Stradbroke Island, also known as Minjerribah, was a large sand island that formed much of the eastern side of
Moreton BayMoreton Bay is a large bay on the eastern coast of Australia 19 km from Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources...
near
BrisbaneBrisbane is the state capital of the Australian state of Queensland and is the largest city in that state. With an estimated population of approximately 2 million, it is also the third most populous city in Australia....
,
QueenslandQueensland is a state of Australia that occupies the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory to the west, South Australia to the south-west and New South Wales to the south. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
until the late 19th century. Today the island is split into two by the
Jumpinpin ChannelThe Jumpinpin channel also known as The Pin lies between North Stradbroke Island and South Stradbroke Island. It has a fast moving tidal deep water Channel not appropriate for swimming but is popular with beach anglers....
.
The first historically documented contact between Europeans and the Stradbroke Island Aborigines was 1803 when
Matthew FlindersCaptain Matthew Flinders, RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent...
's called in to take on freshwater supplies. The next documented contact was between shipwreck survivors
Thomas PamphlettThomas Pamphlett , sometimes Pamphlet, also known as James Groom, was a convict in colonial Australia. He is best known for his time as a castaway in the Moreton Bay area, half way up the eastern coast of Australia, in 1823. He was marooned with two others, Richard Parsons and John Finnegan, until...
,
Richard ParsonsRichard Parsons, a convict of the colony of New South Wales , was one of four men who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823...
and
John FinneganJohn Finnegan, a convict of the colony of New South Wales , was one of four men who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823...
who were helped and provided with food, shelter and a canoe by the local Stradbroke Aborigines.
Stradbroke Island, also known as Minjerribah, was a large sand island that formed much of the eastern side of
Moreton BayMoreton Bay is a large bay on the eastern coast of Australia 19 km from Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources...
near
BrisbaneBrisbane is the state capital of the Australian state of Queensland and is the largest city in that state. With an estimated population of approximately 2 million, it is also the third most populous city in Australia....
,
QueenslandQueensland is a state of Australia that occupies the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory to the west, South Australia to the south-west and New South Wales to the south. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
until the late 19th century. Today the island is split into two by the
Jumpinpin ChannelThe Jumpinpin channel also known as The Pin lies between North Stradbroke Island and South Stradbroke Island. It has a fast moving tidal deep water Channel not appropriate for swimming but is popular with beach anglers....
.
European settlement
The first historically documented contact between Europeans and the Stradbroke Island Aborigines was 1803 when
Matthew FlindersCaptain Matthew Flinders, RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent...
's called in to take on freshwater supplies. The next documented contact was between shipwreck survivors
Thomas PamphlettThomas Pamphlett , sometimes Pamphlet, also known as James Groom, was a convict in colonial Australia. He is best known for his time as a castaway in the Moreton Bay area, half way up the eastern coast of Australia, in 1823. He was marooned with two others, Richard Parsons and John Finnegan, until...
,
Richard ParsonsRichard Parsons, a convict of the colony of New South Wales , was one of four men who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823...
and
John FinneganJohn Finnegan, a convict of the colony of New South Wales , was one of four men who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823...
who were helped and provided with food, shelter and a canoe by the local Stradbroke Aborigines. There are persistent stories that there was an earlier European contact with survivors of a Spanish or Portuguese
shipwreckA shipwreck is the remains of a ship that has wrecked, it having either been sunk or beached. A shipwreck can refer to a wrecked ship or to the event that caused the wreck, such as the striking of something that causes the ship to sink, the stranding of the ship on rocks, land or shoal, or the...
known locally as the
Stradbroke Island Galleon. There exists a body of oral history and some artefacts which are called on in support of this notion, but it is a contentious issue.
Initial white settlement of Stradbroke Island was at
Amity PointAmity Point is a small close knit township located on the north western point of North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia in Redland City. The 2001 census recorded a population of only 436 people, a small number for a non-farming community....
where a pilot station was established. More fertile soil, good sources of fresh water and a better harbour was found at the present location of
DunwichDunwich is a small town on the western side of North Stradbroke Island in the Australian state of Queensland. The town is part of the Redland City local government area, based on the mainland in the Brisbane bayside suburb of Cleveland. Dunwich is one of three towns on North Stradbroke Island - the...
so settlement soon concentrated there. Dunwich became a staging point where larger ships were unloaded of cargo which was placed into smaller vessels to be carried over the sand bars of
Brisbane RiverThe Brisbane River is the longest river in southeast Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay. The river is dammed by the Wivenhoe Dam, forming Lake Wivenhoe, the main water supply for Brisbane...
and up to the penal settlement of Brisbane. The Dunwich settlement was in close proximity to a major Aboriginal camp at Myora Spring. Whites and Europeans generally lived in reasonable harmony though there were moments of conflict as would be expected within the context of two very different cultures meeting for the first time.
Early efforts to establish agriculture on the island, especially plans to grow cotton north of Dunwich, resulted in conflicts with the local Aboriginal tribes. In March 1830, the 57th regiment seeking reprisals for the murder of a guard, attacked a group of Ngugi people near a lagoon on
Moreton IslandMoreton Island is a large sand island on the eastern side of Moreton Bay, on the coast of south-east Queensland, Australia. Moreton Island lies 58 kilometres northeast of the Queensland capital, Brisbane...
. This was likely the first significant massacre of indigenous people in the region.
Island division
In September 1894, heavy seas drove aground the barque
Cambus Wallace at a narrow isthmus roughly halfway down the island's length. Salvage activity (including the detonation of a cargo of explosives) weakened the sand dunes along the spit such that by the spring of 1896, storms and tides had washed a permanent breach from Moreton Bay to the Pacific Ocean.
The island is now two islands separated by the
Jumpinpin ChannelThe Jumpinpin channel also known as The Pin lies between North Stradbroke Island and South Stradbroke Island. It has a fast moving tidal deep water Channel not appropriate for swimming but is popular with beach anglers....
:
- North Stradbroke Island
North Stradbroke Island is an Australian island in the state of Queensland, 30 km southeast of the capital Brisbane. Before 1896 the island was part of the Stradbroke Island. In that year a storm separated it from South Stradbroke Island, forming the Jumpinpin Channel. The island is about...
is the larger of the two, about 38 km long and up to 11 km wide.
- South Stradbroke Island
South Stradbroke Island is an Australian island in the state of Queensland, south of Brisbane and forms the northern end of Gold Coast. The 21 km by 2.5 km sized island is the smaller one of the two Stradbroke Islands and lies very close to the mainland. The island has hundreds of wild wallabies...
is about 22 km long and at most 2 km wide.
North Stradbroke is the more developed of the two islands, with the three small townships of Dunwich, Amity Point and
Point LookoutPoint Lookout is a headland and small coastal village located on the eastern coast of North Stradbroke Island. To the north lies Cape Moreton and to the south the next major headland is Point Danger on the New South Wales/Queensland border. The other towns on the island are Dunwich and Amity Point....
offering vacation rentals, shops and a range of eateries. It also has a sealed, bitumen road network.
South Stradbroke, while less developed, has a number of anchorages, campsites, and two major tourist resorts, Couran Cove and South Stradbroke Island Resort, or Tipplers. There are no sealed roads on the island.