Australia: Not Just One (or Two) Islands. Quiz

Answer: Latvia and Panama

Tasmania is the 26th biggest island in the world and if it was a country, it would be around the 123rd largest. Argentina, Mexico, Chile and France are the 7th, 14th, 42nd and 63rd biggest countries respectively. Monaco and Singapore are much smaller; in fact, they are two of the smallest countries in the world. Latvia (64559 sq. km) and Panama (75417 sq. km) are very close to Tasmania in size.
Tasmania as a state has an area of 68401 sq. km because it has a large number of smaller islands associated with it including King Island which is among the top ten largest islands in Australia.

Answer: The island was rejected as a World Heritage Area in 1992

Fraser Island is approximately 120 km (75 mi) long and up to 35 km wide. It was listed as a World Heritage site in 1992. Development has been deliberately discouraged. You need a four wheel drive to drive on the few roads and you need to catch a vehicular ferry to get said vehicle there.

The best way to reach anywhere on the island is to drive on the hard-packed beach. Fraser Island is very proud of its faunal heritage, with what is thought to be the most pure-bred of the Australian dingo population; domestic dogs are not allowed on the island.

The island, also known as Great Sandy Island, was named after Eliza Fraser, a survivor from a nearby shipwreck in 1836.

Answer: True

Melville Island is the second largest island in Australia and Bathurst island is the fifth largest. Over 90% of the 3000 inhabitants are Aboriginal and the two islands are governed by the Tiwi Land Council, a mixture of conventional regional administration and representation by tribal elders.

However, Tiwi Aborigines are culturally separate from the mainland Aboriginal population and have their own Tiwi language. The Tiwi football league (Australian Rules Football) has a participation rate of 35%, the highest in the country.

As well as its own local competition, the island fields a side, the Tiwi Bombers, in the Northern Territory league.

Answer: Penguins and motorsport racing

Phillip Island is small, roughly oval in shape, 26 km long and 9km wide. It is connected to the mainland at St Remo by a 600m bridge. It has a permanent population of around 10000 but can accommodate up to 40000 in the summer tourist season.
Phillip Island has had a number of racetracks since the 1950s and actually hosted the Armstrong 500, the precursor of the Bathurst 1000. The latest track was opened in 1988 and hosts the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix and the Superbike World Championship. With car racing, it hosts the V8 Supercars Championship and the Formula 3 Australian Drivers' Championship.
Fairy penguins (Eudyptula minor), also known as little penguins, little blue penguins, and by their Maori name of kororā, are found around the southern coast of Australia and the entire New Zealand Coast. On Phillip Island, they are a major tourist attraction as they walk ashore each night on Summerland Beach.

Answer: Quokkas

Australian settlement on Rottnest Island can be traced back at least 30000 possibly even 60000 years. At this time, the island was connected to the mainland before sea levels rose. Because Aborigines did not have boats, it was possible that Rottnest Island was uninhabited for thousands of years until European colonisation took place. The quokka is a small macropod, about the size of a domestic cat. Unlike its kangaroo and wallaby cousins, it can climb trees.

The distribution of quokkas is limited to the south-west corner of Western Australia, with the biggest concentration on Rottnest Island.

Answer: Australia's tallest lighthouse

King Island, 64km x 27 km, is situated in the Roaring Forties at the western edge of Bass Strait halfway between Tasmania and Cape Otway, the southern tip of mainland Australia. Over 60 ships were wrecked on its western shores. Building Australia's tallest lighthouse in 1861 slowed but did not stop the shipwrecks.

The island was discovered in 1799 and had an intermittent whaling industry in the 1820s. Today it is a thriving Tasmanian rural community of three small towns connected by fertile agricultural land. Dairy and beef are nationally known industries. Produce bearing the King Island name is of a consistent high quality.

Answer: The marine boundary runs halfway across the Strait

The Torres Strait islands were not part of Queensland when Queensland became a colony in 1859. However when pearling became a prosperous industry in the 1870s, Queensland annexed the islands. Torres Strait Islanders are ethnically distinct from Australian Aborigines, being descended from Melanesians. Harmony prevailed for almost 100 years until Papua New Guinea wanted independence.

The problem was Torres Strait islanders identified as Australian yet the islands themselves stretched to within four kilometres of the PNG mainland. (Of the 274 islands only 14 are inhabited).

The problem was solved when the islands remained part of Queensland, and hence Australia, while the maritime boundary bisects the strait. The arrangement works well with all parties cooperating to produce mutually beneficial outcomes.

Answer: True

Flinders Island (62 x 37 km) in Tasmania is situated in the eastern end of the Bass Strait roughly half way between mainland Victoria and Tasmania. There is a small island with the same name off the coast of Cooktown in North Queensland and another in the Investigator group in South Australia.

The South Australian island was named Flinders Island by Matthew Flinders after his younger brother, Samuel Flinders, who was a midshipman on the Flinders' expedition boat, the "Investigator". The Tasmanian island was settled by Aborigines over 35000 years ago when this island served as a land bridge between the mainland and Tasmania.

However, the native population died off about 4500 years ago. It wasn't resettled until European colonisation in the early nineteenth century.

Answer: Adelaide

Kangaroo is the third biggest island in Australia, being over 15km long and 90km wide at its widest point. It lies just off the Fleurieu Peninsula less than 100 km from Adelaide. It is separated from the mainland by the Backstairs Passage and from the nearby Yorke Peninsula on its north-west coast by the Investigator Strait (named after Flinders' boat).

It had a whaling history before it was settled in 1836, about the same time Adelaide was settled. Today the island has a stable population of 4400 and its main industries are tourism and agriculture, with beef, sheep, honey and shellfish and wine being nationally renowned.

Answer: The airport runway juts out into the sea

Lord Howe Island is a crescent shaped island with large bulky mountains that rise out of the sea at either end. There is a narrow lowland between the two mountain groups where the 360 residents live. The island is so narrow at this point the runway bisects the island and, to accommodate small jets, sticks out into the ocean on the western end. Lord Howe was never a penal colony but Norfolk Island, 900 km east of here, was Australia's most brutal penal colony. Tourists on Lord Howe Island are capped at 400 at any one time. Lord Howe Island is part of New South Wales.