Nearest Island
p. 83 · Read in the full issue
To Indonesian New Guinea
Deliverance Island, the island in Torres Strait where German Harry lived for many years, is the nearest part of Australia to foreign soil.
Although it is about 100 miles from the Australian mainland, but only 25 miles from the coast of Papua, Deliverance Island is part of the State of Queensland.
It is about 35 miles from the mouth of the Bensbach River, which forms the southern part of the border between Indo nesian West New Guinea and Papua.
The island was so named by Captain William W. Bampton, of the ship “Shah Hormuzear”, who spent 73 nerve-wracked days trying to find his way through reef-studded Torres Strait in 1793 in company with the whaler “Chesterfield”. It was at Deliver ance Island that the two ships finally reached clear water.