 Hill Inlet, 2003 | |
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 | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Coral Sea |
| Archipelago | Whitsunday Islands |
| Total islands | 74 |
| Area | 275.08 km2 (106.21 sq mi) |
| Administration | |
Australia | |
| State | Queensland |
| Local government area | Whitsunday Regional Council |
Whitsunday Island is the largest island in the Whitsunday group of islands located off the coast of Central Queensland, Australia.
Whitsunday Island was inhabited by the sea-faring Ngaro people for around 8,000 years prior to British colonisation. Captain Cook named the island while sailing through the area in June 1770. [1]
The first of the logging camps on the island was set up by Eugene Fitzalan in 1861 to exploit the large hoop pine for construction of buildings at the new colonial outpost of Bowen on the mainland. Local Ngaro people laid siege to this camp, preventing work there for two weeks. [2] A Native Police detachment was soon afterwards stationed on the island to protect the loggers. [3]
By the mid-1860s leisure trips to Whitsunday Island from the port of Bowen were being organised by colonists. [4]
In 1878, Captain McIvor of the vessel Louisa Maria was careening his boat on a beach on the western side of the island with some Ngaro people being employed to clean the hull. After these people had heard that some Aboriginal men at Bowen had been killed, they became agitated. They threw the captain into the sea, pelted him with various objects and then speared him in the face. The Ngaro then killed the only other crew-member on board and set fire to the ship, destroying it. Captain McIvor survived and he and the remaining crew were picked up by a nearby vessel and taken to the mainland. [5]
Sub-Inspector George Nowlan of the Native Police, with his Aboriginal troopers and Captain McIvor, subsequently travelled to Whitsunday Island in order "to punish the blacks." [6] Nowlan's party spent a week pursuing the Ngaro across the island, where they "had punishment dealt out to them" and concluded with the expedition "permanently dispersing" the Ngaro. [7] The "policy of dispersal" was associated with the "indiscriminate slaughter of unoffending Aborigines." [8] The Ngaro who survived, fled in canoes to the mainland near Mackay and were further pursued by Inspector Morisset and Sgt Graham and their troopers. [9] A few months later, Captain McIvor was hacked to death by his Chinese cook. [10]
The island is accessible by boat from the mainland tourist ports of Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour. It contains many popular destinations for both day visitors and overnight sailors, including the magnificent pure-white sands of Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet, the secure anchorage of Cid Harbour, and the sheltered waterway of Gulnare Inlet. The island also has six campgrounds. [11]
The island covers 27,508 ha (275.08 km2) in area. [12] Around the northern bays of the island are seagrass beds which support a diverse range of marine life. [13] Unadorned rock-wallabies are found on the island. [13]
The seas here are warm, clear, shallow, nutrient rich and fast moving due to large tidal flows making them well-suited to the growth of fringing coral reefs. [14] Whitehaven Beach on the east coast of the island was rated internationally as the top Eco Friendly Beach in 2010. [15]
The island should not be confused with Pinaki in the Tuamotu group which was named "Whitsunday Island" by Samuel Wallis in 1767.
Queensland is a state in north-eastern Australia, the second-largest and third-most populous of the Australian states. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean; to its north is the Torres Strait, separating the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north-west. With an area of 1,730,648 square kilometres (668,207 sq mi), Queensland is the world's sixth-largest sub-national entity; it is larger than all but 15 countries. Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, including tropical rainforests, rivers, coral reefs, mountain ranges and sandy beaches in its tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions, as well as deserts and savanna in the semi-arid and desert climatic regions of its interior.
Whitsunday Islands is a national park in Queensland, Australia, 920 kilometres (570 mi) northwest of Brisbane. It contains Whitsunday Island and 31 others.
Bowen is a coastal town and locality in the Whitsunday Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, the locality of Bowen had a population of 10,377 people.
Hinchinbrook Island is an island in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It lies east of Cardwell and north of Lucinda, separated from the north-eastern coast of Queensland by the narrow Hinchinbrook Channel. Hinchinbrook Island is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and wholly protected within the Hinchinbrook Island National Park, except for a small and abandoned resort. It is the largest island on the Great Barrier Reef. It is also the largest island national park in Australia.
Mission Beach is a coastal town and locality in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, the locality of Mission Beach had a population of 815 people.
The Whitsunday Islands are 74 continental islands of various sizes off the central coast of Queensland, Australia, 900 kilometres north of Brisbane. The northernmost of the islands are off the coast by the town of Bowen, while the southernmost islands are off the coast by Proserpine. The island group is centred on Whitsunday Island, while the commercial centre is Hamilton Island. The traditional owners of the area are the Ngaro people and the Gia people, whose Juru people has the only legally recognised native title in the Whitsunday Region.
Hook Island is one of the Whitsunday Islands off the coast of the Australian state of Queensland. The island is almost uninhabited, quite rugged and almost completely contained within a section of the Whitsunday Islands National Park. The island has two prominent geographical features on the southern side of Hook Island; the Nara and Macona inlets, two fjord-like recesses that are used as anchorages for the Whitsunday tourist fleet. The island's northern coast is noted for its colourful underwater coral growths, to which snorkelling and diving enthusiasts are attracted.
Lindeman Island is an island in the Lindeman Group of the Whitsunday Islands off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The island was named by Captain Bedwell after his sub-lieutenant, George Sidney Lindeman whilst aboard the Royal Navy vessel HMS Virago.
Australian native police were specialised mounted military units consisting of detachments of Aboriginal troopers under the command of White officers appointed by colonial governments. These units existed in various forms in colonial Australia during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentieth centuries. From temporary base camps and barracks, Native Police were primarily used to patrol the often vast geographical areas along the colonial frontier in order to conduct indiscriminate raids and punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people. The Native Police proved to be a brutally destructive instrument in the disintegration and dispossession of Indigenous Australians. Armed with rifles, carbines and swords, they were also deployed to escort surveying groups, gold convoys and groups of pastoralists and prospectors.
Hayman Island is the most northerly of the Whitsunday Islands, off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The island is 294 hectares. It is a private island open to the public, most famous for its luxury resort which was built in the 1950s by Ansett Transport Industries. The island is a significant for tourism in Queensland. The resort is managed by the InterContinental Hotels Group.
Bulwer is a coastal town and locality at the north-western end of Moreton Island in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census the locality of Bulwer had a population of 49 people.
Whitehaven Beach is on Whitsunday Island, Queensland, Australia. The island is accessible by boat, seaplane & helicopter from Airlie Beach, as well as Hamilton Island. It lies across from Stockyard Beach, better known as Chalkie's Beach, on Haslewood Island. The seven kilometres beach is known for its crystal white silica sands and turquoise coloured waters. The beach has tour barbeque and camping facilities.
The Ngaro are an Australian Aboriginal group of people who traditionally inhabited the Whitsunday Islands and coastal regions of Queensland, employing a seafaring lifestyle in an area that archaeologically shows evidence of human habitation since 9000 BP. Ngaro society was destroyed by warfare with traders, colonists, and the Australian Native Police. The Native Police Corps forcibly relocated the remaining Ngaro people in 1870 to a penal colony on Palm Island or to the lumber mills of Brampton Island as forced labourers.
Henry Daniel Sinclair was an explorer and co-founder of Bowen, Queensland, Australia. Captain Sinclair led an expedition which resulted in the naming of Port Denison in 1859 in the cutter Santa Barbara.
The Gia people, also known as Giya, Kia, Bumbarra, and variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland. Little is known of them.
The Wiri are an Aboriginal Australian people of an area on the eastern side of the state of Queensland. They speak a dialect of the Biri language called Wiri.
Walter David Taylor Powell was an English mariner and paramilitary Native Police officer in the British colonies of New South Wales and Queensland. He played a significant part in the practical implementation of British colonial rule in the coastal areas of Queensland. His role as an officer in the Native Police was central in a number of important moments in colonial Queensland history including that of the brutal crushing of localised Aboriginal resistance after the Hornet Bank massacre, the foundation of Rockhampton and the creation of the Bowen settlement. He also had major contributions in the founding of Cardwell, the coastal and South Seas trade, and the British colonisation of the Torres Strait.
St Helens Beach is a coastal town and locality in the Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census the locality of St Helens Beach had a population of 197 people.
John By Durnford Marlow was an officer in the paramilitary Native Police force in the British colony of Queensland. He served in this corps for fourteen years and was stationed at frontier sites such as the Maranoa Region, Port Denison and on the Burdekin River. Marlow, by leading armed escorts of troopers, was also intrinsically involved in the expeditions which led to the establishment of the towns of Cardwell and Townsville.
Dingo Beach is a coastal rural locality in the Whitsunday Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Dingo Beach had a population of 169 people.
Media related to Whitsunday Island at Wikimedia Commons
