The Clarke Island (also known by its Indigenous name of ''Lungtalanana Island''), part of the

Furneaux Group 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 ...

, is an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in Bass Strait, south of

Cape Barren Island Cape Barren Island, officially truwana / Cape Barren Island, is a island in the Bass Strait, off the north east coast of Tasmania, Australia. It is the second largest island of the Furneaux Group; Flinders Island lies to the north, with th ...

, about off the northeast coast of

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

, Australia. Banks Strait separates the island from

Cape Portland Cape Portland, officially Luemerrernanner / Cape Portland, is both a geographical feature and a locality near the north-eastern tip of Tasmania, Australia. The cape points west across Ringarooma Bay, where the Ringarooma River empties into the ...

on the mainland. 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.

History

Clarke Island/Lungtalanana was uninhabited prior to European settlement. '' Sydney Cove'' ran aground between

Preservation Island Preservation Island is a low and undulating granite and calcarenite island, with an area of 207 ha, in south-eastern Australia. It is part of Tasmania’s Preservation Island Group, lying in eastern Bass Strait south-west of Cape Barren Isla ...

and Rum Island on 28 February 1797.Nash, M.
Maritime Archaeology Monograph and Reports Series No.2 - Investigation of a Survivors Camp from the Sydney Cove Shipwreck
." Master of Maritime Archaeology Thesis. Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, South Australia. 2004. Accessed 30 December 2009. A party of seventeen men set off on 28 February 1787 in the ship's longboat to reach help at

Port Jackson Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman Sea ...

, away. This was led by first mate Hugh Thompson, and included William Clark the

supercargo A supercargo (from Spanish ''sobrecargo'') is a person employed on board a vessel by the owner of cargo carried on the ship. The duties of a supercargo are defined by admiralty law and include managing the cargo owner's trade, selling the merchand ...

, three European seamen and twelve

lascar A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland, or other land east of the Cape of Good Hope, who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the middle of the ...

s. 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 . They had few provisions and no ammunition, and fatigue and hunger lessened their number as they marched. Along the way they encountered various

Aboriginal Tasmanians The Aboriginal Tasmanians ( Palawa kani: ''Palawa'' or ''Pakana'') are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, an ...

, some friendly and some not. The last of the party to die on the march was killed by a man Dilba and his people near Hat Hill. Those people had a reputation around Port Jackson for being ferocious. Matthew Flinders and

George Bass George Bass (; 30 January 1771 – after 5 February 1803) was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia. Early years Bass was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George ...

had feared for their safety when they encountered Dilba the previous year. In May 1797 the three survivors of the march, William Clark, sailor John Bennet and one lascar had made it to the cove at Wattamolla and, on 15 May 1797, with their strength nearly at an end they were able to signal a boat out fishing, which took them on to Sydney. On the march Clark had noted

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

in the cliffs at what is now called

Coalcliff Coalcliff is a town on the coast of New South Wales, Australia, between Sydney and Wollongong. History In 1796 William Clark and others trekking north to Port Jackson from the wrecked ship '' Sydney Cove'' noticed coal exposed at the cliffs ...

between Sydney and

Wollongong Wollongong ( ), colloquially referred to as The Gong, is a city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. The name is believed to originate from the Dharawal language, meaning either 'five islands/clouds', 'ground near wa ...

. This was the first coal found in Australia. On arrival at

, the men informed Governor Hunter of the Sydney Cove and its remaining crew. Hunter despatched the '' Francis'' and the ''

Eliza ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program created from 1964 to 1966 at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between humans and machines, ...

'' to salvage the ship and take the remaining crew and cargo to Port Jackson. On the first salvage trip, the crew of the ''Francis'' discovered

wombats Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . All three of the extant species are members of the family Vombatidae. They are adap ...

on the island and a live animal was taken back to Port Jackson. Matthew Flinders travelling on board the ''Francis'' on its third and final salvage trip also decided to take a wombat specimen from the island to Port Jackson. Governor Hunter later sent the animal's corpse to Joseph Banks at the

Literary and Philosophical Society The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne (or the ''Lit & Phil'' as it is popularly known) is a historical library in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and the largest independent library outside London. The library is still avai ...

to verify it as a new species. The island was named Clarke island after William Clark. Sealing is believed to taken place on the island early in the 19th century.

Recent developments

The root fungus pathogen, ''Phytophthora cinnamomi'', known to be able to kill Australian native plants was found in the island in an isolated case, in 2002. Introduced animals still inhabiting the island include rabbits, cats and rats. On 10 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. , Clarke Island had one permanent resident. Current infrastructure is limited and ageing.

Topography

A prominent feature of Clarke Island is a central plateau that rises . This inland highland provides a limited water catchment from which water flows directly to the sea.Blake, F.
Preliminary Report on the Furneaux Group of Islands
" Mineral Resources Tasmania, Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources, State Government of Tasmania. 17 October 1935. Accessed 30 December 2009. The highest elevation point is , located on a northwestern point of the island.Blake, F.
The Furneaux Group of islands
" Mineral Resources Tasmania, Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources, State Government of Tasmania. 22 August 1947. Accessed 30 December 2009. To the East of the Island are a collection of white beaches in the Rutherford Cove area.

References

{{Islands of Tasmania Furneaux Group Islands of Bass Strait Islands of North East Tasmania Seal hunting Private islands of Tasmania

History

Recent developments

Topography

See also

References