Qualla: Booby Island (Queensland)

Booby Island (Queensland): Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit wal.cray, CC BY-SA 3.0. So many ships sank near this island in the 19th century that someone started stocking it with provisions. Booby Island — named by Captain Cook for the seabirds that crowded its rocks — sits 45 kilometers northwest of the tip of Cape York Peninsula in the Torres Strait, positioned squarely in the path of every vessel navigating between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. To the Kaurareg people of the western Torres Strait, the island is Ngiangu, named for a giant of their tradition who was forced from a neighboring island. For European sailors, it was something more practical: a landmark, a refuge, and eventually the site of the last major lighthouse built on the Queensland coast.

Image: wal.cray | CC BY-SA 3.0

Booby Island (Queensland): The Graveyard Strait

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit wal.cray, CC BY-SA 3.0. The waters around Booby Island are littered with the remains of ships that misjudged the Torres Strait's reefs and currents. The barque Delfshaven, 656 tons, struck a sunken reef near the island on 24 July 1862 while sailing from Newcastle to Java; the undermanned crew launched b...

Image: wal.cray | CC BY-SA 3.0

Booby Island (Queensland): The Post Office Cave

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, Public domain. Booby Island's shoreline caves hold a remarkable palimpsest of human presence. Indigenous rock art, including depictions of sea creatures, forms the oldest layer. Over it, beginning as early as 1841, European sailors scratched and painted the names of their ships on the cave wall...

Image: United Kingdom Hydrographic Office | Public domain

Booby Island (Queensland): A Speck Between Two Oceans

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Heritage branch staff, CC BY 3.0. Viewed from above, Booby Island is barely there — a low, rocky platform 32 kilometers west of Thursday Island and 23 kilometers west of Prince of Wales Island, surrounded by the shallow, reef-laced waters where the Coral Sea meets the Arafura Sea. The lighthouse that has operated...

Image: Heritage branch staff | CC BY 3.0