Hinchinbrook Island (or Pouandai to the Biyaygiri people) is an island in the

Cassowary Coast Region The Cassowary Coast Region is a local government area in the Far North Queensland region of Queensland, Australia, south of Cairns and centred on the towns of Innisfail, Cardwell and Tully. It was created in 2008 from a merger of the Shire ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. It lies east of Cardwell and north of Lucinda, separated from the north-eastern coast of Queensland by the narrow

Hinchinbrook Channel The Hinchinbrook Channel is a channel between the Australian mainland and Hinchinbrook Island. It runs for 44 km between Oyster Point, just south of Cardwell, and Lucinda in Far North Queensland. The Aboriginal name for the channel is ...

. Hinchinbrook Island is part of the

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park protects a large part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef from damaging activities. It is a vast multiple-use Marine Park which supports a wide range of uses, including commercial marine tourism, fishing, ports an ...

and wholly protected within the

Hinchinbrook Island National Park Hinchinbrook Island National Park is Australia's largest island national park. It is situated along the Cassowary Coast Queensland, Australia. The nearest capital city is Brisbane approximately 1,240 kms to the south. Lucinda is 135 k ...

, except for a small and abandoned resort. It is the largest island on the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

. It is also the largest island

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

in Australia.Hema maps. (1997). ''Discover Australia's National Parks''. pp 178 – 179

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

Natural heritage

Hinchinbrook Island is made up of late Palaeozoic

igneous Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or ...

rocks. The main

pluton In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

in the east of the island, the Hinchinbrook Granite, is composed of various hypersolvus granites and intrudes

volcanics Volcanic rock (often shortened to volcanics in scientific contexts) is a rock formed from lava erupted from a volcano. In other words, it differs from other igneous rock by being of volcanic origin. Like all rock types, the concept of volcanic ...

granodiorite Granodiorite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase feldspar than orthoclase feldspar. The term banatite is sometimes used informally for various rocks ranging from gra ...

s, and

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

s. The island and coastal ranges are thought to have been thrust up as blocks with subsidence between them to form the coastal plain with the summit level of the island being an older dissected surface that has been uplifted to approximately or more

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. The

that separates the island from the mainland is considered to be fault controlled. Since the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago sea level has risen. Once there was a significant rugged coastal range, now there is Hinchinbrook Island. To the west is the

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

-fringed Hinchinbrook Channel with of robust mangrove estuaries.Ellison, J., 2000
Wetlands, Biodiversity and the Ramsar Convention
Chapt. 5; Ed. Hails, A.J. Case Study 1: Australia, Mangroves on Hinchinbook Island. Australian Institute of Marine Science. Townsville, QLD. Australia. The channel is the valley of the

Herbert River The Herbert River is a river located in Far North Queensland, Australia. The southernmost of Queensland's wet tropics river systems, it was named in 1864 by George Elphinstone Dalrymple explorer, after Robert George Wyndham Herbert, the fir ...

flooded following the last glacial period. The island is only separated from the mainland at times of high sea-level such as the present and is thought to have had dry land connections to the mainland for most of the past few million years. Further west is the Cardwell Range Escarpment rainforest. East of Hinchinbrook Island lies the

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down the Australian northeast coast. Most of it is protected by the Fre ...

, Great Barrier Reef Lagoon and

. To the north of Hinchinbrook Island,

Rockingham Bay Rockingham Bay is a bay in Far North Queensland, Australia. The bay opens onto the Coral Sea, part of the South Pacific Ocean. Adjacent to the bay is the Girramay National Park, south of which is the town of Cardwell. Goold Island is a smal ...

hosts densely vegetated continental islands, e.g., Garden Island, Goold Island, Brook Islands Group, Family Island Group,

Bedarra Island Bedarra Island (also known as Richards Island) is one of the Family Islands group within the locality of Dunk in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland. Australia. Geography Bedarra Island is approximately seven kilometres off the tropical Nort ...

and

Dunk Island Dunk Island, known as ''Coonanglebah'' in the Warrgamay and Dyirbal languages, is an island within the locality of Dunk in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It lies off the Australian east coast, opposite the town of Missi ...

east of Mission Beach. South of Hinchinbrook Island, the Cardwell Range gives way to the Herbert River floodplain and delta. Missionary Bay is at the northern end of Hinchinbrook Island National Park. Natural features of this biodiverse area include of dense

communities lining the shoreline. Many botanists believe the mangrove forests along the island's western coast are the most diverse in the country. 31 different species of mangrove has been identified. A shallow subhorizontal tidal zone has extensive offshore

sea grass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the orde ...

beds grazed by

dugong The dugong (; ''Dugong dugon'') is a marine mammal. It is one of four living species of the order Sirenia, which also includes three species of manatees. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest m ...

. The

beach stone-curlew The beach stone-curlew (''Esacus magnirostris'') also known as beach thick-knee is a large, ground-dwelling bird that occurs in Australasia, the islands of South-east Asia. At and , it is one of the world's largest shorebirds. At a mean of in ...

thrives on the island, unlike on mainland beaches because vehicles are banned. The eastern coastline of Hinchinbrook Island is punctuated with headland outcrops, incised drainage conduits, forest, secluded sandy pocket beaches and sand dunes. Mangroves are in proximity to freshwater streams. At Ramsay Bay on the northeast coast, a transgressive

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...

barrier or

tombolo A tombolo is a sandy or shingle isthmus. A tombolo, from the Italian ', meaning 'pillow' or 'cushion', and sometimes translated incorrectly as ''ayre'' (an ayre is a shingle beach of any kind), is a deposition landform by which an island becom ...

links Cape Sandwich, a granite outlier at the northeastern tip of the island, to the main part of the island. The barrier is widest in the north with a maximum width of about and narrows to the south to a width of about . The barrier, which consists mainly of aeolian sands, extends more than below the present sea level in places. It is thought to have been formed in two major episodes, the older dunes being partly drowned during an early

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

marine transgression A marine transgression is a geologic event during which sea level rises relative to the land and the shoreline moves toward higher ground, which results in flooding. Transgressions can be caused by the land sinking or by the ocean basins filling ...

(9500-6000

C-14 years BP Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotope ...

) with the later generation of dunes forming within the last 900 C-14 years BP. Hinchinbrook Island is described as a "wilderness area," wild and rugged with soaring mountainous peaks. Hinchinbrook Island's highest mountain is

Mount Bowen Mount Bowen is a peak in the Prince Albert Mountains, Victoria Land, Antarctica. It is high, standing north of the Davis Glacier and south-southwest of Mount Howard. The mountain is primarily composed of layers of sandstone, and the peak is ...

. Other notable mountain summits are The Thumb (), Mount Diamantina () and Mount Straloch (). Terrestrial vegetation types include thick

shrubs A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler ...

bushland In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure. Human survival in bushland has a whole mythology evolving ...

and

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

.The island habitat provides refuge for numerous

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

, both flora and fauna such as the giant tree frog. The local climate is tropical, warm to mildly cool and dry during the winter months. The summer monsoon wet is warm to hot and humid, coinciding with the tropical cyclone season. The island has no reefs in the waters surrounding it, most likely due to fresh water runoff from the island.

History

Hinchinbrook Island or Pouandai was originally inhabited by the indigenous Biyaygiri people. ''

Warrgamay The Warrgamay people, also spelt Warakamai, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland. Language Their language, Warrgamay, is now extinct. It was a variety of Dyirbalic, and appears to be composed of three distinct dialec ...

'' (also known as ''Waragamai'', ''Wargamay'', ''Wargamaygan'', ''Biyay'', and ''Warakamai'') is an Australian Aboriginal language in

North Queensland North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the Australian state of Queensland that lies just south of Far North Queensland. Queensland is a massive state, larger than many countries, and its tropical northern part has been ...

. The language region includes the

area, Ingham, Hawkins Creek, Long Pocket, Herbert Vale, Niagara Vale, Yamanic Creek, Herbert Gorge, Cardwell, Hinchinbrook Island and the adjacent mainland.

Shell midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and eco ...

s and

fish traps A fish trap is a trap used for fishing. Fish traps include fishing weirs, lobster traps, and some fishing nets such as fyke nets. Traps are culturally almost universal and seem to have been independently invented many times. There are two main ...

are evidence of their activities. Fish were an important source of food for Aboriginal people living in the area. The Bandjin fish trap rock formations exploited the cyclic tidal regime, not only capturing fish, but also holding their catch alive for days. At times, many fish would be caught in the traps. These fish would not be killed nor eaten, instead they were left for the birds. To this day fish are still captured by these traps feeding the local birds. In 1770, British Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

on sailed past at some distance to the east, naming Mount Hinchinbrook without realising that it was an island. Lieutenant

Phillip Parker King Rear Admiral Phillip Parker King, FRS, RN (13 December 1791 – 26 February 1856) was an early explorer of the Australian and Patagonian coasts. Early life and education King was born on Norfolk Island, to Philip Gidley King and Ann ...

on his surveying voyage in 1819 suspected it was separated from the mainland but could not confirm this. It was not until 1843, when Captain Blackwood on stayed two weeks in the area, that the British were able to verify that it was a distinct landmass, naming it Hinchinbrook Island. The name is from

Hinchingbrooke House Hinchingbrooke House is an English stately home in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, now part of Hinchingbrooke School. The house was built around an 11th-century Benedictine nunnery. After the Reformation it passed into the hands of the Cromwell f ...

, in

Huntingdon Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...

, England, as

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, PC, FRS (13 November 1718 – 30 April 1792) was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten. During his life ...

was First Lord of the Admiralty, and the naming of Hinchinbrook Island,

Brampton Island Brampton Island is an island in the Cumberland Group, off shore from Mackay in the Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia. The island lies within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, and the majority of the island forms the Brampton Isla ...

and Montague Island in the

South Sandwich Islands ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = , song = , image_map = South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in United Kingdom.svg , map_caption = Location of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the southern Atlantic Oce ...

are evidence of the early explorers' gratitude to the 4th Earl. Early interactions between British navigators and the Biyaygiri were mostly amicable. Lieutenant Jeffreys of landed there in 1815 as did Lieutenant P.P. King in 1819 and both reported friendly dealings with the indigenous population. In his 1843 voyage, Captain Blackwood of HMS ''Fly'' also had peaceful communications with the Biyaygiri initially, but conflict occurred on several occasions when the sailors were pelted with rocks, resulting in a number of islanders being shot. Following the establishment of the township of Cardwell in 1864 on the mainland across from Hinchinbrook, relations with the Biyaygiri soon deteriorated. Inspector John Murray of the

Native Police Australian native police units, consisting of Aboriginal troopers under the command (usually) of at least one white officer, existed in various forms in all Australian mainland colonies during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentie ...

led a group of settlers and troopers on a month long expedition through the island in 1867, bringing some Aboriginal people back to their camp and ship to question them for information about some possible shipwreck survivors. In 1872, after the murder and mutilation of two white fishermen at nearby Goold Island, a large expedition led by sub-Inspector Robert Arthur Johnstone scoured Hinchinbrook Island to locate the perpetrators, returning with three captured young Indigenous children. A visitor to Cardwell at the time reported that one of these children was violated by the police and that the settlers openly talked of "the slaughter of whole camps not only of men, but of women and children". Through violent incidents such as these, the population of Hichinbrook Island was rapidly reduced to a handful of survivors. Reverend Edward Fuller attempted to set up a mission on the island in 1874 but was forced to abandon it after being informed of the massacres and consequently not seeing any Aboriginal people in nine months living there. In the following decades Europeans settled on Hinchinbrook Island. Their main activities were fishing, farming and mining. In 1932, Hinchinbrook Island was declared a national park. In 1942, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, an American B-24 Liberator bomber of the

United States Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

crashed into Mount Straloch, a mountain on the island, killing all 12 crewmen on board. After World War II, commercial crocodile hunting in the area reduced numbers nearly to the point of extinction by the 1960s. The 2008 feature movie ''

Nim's Island ''Nim's Island'' is a 2008 adventure film written and directed by Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, and based on the children's story of the same name by Wendy Orr. A young girl alone on a remote island seeks help from an agoraphobic San Franc ...

'' was partly filmed on the island.

Tourism

The island had a single provider of accommodation called the Hinchinbrook Island Wilderness Lodge; however, it closed in 2010 as a result of financial difficulties caused by the

financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...

. Several months later it was struck by

Cyclone Yasi Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi () was a powerful and destructive tropical cyclone that made landfall in northern Queensland, Australia in early 2011, causing major damage to the affected areas. Originating as a tropical low near Fiji on 26 Janu ...

. The infrastructure has since been looted and left to decay. It is located on the northeastern corner of the island at Cape Richards.

Destinations and regulations

Hinchinbrook Island, Hinchinbrook Channel and the coastal plain south to the Herbert River Delta(Lucinda) is a unique biogeographical region. Along the east coast of the island is the long

Thorsborne Trail The Thorsborne Trail is a popular long-distance bushwalking trail in Queensland, Australia. It runs along the east coast of Hinchinbrook Island National Park and is long. The island is part of Wet Tropics of Queensland. It has been described as ...

, which is typically done over 3-4 days. The trail was named in honour of environmental activists Arthur and Margaret Thorsborne. Marine nature based activities include sightseeing cruises, sailing, outrigger canoeing, swimming, snorkelling and scuba diving. Sea kayaking is possible east of Hinchinbrook Island; west, the island is known saltwater crocodile habitat. Hinchinbrook Island

camping Camping is an outdoor activity involving overnight stays away from home, either without shelter or using basic shelter such as a tent, or a recreational vehicle. Typically, participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors in more nat ...

is by permit only. Visitor numbers to the island is restricted. The aim is to preserve the island's

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

and limit environmental degradation. Open fires are not permitted.

Access

The

Bruce Highway The Bruce Highway is a major highway in Queensland, Australia. Commencing in the state capital, Brisbane, it passes through areas close to the eastern coast on its way to Cairns in Far North Queensland. The route is part of the Australian Na ...

connects Townsville, Lucinda, Cardwell, and Cairns. Locally the Bruce Highway within Cardwell town limits is known as Victoria Street. Regular scheduled coach services operate from the transit zone in Brasenose Street, Cardwell and Townsville Road in Ingham. Hinchinbrook resorts and Helloworld in Ingham run bus shuttles to Townsville and return to Lucinda for people hiking the

. Queensland Rail has regular services operating, transiting from the Cardwell Rail Station in Roma Street.

Shipwreck

In 2011, the shipwreck of a

longboat A longboat is a type of ship's boat that was in use from ''circa'' 1500 or before. Though the Royal Navy replaced longboats with launches from 1780, examples can be found in merchant ships after that date. The longboat was usually the largest boa ...

was discovered on the shores of Ramsay Bay by a fisherman. It is thought that the wreck is about 130 years old and was uncovered by

References

External links

www.hinchinbrook.info
– A community site documenting development pressures on Hinchinbrook Island and Channel *

– Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing {{Far North Queensland Islands of Queensland Islands of Far North Queensland Great Barrier Reef Marine Park es:Parque Nacional Isla Hinchinbrook