Flinders Island is an island that forms 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 ...

at the tip of

Cape Melville Cape Melville is a headland on the eastern coast of the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. To its west lies Princess Charlotte Bay. It is part of the Cape Melville National Park. Cape Melville was named Stoney Cape in 1815 by Lieutenant Charle ...

, Queensland in

Bathurst Bay Bathurst Bay is a bay in the localities of Lakefield and Starcke in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. In the 19th century it was the base for the pearling fleet. It is now a tourist attraction for Cape York Peninsula in northern Queen ...

. The original indigenous name was ''Wurriima.'' It is north of

Denham Island Denham Island is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park at the tip of Cape Melville, Queensland in Bathurst Bay. It is the southernmost island in the Flinders Group National Park. It is south of Flinders Island. It is around 390 hectares ...

in the

Flinders Group National Park Flinders Group National Park (Cape York Peninsula Aboriginal Land) is a national park in Queensland (Australia), 1,745 km northwest of Brisbane. The national park was previously named Flinders Group National Park until it was renamed on 28 ...

. It is separated from Stanley Island by

Owen Channel Owen may refer to: People and fictional characters * Owen (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname Places United States * Owen, Missouri, a ghost town * Owen, Wisconsin * Owen County, Indiana ...

and

Maclear Island Maclear Island is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park at the tip of Cape Melville, Queensland in Bathurst Bay. It is north of Denham Island in the Flinders Group National Park Flinders Group National Park (Cape York Peninsula Abo ...

Fly Channel Fly Channel is a generalist television channel broadcast by Italian broadcaster Europa 7 HD on digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV, DTT, or DTTB) is a technology for terrestrial television, in which televis ...

. The

traditional owners Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...

formed part of a multi-lingual cultural complex extending from Bathurst Head to

, which once, prior to the destructive advent of settlers, lugger crews in the late 19th century colonial period, numbered an estimated 200 people. Peter Sutton
'Science and sensibility on a foul frontier: At Flinders Island, 1935,'
in

Bruce Rigsby Bruce Rigsby (1937 – March 19, 2022) was an American-Australian anthropologist specializing in the languages and ethnography of native peoples on both continents. He was professor emeritus at Queensland University, and a member of both the A ...

and Nicholas Peterson, (eds.), ''Donald Thomson, Man and Scholar,'' 2005 pp.143–58,p.156 notes 9,10. It became one of the earliest centres for recruiting local hands for the pearling trade. These people were still shot or raped at gunpoint as late as the early 1900s.Sutton, ibid.p.148 There is a major residential site on the sandspit. The island is a popular tourist destination with an anchorage point for yachts. Flinders Island is an integral part of the mythological complex of the Flinders Group.

References

{{Reflist Islands on the Great Barrier Reef Islands of Far North Queensland Protected areas of Far North Queensland

See also

References