Botanic Gardens, is a heritage-listed botanic garden at Finch Bay Road, Cooktown, Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1878 to 1980s. It is also known as Cooktown Botanic Gardens & Recreation Reserve and Queens' Park Gardens & Recreation Reserve. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 October 1997.
Silver Beach is a 2.8 km (1.7 mi) long west-trending sand spit in Kurnell, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia that is located 18 km (11 mi) south of the Sydney CBD. Situated on the northwestern reaches of the Kurnell Peninsula and linked with the sandstone of Sutherland Point in the east, the beach is characterised by silver-coloured sands, hence the name, and fourteen rockwall groynes which project into Botany Bay. The eastern point of the beach is the site where Captain James Cook first set foot on Australian soil in 1770, which marked the beginning of Britain's interest in Australia and in the eventual colonisation of this new "southern continent".
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