Whilst Whitsunday Islands is not an officially approved place name, it is a label applied to a collection of continental islands of various sizes off the central coast of Queensland, Australia, situated between just south of Bowen and to the north of Mackay, some 900 kilometres (560 mi) north of Brisbane.
The term is a mis-nomer, based as it is on Captain Cook’s naming of what is now known as the Whitsunday Passage (in Cook’s Journal, Whitsunday’s Passage) in the belief that the passage was discovered on Whitsunday whereas, because of an error in time-keeping, it was actually Whit-Monday.
Contention has existed as to exactly what islands are within the informally-named Whitsunday Islands, in particular as to the southern extremity and the inclusions to the west. What is certain is that they lie within the chain named Cumberland Isles by Captain Cook (now officially approved as the Cumberland Islands) and a reasonably defined section of that chain and surrounding waters have become known world-wide as The Whitsundays based on a contraction of the Whitsunday Islands designation.
No comments:
Post a Comment