Fitzroy Island National Park

Fitzroy Island National Park
Welcome Bay on Fitzroy Island
Coordinates: 16 ° 55 ′ 48 ″  S , 145 ° 59 ′ 32 ″  E
Location:	Queensland , Australia
Specialty:	Coral reefs, rainforest
Next city:	Yarabah
Surface:	2.9 km²
Founding:	1939

The Fitzroy Island National Park (English: Fitzroy Island National Park ) is a national park in the northeast of the Australian state of Queensland .

Fitzroy Island, the island that the national park covers, is also called Koba or Gabar .

The Aboriginal tribe of the Kobaburra (or Gaba: ra ) from the Gungganyji language group are particularly connected to this island.

As a national park in Queensland, the island with its natural and cultural features is subject to the Nature Conservation Act 1992 and most of it is therefore not open to the public. Most of the visitors stay in the western part of the island, which is where the pier and resort are located. This is also the best place to dive.

location

Fitzroy Island National Park is 22 kilometers east of Cairns on the Australian continental shelf.

The island

Fitzroy Island is a continental shelf island, not a coral island. The area became an island when sea ​​levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age, flooding the area between a hill that is now Fitzroy Island and Cape Grafton . For over 10,000 years, coral reefs have formed in the sheltered bay on the west side of the island and light rainforest has developed on the coast .

Coral Beach, Fitzroy Island

Fitzroy Island has been used by humans in a variety of ways. It is part of the former settlement area of ​​the Aborigines of the Gurabana Gungandji tribe , who processed their origin in a myth of the dream time . They used the island for hunting and fishing. In 1778, Lieutenant James Cook named the island after the family name of the then Duke of Grafton , who was British Prime Minister when his ship, the Endeavor, set sail from Great Britain. In the 19th century, pearls and trepang were fished around Fitzroy Island . Today there is still a giant clam station in Welcome Bay. At the beginning of the 20th century, the island was used as part of an Aboriginal mission station, during World War II as a gun post and later as a tourist site.

The island was also the site of a lighthouse that warned ships in the Grafton Passage of the reefs around the island. On Little Fitzroy Island, off the northeast tip of the main island, there is still a small, automatic lighthouse. An old, abandoned lighthouse is on the main island, directly above the new lighthouse. You can reach it on the circular hiking trail.

The isolation of Fitzroy Island from the mainland resulted in its own fauna with only a few mammals. The dominant predators on the island are reptiles, especially snakes like the brown night snake and green tree python , monitor lizards and skinks . The latter are particularly common and can often be seen while hiking on the island. There are no venomous snakes on Fitzroy Island, but the python's bite is painful and can cause inflammation.

Hiking trails

Hiking trail, Fitzroy Island

There is a hiking trail to the northern tip of the island, the lighthouse on the northwest tip on Little Fitzroy Island, and the highest point on the island, which offers 360-degree views of coral reefs and Cape Grafton. From this highest point you can even see the Frankland Islands in the south on a clear day . The trail then leads back to the resort.

The Nudey Beach can be reached on the trail at the southern end of the resort. It runs through the rainforest and offers occasional views of Cape Grafton. Then it leads down to Nudey Beach, which used to be a nudist beach. You can also go diving there.

Diving

Clownfish in Welcome Bay, Fitzroy Island

The rugged reef is some distance from the beach at the northern end of Welcome Bay. It starts at the highly visible Bird Rock and runs most of the way to the jetty, where there is a small breakthrough that allows boats to get to the jetty. At the rocks at the southern end of the beach the reef starts again and runs around the cape to Nudey Beach. At this point, it's very close to the beach - actually just a few steps away. The dangers of diving around Fitzroy Island are often underestimated. Visibility in the water is often poor, especially after stormy weather, but the corals are wonderful to look at and the variety of fish is great. One often encounters clownfish ( Amphiprion percula ) and other anemonefish , parrotfish and wrasse . The green turtle also occasionally crosses the path of divers.

The occurrence of box jellyfish ( Chironex fleckeri ) around Fitzroy Island is unlikely because of the only four kilometers wide channel between the island and the mainland, but some have been found occasionally, as have other fire jellyfish.

Resort

Sunset at Welcome Bay, Fitzroy Island

The Fitzroy Island Resort is located on Welcome Bay. In 2007 it underwent major renovations: apartments were added and beach facilities and backpacker accommodations were thoroughly overhauled.

Driveway

Fitzroy Island can be reached by the Fitzroy Flyer , a power catamaran that departs from Marlin Marina in Cairns.

Web links

• Fitzroy Island National Park. Queensland Placenames. Retrieved November 16, 2007
• Fitzroy Island National Park. Department of Environment and Resource Management. Retrieved November 9, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Australian Government - CAPAD 2010 ( MS Excel ; 170 kB), DSEWPaC , accessed on January 7, 2013 (English)
2. ↑ Australian Government - CAPAD 1997 ( MS Excel ; 93 kB), DSEWPaC , accessed on January 7, 2013 (English)
3. ^ Place Name Details: Fitzroy Island . In: Property, Title and Valuations . Queensland Government. Retrieved on May 17, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Steve Parish: Australian Touring Atlas. Steve Parish Publishing, Archerfield QLD 2007, ISBN 978-1-74193-232-4 , p. 14.
5. ↑ Timothy Bottoms: The Bama. People of the Rainforest. Aboriginal-European relations in the Cairns Rainforest Region up to 1876. Gadja Enterprises, Cairns QLD 1992, 0-646-12727-6.
6. ^ Fitzroy Island National Park . Queensland Government. Archived from the original on May 19, 2009. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 17, 2009. 
7. ↑ Transfers to Fitzroy Island . Hunt Trading Group. Retrieved on May 17, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.