Marking Flinders’ Redcliffe anniversary

Today marks 225 years since English explorer Matthew Flinders landed at Woody Point aboard the sloop Norfolk, naming the area Red cliff Point after the iron-rich red soil cliffs that were visible from the water.

A brochure created by Redcliffe Historical Society, now History Redcliffe, ahead of the opening of a memorial to Matthew Flinders in 2004 details the events leading up to his landing on what is now known as the Redcliffe Peninsula.

“Lieutenant (later Captain) Matthew Flinders was the first explorer to enter Glass House Bay (now Moreton Bay),” the brochure states (Ref: J G Steele The Explorers of Moreton Bay District 1770-1830).

“Having left Sydney on 8 July, 1799 in H.M. Sloop Norfolk he reached Cape Moreton on 14 July. For two weeks he explored the bay and its environs. He named Port Skirmish, Pumice Stone River, and Red cliff Point (now South Point, Pumicestone Channel and Woody Point.)

“Finding that there was a passage (South Passage) from Glass House Bay to the ocean, he named the land to the north of it Moreton Island.

“Other islands he (named) were Mud, St Helena, Green, King, Peel and Coochie Mudlo. He observed the “High Peak” (now Flinders Peak, 2223 feet) which is shown on his chart.

“He hiked to the Glasshouse Mountains, climbing Beerburrum and visiting the foot of Tibrogargan.”

The following is an extract from the journals of Matthew Flinders, July 1799. Citation no C211/2

“At daylight on Wednesday morning, we again weighed and turned up with a southerly breeze as long as the flood tide lasted.

“At half past ten o’clock anchored one mile and a half off a point that has red cliffs in it, in three and a half fathoms. A little West of this Point I observed the latitude with the artificial horizon to be 27 16’25”S.

“The bight which lay round the Point is shoal with a muddy bottom; the land is low, but not so sandy as in the neighbourhood of the river. The rocks are strongly impregnated Iron stone with some small pieces of granite & chrystal scattered about the shore.

“From Red cliff Point we pulled over to a green head about two miles to the westward, round which the bight is contracted into a river-like form, but the greatest part of it is dry at low water.

“The wood that we collected at high water mark for our fire, proved to be Cedar and of a fine Grain.

“The small reefs which lay off this head presented a miniature of those which form such a barrier to the northern shore of New South Wales, and render it almost inaccessible.”

Published with thanks to History Redcliffe.