Hervey's Bay, Discovery and Exploration







Captian Matthew Flinders
John Oxley Library,
State Library of Queensland

FROM the time that Captain Cook left Hervey's Bay, in May 1770, there is no record of any visit to its shores until August, 1799. 

FLINDERS FIRST VISIT                  

 In 1799 Matthew Flinders, then a young lieutenant, was employed on the work of discovery and survey of Australia’s east coast. He tells the story of his first visit to Hervey's Bay in the introduction to his "Voyage to Terra Australis," published on the day he died in 1814. Leaving Port Jackson in the ship, the Norfolk, he came up the coast, and at noon on August 2, 1799, he found himself within six-miles of the eastern extremity of Sandy Cape, which Cook had found to be one of the heads of Hervey's Bay.

On the evening of the 5^th, he anchored some three or four miles from the shore. On the 8^th he got as far as Pialba, by following the coastline as close as possible.  At noon he was off where Urangan pier juts out now, into the deep water and came through the channel between Urangan and Woody Island, which he described as an opening formed ‘by the western shore on one side and an island of moderate height, three or four miles long, on the other’. The opening was no more than two miles wide. This is now generally known as "Little Woody"; but, from the birds which frequented it, Flinders named it Curlew Islet.  A landing was made on the islet, and upon it was found a small shield and three wooden spears. This is believed to be the scene of Flinders’ first landing in Queensland.

FIRST VIEW OF THE HUMMOCK

The larger islet lying to the east (Woody Island) was richly covered with grass and wood. Flinders found that those islets lay nearly in the middle of the entrance to what might be called the upper bay. No deep channel could be found past them to the west. Repulsed by the shoals, Flinders called the boat back and went no further. He could see white cliffs on the western shore, and must have actually seen the mouth of the Mary River. But he was not fated to discover it, and going about, he steered North West to complete the examination of the western shore down to the coast first seen by Captain Cook 29 years before.

Passing the mouth of the River Burrum, but not recognising it, on the morning of August 7, a sloping Hummock was seen on the west shore. This is the first recorded sight of the famous "Hummock" at Bundaberg, the stump of an extinct volcano, from which flowed the basalt to which that fertile sugar district owes its rich soil. The vessel was then about one and a half miles from the shore.

HERVEY'S BAY DESCRIBED

The water shallowed suddenly, and Flinders was obliged to haul off to the north-east. This took him out from Burnett Heads and the coast was seen to extend to the west-north-west, as Captain Cook had found. Having reached the place where the Endeavour's exploration began, Flinders here concluded his examination of Hervey's Bay. Flinders' course in Hervey's Bay is shown on his chart, published in the "Voyage to Terra Australis."

Reference

The Brisbane Courier (Qld.:1864 – 1933), Saturday 12 April 1924, Page 18