Flinders Island
Flinders Iceland is an Australian island at the eastern end of Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland, which is inhabited by about 900 people. It is the largest island in the Furneaux Group.
Geography
From Tasmania Flinders Iceland is about 55 miles as the crow flies. About 20 kilometers north of Cape Portland reached the 1330 km ² large island covers an area of 29 km width (SW - NE ) and 64 miles long ( NW - SE ). The highest point is the 756 meter high Mount Strezelecki. The west of the island is characterized by rocky dunes and long beaches, while at the eastern end are lagoon beaches, which are considered particularly beautiful. During the last ice age, today's island was part of the land bridge between Australia and Tasmania.
Places
On the island there are five settlements: Killiecrankie, Emita, Lady Barron, Cape Barren Iceland and Mark White. Mark White is the administrative center of the local government area of the Municipality Flinders Furneaux Group and the largest city on the island. In Emita there is a small exhibition of old photos and newspaper clippings. Are some beached shipwreck on the east coast. In the southwest of the island is the Strzelecki National Park.
Climate
In general there on Flinders Iceland as on all the islands of the Furneaux Group maritimes, warm - temperate climate. The annual rainfall amounts to about 600 mm in the southwest. In the mountainous center are 800 mm is not uncommon. The average temperature in winter is 7 ° C, in summer 22.5 ° C, and 30-33 ° C are measured in the particularly warm months.
Fauna
The island is far beyond its borders, known for its deposits of wallabies and dormouse, ring and climbing marsupials. For many subspecies of this, the island has become one of their last refuges.
History
Was after the end of the last great ice age ( Weichselian or Würm ), in the Flinders still with Australia and Tasmania connected by land bridges, the area was settled by people. For unknown reasons, the population became extinct here thousands of years ago. This close some authors that populations of a few hundred people in the long run could not exist independently.
Flinders was discovered by chance by Tobias Furneaux Iceland, Captain James Cook's support ship, when it was separated in the fog of the Endeavour on March 19 in 1773. George Bass and Matthew Flinders rounded the islands between October 1798 and June 1799. During the strait was named after the ship's doctor, Bass, Flinders gave the island its name.
1830, the last 100 Tasmanians were jailed in Tasmania and moved to Flinders Iceland after performing the so-called Black Line the British colonizers. Hoping to be safe there from persecution by the white settlers, they followed willingly. On the island they had to submit to a European way of life, but went largely destroyed by depression, alcoholism and disease. 1847 lived there nurmehr 47 Tasmanians; they were transferred to Oyster Cove near Hobart. The resettlement of the island took place only in 1950, when a military base was built on the island.