Australia For Everyone
Australia's Coastline: Furneaux Islands
The Furneaux Group contains more than fifty islands, situated in eastern Bass Strait. Isolation, a turbulent history, and a free-spirited independence add a unique flavour to the group's largely unspoiled natural beauty. In 2005, the Group had a population of 897 mostly living on the three largest islands of Flinders, Cape Barren, and Clarke. Major industries are fishing, livestock, and tourism. Access is by air and sea. Flinders Island has two main towns: Whitemark, the administrative centre, and Lady Barron, its fishing centre and main port.
The Furneaux Group has a Mediterranean climate but is subject to the Roaring Forties. The mountainous granite backbone supports extensive lowlands and a wide variety of wildlife with over 150 bird species, including muttonbird and Cape Barren goose.
Approximately a third of the islands are dominated by ridges of granite, including the striking features of the southern part of the Strzelecki Range, Darling Range, Mt Killiecrankie, the Patriarchs (Flinders Island) and the higher parts of Cape Barren Island. Half of the islands in the group are coastal sand dunes. Estuarine beds composed of sands, clays and gravels can be found in the many low lying areas with many lagoons existing on the eastern coast of Flinders Island and Cape Barren Island, being filled by the seasonal winter rains. With such variety of land formation and variable environmental conditions there are over 800 species of plant to be found across the Furneaux Group of Islands. The islands also have a scientific significance being that they form a species boundary, ie being the southern-most location for some species and the northern-most location for others.
The Furneaux Group is one of four groups of islands in this area of Bass Strait, the others being Curtis, Hogan and Kent Groups. The Furneaux Group contains the only islands with permanent residents, these are Flinders Island, Cape Barren Island and Clarke Island. Flinders Island has the largest population.
The treacherous waters of Bass Strait, the narrow channel between Tasmania and mainland Australia, are challenging to divers, but equally rewarding. The Furneaux Group, of which King Island is the biggest, have many superb diving sites with wreck and marine life aplenty. Dive centres and diving charters operate from Lady Barron on Flinders Island. The Kent Group's islands have sheer cliffs that continue into the depths of Bass Strait. Here there are small caves with crayfish, most of which are unexplored. The wrecks of the Bulli of Erith Island and the Karitane (parts of the wreck underwater and on the beach) in Squally Cove on Deal Island are excellent dive sites.
When Abel Tasman became the first European to set eyes on Tasmania in 1642, Aborigines had lived in harmony with the island for 35,000 years. Tasman named it Van Demens Land to honour the East Indies Governor-General who had sent him to discover gold and silver. This signalled the end of the Aborigines' tenure. Nearly all the early explorers had some contact with the Aborigines but their visits were brief until the arrival of the French expedition of Bruny d'Entrecasteaux (1792) and Nicolas Baudin (1802) who made a proper scientific study of the people and their customs. But it is thought the Furneaux group was uninhabited when first sighted by Captain Tobias Furneaux in 1773. This soon changed when British and American seal hunters began visiting the Bass Strait islands as well as the north and east coasts of Tasmania from the late 1790s.
By about 1800, sealers were regularly left on the uninhabited islands in Bass Strait during the sealing season (November to May). The sealers established semi-permanent camps, which were close enough for the sealers to reach the main island of Tasmania in small boats and so make contact with the Tasmanian Aborigines. Trading relationships developed, and a trade in Aboriginal women soon began. Many Tasmanian Aboriginal women were highly skilled in hunting seals, as well as in obtaining other foods such as seabirds. Some women went willingly but some were taken involuntarily. After 1803, the population of Aborigines on the main island of Tasmania declined rapidly, primarily through killings by settlers as well as introduced infectious diseases. those Aborigines who had remained isolated in remote areas like the islands were collected and relocated to the Furneaux Group between 1828 and 1834.
Tasmania's largest and Australia's 6th largest island, Flinders Island is located some 20 km from the north-eastern tip of Tasmania, in the Furneaux Group. Flinders is a long, narrow island, 75km long and 40km wide, with the Darling Ranges running along the middle of the island. The islands of the Furneaux group are dominated by ridges of granite, including the striking features of the southern part of the Strzelecki Range Darling Range, Mt Killiecrankie, the Patriarchs (Flinders Island) and the higher parts of Cape Barren Island. The three main population centres on Flinders Island are Whitemark, Lady Barron and Killiecrankie. Whitemark is the main residential and business centre. How to get there: A trading vessel Matthew Flinders sails weekly between Bridport, on the north-east coast of mainland Tasmania. Airlines of Tasmania flies daily between Launceston and Whitemark and three times a week between Moorabbin and Whitemark. Flinders Island welcomes visitors, and a number of accommodation options are available.
Clarke Island (also known by its indigenous name of Lungtalanana Island) has an area of 82 km2 and is located (24 km) off the northeast coast of Tasmania, south of Cape Barren Island. Off its west coast lies the shipwreck of HMS Litherland, which sank in 1853 and was discovered in 1983. Clarke Island is Tasmania s eighth largest island. The island was named Clarke Island after William Clark, a survivor of the wreck of the Sydney Cove on 28th February 1797 on nearby Preservation Island.
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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.
Vansittart Island, also known as Gun Carriage Island, is a granite island, with an area of 800 ha. It is part of Tasmania s Vansittart Island Group, lying in eastern Bass Strait between Flinders and Cape Barren Islands in the Furneaux Group. It is partly private property and partly leasehold land and is currently used for grazing wiltshire horn sheep. The island is part of the Franklin Sound Islands Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because it holds over 1 percent of the world populations of six bird species.
Found in the Bass Strait off the north-eastern tip of Tasmania, Mount Chappell Island (also known as Chappell Island) and Badger Island form part of the Furneaux Group of islands. It is a mainly dolerite island, with a distinctive central hill and with an area of 323 ha. It is part of Tasmania s Badger Island Group, lying in eastern Bass Strait just west of Flinders and Cape Barren Islands in the Furneaux Group. It is private property, used for grazing sheep and Cape Barren Geese, and is a classic example of natural habitat degradation caused by human activities.
Preservation Island is one of the islands of the Furneaux Group, off the north-east tip of Tasmania. There is an old homestead in Horseshoe Bay on the island s north east, with a derelict jetty. On 28th February 1797, the Sydney Cove, en route from Calcutta to Port Jackson sailed into Banks Strait in strong winds and ran aground between Preservation Island and Rum Island. A party of 17 men set off on 28th February 1797 in the ship s longboat to reach help at Port Jackson, 400 nautical miles (740 km) away. This was led by first mate Hugh Thompson, and included William Clark the supercargo, three European seaman and 12 lascars. Ill fortune struck again and they were wrecked on the mainland at the northern end of Ninety Mile Beach. Their only hope was to walk along the shore all the way to Sydney, a distance of over 600 kilometres.
Found in the Bass Strait off the north-eastern tip of Tasmania, Badger Island and Mount Chappell Island form part of the Furneaux Group of islands. Badger Island (1,244 hectares) was once well-wooded. Only small areas of the original species now remain, including stands of She-oak, Coastal Teatree, and Swamp Paperbark.
