Australia For Everyone

Cape Barren Island (indigenous name: Truwana) is located off the north east coast of Tasmania, Australia, and is one of the islands of the Furneaux Group in Bass Strait off the north east tip of Tasmania. The south-eastern point of the island was named Cape Barren by Tobias Furneaux in HMS Adventure in March 1773. The name was later adopted for the whole of the island.

The island has an area of 478.4 km2 (184.7 sq mi). The population of the island numbered 268 in 2006, most of them in the settlement Cape Barren Island, also called The Corner, on the northwest coast. The population consists mainly of descendants from a community of mixed descent (European and Aboriginal people) who had originally settled on several smaller nearby islands but relocated to Cape Barren Island in the late 1870s.

The Colonial Government of Tasmania established a formal reserve in 1881 and commenced providing basic social services to the community. By 1908 the population had grown to 250 people. On 10th May 2005, the government released Crown lands on both Cape Barren and Clarke Island to be overseen by the local Aboriginal association. This marked the first official handover of Crown land to an Aboriginal community in Tasmania.

The largest island of the Furneaux Group, Flinders Island, lies to the north, with the smaller Clarke Island to the south. Australia s only native goose, the Cape Barren Goose, was first sighted on this island. The highest point on the island is Mount Munro at 715 metres. Mount Munro is probably named after James Munro (ca. 1779-1845), a former convict and then sealer, who lived from the 1820s for more than 20 years with several women on nearby Preservation Island

The island can be reached by air from either Melbourne, Victoria or Launceston, Tasmania to Flinders Island. From Flinders Island, Cape Barren island is only a short boat or plane trip away. Cape Barren, with the other islands in the Furneaux Group, is a popular destination for sea kayakers who attempt the crossing of Bass Strait from the Australian mainland at Wilsons Promontory, Victoria to the Tasmanian mainland.