Curtis Island, Queensland
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Curtis Island is an offshore
locality Locality may refer to: * Locality, a historical named location or place in Canada * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localitie ...
in the
Gladstone Region Gladstone Region is a Local government in Australia, local government area in Queensland, Australia. The council covers an area of , and has an estimated operating budget of Australian dollar, A$84 million. In the , the Gladstone Region had a ...
,
Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
, Australia. In the , Curtis Island had a population of 36 people. The towns of Beachton and Southend are within the locality.


Geography

Curtis Island occupies almost all of the island from which it takes its name, except for a very small area in the south of the island which is included in the locality of Gladstone Harbour. Most of the island is protected from development: most of the ocean-facing eastern side of the island is within either the
Curtis Island National Park Curtis Island National Park is on Curtis Island, Queensland, Australia, in the Gladstone Region, northwest of Brisbane and southeast of Rockhampton. The island features coastal heaths, littoral rainforest, sand dunes and beach ridges and sal ...
or the Curtis Island Conservation Park, while most of the mainland-facing western side of the island is within the Curtis Island State Forest. The town Beachton is on the northern-western coast of the island () Beachton has some housing along the beachfront but many of its blocks of land are undeveloped. On the south western coast there is an industrial area consisting of three
liquid natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...
facilities () with port facilities for export. On the south-eastern coast there is the small town of Southend () on a peninsula at the confluence of Gladstone Harbour and the
Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down t ...
. Most of the town lots in Southend are developed. The waterway between the mainland and Curtis Island is known as
The Narrows The Narrows is the tidal strait separating the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City. It connects the Upper New York Bay and Lower New York Bay (of larger New York Bay) and forms the principal channel by which the Hudson Ri ...
. It is a long narrow strait. It connects Gladstone Harbour to
Keppel Bay Keppel Bay is a bay in Central Queensland, Australia, at the mouth of the Fitzroy River on the coast of the Coral Sea. Extent Keppel Bay extends from Station Point on Curtis Island () in the Gladstone Region to Zilzie Point at Zilzie () ...
(the mouth of the Fitzroy River). However, it is very shallow and in some places it can be crossed at
low tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables c ...
. It is mainly used for recreational activities, including fishing. There are two lighthouses on the island: * Cape Capricorn Light on
Cape Capricorn Cape Capricorn is a coastal headland on Curtis Island, Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia. It was named by Captain Cook when he passed on 25 May 1770, since he found it to be located on the Tropic of Capricorn (which was located at 23°28 ...
() *
Sea Hill Light Sea Hill Light was a lighthouse which was located on the northwest point of Curtis Island, Queensland, Australia. Its purpose was to mark the east side of the entrance to Keppel Bay, on passage to Fitzroy River and Port Alma. The first light ...
at The Narrows through which
Keppel Bay Keppel Bay is a bay in Central Queensland, Australia, at the mouth of the Fitzroy River on the coast of the Coral Sea. Extent Keppel Bay extends from Station Point on Curtis Island () in the Gladstone Region to Zilzie Point at Zilzie () ...
connects to the Gladstone Harbour ()


Headlands

Curtis Island has the following headlands (from north to south): * Cape Keppel () * Station Point () * Warners Point () *Cape Capricorn () *Sea Hill Point () * Dinkys Point () * Black Head () * Laird Point () * Boatshed Point () * Hamilton Point ()


Mountains

Curtis Island has the following mountains (from north to south): * Bald Hill () * Grassy Hill () * One Mile Hill () * Sea Hill () * Coast Hill () * Mount Barker () * Mount Barney () * Sandhill () * Central Hill () * Black Head () * Ship Hill ()


History

Cape Capricorn was named by
Captain Cook Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He complet ...
when he passed on 25 May 1770, since he found it to be located on the
Tropic of Capricorn The Tropic of Capricorn (or the Southern Tropic) is the circle of latitude that contains the subsolar point at the December (or southern) solstice. It is thus the southernmost latitude where the Sun can be seen directly overhead. It also reach ...
(which was located at 23°28′15″ in 1770). The modern surveyed location of its endpoint is just slightly south of the present tropic. The locality takes its name from the island, which in turn was named after
Port Curtis Port Curtis is a suburb of Rockhampton in the Rockhampton Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , Port Curtis had a population of 309 people. Geography The Fitzroy River bounds the suburb to the north-east. Gavial Creek, a tributary of the ...
, which was named by
Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then ...
on 1 August 1802, after Vice Admiral Sir
Roger Curtis Admiral (Royal Navy), Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, 1st Baronet, Order of the Bath, GCB (4 June 1746 – 14 November 1816) was a Royal Navy officer who enjoyed an extensive career which was punctuated by a number of highly controversial incidents. ...
, a commanding British Admiral at Cape Town who had assisted Flinders with repairs to
HMS Investigator Nine ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS ''Investigator''. Another was planned, but renamed before being launched. The name ''Investigator'' passed on to the Royal Indian Navy and after India's Independence, to its successor the Indian ...
in October 1801. Port Curtis was the original name for the Gladstone area. The
Canoona gold rush During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of Ne ...
in 1858 attracted many people to the
Rockhampton Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. In the , the population of Rockhampton was 79,293. A common nickname for Rockhampton is "Rocky", and the demonym of Rockhampton is Rockhamptonite. The Scottish- ...
area. However, many ships encountered difficulties negotiating the many sand bars at the entrance to the Fitzroy River, so a pilot station was requested in 1862. The first pilot station is believed to have been established at Cape Capricorn but later was moved to Grassy Hill () in 1864. In 1865, Sea Hill () was chosen as the site for a quarantine station for ships entering the Fitzroy River, but no quarantine station was constructed there until July 1873 when the ship ''Countess Russell'' arrived with 15 cases of
typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known simply as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella enterica'' serotype Typhi bacteria, also called ''Salmonella'' Typhi. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often th ...
on board, resulting in a temporary hospital being established. Those who died were buried in the Keppel Bay Cemetery (to the north-west of the present lighthouse). Over 500 Chinese people were quarantined at Sea Hill due to a smallpox outbreak in 1877. In 1878, the problems with mosquitoes and sandflies resulted in the quarantine station being relocated to Mackenzie Island (). A lighthouse to guide ships into the Fitzroy river was requested in 1864, but it was not until the early-1870s that the first Sea Hill lighthouse was constructed. The first Cape Carpricorn Lighthouse was built in 1874. The Monte Cristo pastoral station was established in the 1860s by John Bonar Peter Hamilton Ramsay (nicknamed ‘Alphabetical’ Ramsay due to the number of his Christian names) and two partners. They raised cattle and bred horses. They took advantage of the shallowness of the Narrows to cross their animals to the mainland at low tide at a point that became known as Ramsay's Crossing. This practice continued until 2014 when the pastoral station was sold to be developed as a gas plant. A coastal steamer also travelled between Gladstone and Rockhampton via The Narrows but this could only be done at high tide. Author Rosa Campbell Praed lived on Curtis Island. On 29 October 1872 she married Arthur Campbell Praed, a nephew of the poet
Winthrop Mackworth Praed Winthrop Mackworth Praed (28 July 180215 July 1839)—typically written as W. Mackworth Praed—was an English people, English politician and poet. Life Early life Praed was born in London, United Kingdom. The family name of Praed was derive ...
. She described living with him on his property on Curtis Island, "an existence of terrifying hardship and loneliness". Spender says that "The years which she spent on Curtis Island and which played such a crucial part in determining her values – and her voice – could hardly be described as middle-class, indulgent or privileged". She recreates her life at this time in her novel, ''An Australian Heroine'' (1880). It was also during her time on Curtis Island that she turned to
spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...
.Spender (1988) p. 212 The Town of Southend first appears on 1922 survey plan S7341. In February 1923, the first 20 blocks of land were offered as 15-year leases. In 1964, it was proposed to relocate the population of the island of
Nauru Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru, formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies within the Micronesia subregion of Oceania, with its nearest neighbour being Banaba (part of ...
to Curtis Island. By that time, Nauru had been extensively mined for phosphate by companies from Australia, Britain and New Zealand damaging the landscape so much that it was thought the island would be uninhabitable by the 1990s. Rehabilitating the island was seen as financially impossible. In 1962,
Australian Prime Minister The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister is the chair of the Cabinet of Australia and thus the head of the federal executive government. Under the principles of responsibl ...
, Bob Menzies, said that the three countries involved in the mining had an obligation to provide a solution for the Nauruan people, and proposed finding a new island for them. In 1963, the
Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...
proposed to acquire all the land on Curtis Island (which was considerably larger than Nauru) and then offer the
Nauruans Nauruans are a nation and an ethnic group indigenous to the Pacific island country of Nauru. They are most likely a blend of Micronesian, Melanesian and Polynesian ancestry. The origin of the Nauruan people has not yet been finally determined ...
freehold title over the island and that the Nauruans would become Australian citizens. The costs of resettling the Nauruans on Curtis Island was estimated to be , which included housing and infrastructure and the establishment of pastoral, agricultural, and fishing industries. However, the Nauruan people did not wish to become Australian citizens and wanted to be given sovereignty over Curtis Island in order to establish themselves as an independent nation, which Australia would not agree to. Nauru rejected the proposal to move to Curtis Island, instead choosing to become an independent nation (a process completed in 1968) operating their own mines in Nauru (acquired in 1967).


Demographics

In the , Curtis Island had a population of 323 people. In the , Curtis Island had a population of 36 people.


Heritage listings

Curtis Island has a number of
heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and human-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In ma ...
sites, including: * Cape Capricorn Light, north-eastern tip of Curtis Island *
Sea Hill Light Sea Hill Light was a lighthouse which was located on the northwest point of Curtis Island, Queensland, Australia. Its purpose was to mark the east side of the entrance to Keppel Bay, on passage to Fitzroy River and Port Alma. The first light ...
, Sea Hill Point


Education

There are no schools on or nearby Curtis Island. The options are
distance education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance; today, it usually involves online ...
and boarding school.


Transport

There are no bridges to Curtis Island. As at April 2019, a vehicular and passenger ferry runs services from Gladstone to Southend via Farmers Point on
Facing Island Facing may refer to: *Facing (machining), a turning operation often carried out on a lathe * Facing (retail), a common tool in the retail industry to create the look of a perfectly stocked store *Facing (sewing), fabric applied to a garment edge o ...
on 5 days of the week.


Endangered bird

Curtis island is home to the Capricorn yellow chat (''Epthianura crocea macgregori''), a tiny bird which is considered critically endangered under the ''
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cult ...
''.Jaensch, R., Houston, W., Black, R., Campbell, L., McCabe, J., Elder, R., and Porter, G. (2004).
Rediscovery of the Capricorn subspecies of yellow chat ‘Epthianura crocea macgregori' at Torilla Plain, on the mainland coast of central Queensland.
" ''The Sunbird'' 34: 24-36.
, the bird is threatened by
rising sea levels The sea level has been rising from the end of the last ice age, which was around 20,000 years ago. Between 1901 and 2018, the average sea level rose by , with an increase of per year since the 1970s. This was faster than the sea level had e ...
on Curtis Island. It is only found on three plains on the
central Queensland Central Queensland is an imprecisely-defined geographical division of Queensland ( a state in Australia) that centres on the eastern coast, around the Tropic of Capricorn. Its major regional centre is Rockhampton. The region extends from the Cap ...
coast, and since 2002 the sea level along that coast has risen . The population was reduced to just a couple of pairs 20 years ago, but now there are almost 40 on Curtis Island. This increase is attributed to a
feral pig A feral pig is a domestic pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), also called swine (: swine) or hog, is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is named the domestic pig when distinguishing it from other members of the g ...
culling program from 2006 and the removal of
cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...
in about 2016. The chat has been moving inland, but closer to the trees, they are more likely to be prey for birds like
sparrow hawk Sparrowhawk (sometimes sparrow hawk) may refer to several species of small hawk in the subfamily Accipitrinae. "Sparrow-hawk" or sparhawk originally referred to ''Eurasian sparrowhawk, Accipiter nisus'', now called "Eurasian" or "northern" sparro ...
s.
Central Queensland University Central Queensland University (branded as CQUniversity) is an Australian public university based in central Queensland. CQUniversity is the only Australian university with a campus presence in every mainland state. Its main campus is at Norman ...
researcher Bob Black has been studying the bird for 20 years.


References


Bibliography

* Spender, Dale (1988) "Rosa Praed: Original Australian Writer" in Adelaide, Debra (ed) (1988) ''A Bright and Fiery Troop'', Ringwood, Penguin


External links


Town map of Southend, 1979
{{authority control Gladstone Region Localities in Queensland