The island forms part of the official land divide between the Great Australian Bight and Bass Strait, off the north-western tip of Tasmania and about halfway to the mainland state of Victoria. The southernmost point is Stokes Point and the northernmost point is Cape Wickham. There are three small islands immediately offshore: New Year Island and Christmas Island situated to the northwest and the smaller Councillor Island to the east, opposite Sea Elephant Beach.[4]
King Island was first visited by Europeans in the late 18th century. It was named after Philip Gidley King, Colonial Governor of New South Wales, whose territory at the time included what is now Tasmania. Sealers established temporary settlements on the island in the early 19th century, but it was not until the 1880s that permanent settlements were established. The largest of these is Currie, situated on the island's west coast. Today, the island's economy is largely based on agriculture and tourism. It is also home to the Huxley Hill Wind Farm.
History
King Island was originally part of a land bridge linking Tasmania with the Australian mainland, which was submerged around 12,000 years ago due to rising sea levels. A human skeleton was discovered in a cave on the island in 1989, which was dated to approximately 14,000 years ago.[5] However, previous examinations had revealed no "shell heaps, bones, charcoal or other remains which might indicate Aboriginal occupation", suggesting that the area was traversed by the ancestors of Aboriginal Tasmanians but not permanently inhabited. It was uninhabited at the time of European discovery.[citation needed]
Captain Reed is the first known European to discover King Island in 1799 while hunting seals in the schooner Martha. Matthew Flinders’ first map of "Van Diemen's Land" and "Basses Strait",[6] which was sent to England (before Flinders had left) and was published in June 1800, did not show King Island. However, before Flinders left Sydney for England in 1800, Captain Black had informed Flinders of the existence of the island. Flinders' second map of Van Diemen's Land and Bass's Strait (properly finished en route to England) and published with his Observations[7] in 1801 shows:[8]
"Land of considerable extent has been seen about this situation".
Although the impressive 48-metre (157ft) granite tower, Australia's tallest lighthouse,[9] was finished and the light first lit on 1 November 1861, the Cape Wickham Lighthouse was only officially opened in November 2011 at a community celebration of the light's 150th anniversary.[10][11]
Captain John Black also visited the island just after Reed and named it King's Island after Governor Philip Gidley King. Captain John Black was sailing in the brig Harbinger, after which the dangerous Harbinger Rocks off the island's north-west coast are named. It was found to abound in both fur seals and Southern elephant seals, which were soon exploited to local extinction.
Governor King, knowing that the French navigator Nicolas Baudin was going to head for the island, when he left Port Jackson in 1800, sent the Cumberland from Sydney to claim the islands formally for Britain. The Cumberland arrived just before the French, and the British had hastily erected the British flag in a tree.[12][original research?] Baudin still circumnavigated and extensively mapped the island in 1802, giving French names to some localities that are still in use today like "Phoques Bay" on the north-west coast.
Sealers continued to harvest the island intermittently until the mid-1820s, after which the only inhabitants were some old sealers and their Australian Aboriginal wives who mostly hunted wallaby for skins. The last of these left the island in 1854, and for many years it was only occasionally visited by hunters and more often castaways from shipwrecks.
The first submarine communications cable across Bass Strait in 1859 went via King Island, starting at Cape Otway, Victoria. It made contact with the Tasmanian mainland at Stanley Head, and then continued on to George Town. However, it started failing within a few weeks of completion, and by 1861 it failed completely. A later telephone and telegraph cable across Bass Strait operated via King Island from 1936 until 1963.
In the 1880s the land was opened for grazing. A township developed at Currie, and the post office opened on 1 June 1892 (known as King's Island until 1903, King Island until 1917, thereafter Currie).[13] Currie, on the west coast, now has the only post office on the island, but in the past Grassy, in the southeast (1918–35, 1943–91), Naracoopa on the east coast (1920–62), Pearshape to the south (1946–59) and Egg Lagoon in the north (1925–67) replacing Yambacoona (1922–25) all had official post offices. The other localities of King Island are Bungaree, Loorana, Lymwood, Nugara, Pegarah, Reekara, Sea Elephant, Surprise Bay, Wickham and Yarra Creek.[13] All share the postcode 7256.
Shipwrecks
Wreck of the Cataraqui, Australia's deadliest maritime disaster with 400 victims. Three hundred and fourteen recovered bodies lie buried on King Island in five graves.
Situated in the centre of the western entrance to Bass Strait, King Island has been the location of more than 60 known shipwrecks, involving the loss of more than 2,000 lives. Many King Islanders are descendants of shipwreck survivors.[14]
Notable shipwrecks include:
1801, large unidentified three-masted full-rigged ship, probably a whaler. No survivors known.
1866, Netherby, full-rigged ship 944 tons, no lives lost.
1871, Loch Leven, iron clipper ship 1868 tons, one life lost.
1874, British Admiral, iron clipper ship, 79 lives lost.
1875, Blencathra, iron barque, 933 tons, no lives lost.
1910, Carnarvon Bay, steel full-rigged ship 1932 tons, no lives lost.
1920, Southern Cross, timber, three-masted brigantine, 257 tons, at least 9 lives lost.
The island today
Currie Harbour, 2007
Currie
Currie, the largest town and administrative centre, is situated on the west coast of the island.
Grassy
The township of Grassy, on the island's east coast, is approximately 32km south east of Currie. It was a thriving mining town where scheelite was extracted from an open-cut mine until 1974 when two underground mines were brought into production. After the mine closed in 1990, the mine site was rehabilitated, the town sold and the pit allowed to flood.
In recent years the Grassy population has increased again and consists of local families, sea-changers, a campus of Ballarat Clarendon College and holiday makers. There is a service station, a supermarket and several shops and restaurants. Grassy is also known for the little penguin rookery near the port (safe harbour) and platypus at the Upper Grassy Dam. There are ferries servicing the island with freight services between Victoria, northern Tasmania and Grassy Harbour.[15]
A new $12.3 million wave power demonstration project is planned. Sitting partially submerged on the seabed, the Uniwave 200 will use oscillating water column technology to push air into a chamber fitted with an electricity-generating turbine.[16]
Naracoopa
The village of Naracoopa is situated on the east coast about 20 kilometres (12mi) from Currie and is known for its beach, jetty (fishing), holiday accommodation and eateries. There is a sheltered BBQ area and public toilets on the foreshore.
Naracoopa was the chief bulk fuels port and depot and is the site of a mineral sands deposit from which rutile, zircon and ilmenite were extracted between 1968 and 1977. The attractions of Naracoopa are the 100-year-old Naracoopa Jetty, blow hole and calmer weather.[17]
Economy and culture
The island is noted for its production of cheese, lobsters, bottled rain water, kelp and beef. The island's beef industry was seriously affected by the closure of the island's only abattoir, owned by Argentinian company JS Swift, in September 2012. It is a safe harbour for passing yachts and the site of the Huxley Hill Wind Farm operated by Hydro Tasmania.
The island has a football competition. The King Island Football Association, with just three teams, Currie, Grassy and North, competes annually in the Stonehaven Cup boat races, the Imperial 20-foot race, Queen's Birthday Weekend Pheasant Season and many other activities.
The island was the proposed location for the development of Australia's largest windfarm. This wind farm split the community into those for and against but eventually proved uneconomic to construct. The proposal was shelved in late 2014.
The Dolphin mine, located on the southeast side of the island, is one of the largest tungsten reserves in Australia.[18]
The King Island emu was endemic to the island. Although numerous bones have been found, the only existing skin was collected by Nicolas Baudin in 1802, shortly before the species became extinct, probably as a result of hunting by sealers for food.[19]
Some 193km2 of the island, consisting of the coastline in a strip extending from the low water mark to one kilometre inland of the high-water mark around the entire island, with a broader area encompassing Lavinia State Reserve in the north-east, has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA). The main feature making it an IBA is that it supports the small population of critically endangeredorange-bellied parrots (Neophema chrysogaster) on the migration route between their breeding grounds in south-western Tasmania and their wintering grounds in mainland south-eastern Australia.[20] More recently the King Island Biodiversity Management Plan 2012–2022 identified Lake Flannigan as important in this regard.[21]
Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The island was previously discovered and named by the Dutch in 1642. Explorer Abel Tasman discovered the island, working under the sponsorship of Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. The British retained the name when they established a settlement in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. Its penal colonies became notorious destinations for the transportation of convicts due to the harsh environment, isolation and reputation for being inescapable.
The maritime European exploration of Australia consisted of several waves of European seafarers who sailed the edges of the Australian continent. Dutch navigators were the first Europeans known to have explored and mapped the Australian coastline. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. Dutch seafarers also visited the west and north coasts of the continent, as did French explorers.
The history of Victoria refers to the history of the Australian state of Victoria and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies.
Bass Strait is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland. The strait provides the most direct waterway between the Great Australian Bight and the Tasman Sea, and is also the only maritime route into the economically prominent Port Phillip Bay.
The Kent Group are a grouping of six granite islands located in Bass Strait, north-west of the Furneaux Group in Tasmania, Australia. Collectively, the group is comprised within the Kent Group National Park.
Flinders Island, the largest island in the Furneaux Group, is a 1,367-square-kilometre (528 sq mi) island in the Bass Strait, northeast of the island of Tasmania. Today Flinders Island is part of the state of Tasmania, Australia. It is 54 kilometres (34 mi) from Cape Portland and is located on 40° south, a zone known as the Roaring Forties.
The Furneaux Group is a group of approximately 100 islands located at the eastern end of Bass Strait, between Victoria and Tasmania, Australia. The islands were named after British navigator Tobias Furneaux, who sighted the eastern side of these islands after leaving Adventure Bay in 1773 on his way to New Zealand to rejoin Captain James Cook. Navigator Matthew Flinders was the first European to explore the Furneaux Islands group, in the Francis in 1798, and later that year in the Norfolk.
The Bass Strait Triangle is the waters that separate the states of Victoria and Tasmania, including Bass Strait, in south-eastern Australia. The term Bass Strait Triangle appears to have been first used following the disappearance of Frederick Valentich in 1978 although the region had a bad reputation long before that.
The Clarke Island, also known by its Indigenous name of lungtalanana, part of the Furneaux Group, is an 82-square-kilometre (32 sq mi) island in Bass Strait, south of Cape Barren Island, about 24 kilometres (15 mi) off the northeast coast of Tasmania, Australia. Banks Strait separates the island from Cape Portland on the mainland. Clarke Island is the third-largest island in the Furneaux Group, and Tasmania's eighth largest island.
The King Island emu is an extinct subspecies of emu that was endemic to King Island, in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. Its closest relative may be the also extinct Tasmanian emu, as they belonged to a single population until less than 14,000 years ago, when Tasmania and King Island were still connected. The small size of the King Island emu may be an example of insular dwarfism. The King Island emu was the smallest of all known emus and had darker plumage than the mainland emu. It was black and brown and had naked blue skin on the neck, and its chicks were striped like those on the mainland. The subspecies was distinct from the likewise small and extinct Kangaroo Island emu in a number of osteological details, including size. The behaviour of the King Island emu probably did not differ much from that of the mainland emu. The birds gathered in flocks to forage and during breeding time. They fed on berries, grass and seaweed. They ran swiftly and could defend themselves by kicking. The nest was shallow and consisted of dead leaves and moss. Seven to nine eggs were laid, which were incubated by both parents.
Waterhouse Island, part of the Waterhouse Island Group, is a 287-hectare (710-acre) granite island situated in Banks Strait, part of Bass Strait, lying close to the north-eastern coast of Tasmania, Australia.
Currie is a rural residential locality in the local government area (LGA) of King Island in the North-west and west LGA region of Tasmania. The 2021 census recorded a population of 659. It is the largest township on, and is the administrative centre of, King Island, at the western entrance to Bass Strait.
The Passage Island, part of the Passage Group within the Furneaux Group, is a 253-hectare (630-acre) granite and dolerite island, located in Bass Strait south of Cape Barren Island, in Tasmania, in south-eastern Australia.
The Forsyth Island, part of the Passage Group within the Furneaux Group, is a 167-hectare (410-acre) granite island, located in Bass Strait south of Cape Barren Island, in Tasmania, in south-eastern Australia. With the Passage and Gull islands, the Forsyth Island forms part of the Forsyth, Passage and Gull Islands Important Bird Area (IBA), identified as such by BirdLife International because it supports over 1% of the world populations of little penguins and black-faced cormorants.
The Backstairs Passage is a strait in South Australia lying between Fleurieu Peninsula on the Australian mainland and Dudley Peninsula on the eastern end of Kangaroo Island. The western edge of the passage is a line from Cape Jervis on Fleurieu Peninsula to Kangaroo Head on Kangaroo Island. The Pages, a group of islets, lie in the eastern entrance to the strait. About 14 km wide at its narrowest, it was formed by the rising sea around 13,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene era, when it submerged the land connecting what is now Kangaroo Island with the Fleurieu Peninsula. Backstairs Passage was named by Matthew Flinders whilst he and his crew on HMS Investigator were exploring and mapping the coastline of South Australia in 1802.
Vansittart Island, also known as Gun Carriage Island, is a granite island with an area of 800 hectares. The island is part of Tasmania's Vansittart Island Group, lying in eastern Bass Strait between Flinders and Cape Barren Islands in the Furneaux Group.
Netherby was a full-rigged sailing ship of the Black Ball Line that ran aground and sank off the coast of King Island—an island in Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland—on 14 July 1866 while sailing from London to Brisbane.
Wickham is a rural locality in the local government area of King Island on King Island in Bass Strait, north of Tasmania. It is located about 41 kilometres (25 mi) north of the town of Currie, the administrative centre for the island. The 2016 census determined a population of 9 for the state suburb of Wickham.
Woretemoeteryenner, also known as "Bung", "Pung", and "Margaret", was an Aboriginal Tasmanian woman who had children with George Briggs, an English convict. She worked as a sealer and kangaroo hunter. Woretemoeteryenner and her sisters are among the few Aboriginal Tasmanian people whose lives bridge the experience of Aboriginal people before and after European contact.
↑ Observations on the coast of Van Diemen's Land, on Bass's Strait and its Islands, and on Parts of the coast of New South Wales-By Matthew Flinders 1801
↑ common map dated 1798–99 and showing "land seen"
↑ "King Island Biodiversity Management Plan: 2012–20"(PDF). Australian Government | Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Tasmanian Government | Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
attribution contains material published under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia licence from https://arena.gov.au/blog/king-island-wave-power/ attribution: Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
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