Great Sandy Strait

The Great Sandy Strait is a strait in the Australian state of Queensland of 70 kilometres (43 mi) length which separates mainland Queensland from the World Heritage listed K'gari (Fraser Island).

The Great Sandy Strait is a strait in the Australian state of Queensland of 70 kilometres (43 mi) length which separates mainland Queensland from the World Heritage listed K'gari (Fraser Island). It is also a locality in the Fraser Coast Region local government area. In the 2016 census, Great Sandy Strait had a population of 4 people.

In July and August 1799 Matthew Flinders chartered the coast from Moreton Bay to Hervey Bay in the Norfolk. Although he established that K'gari (Fraser Island) was not a peninsula (as was then believed) but an island, he failed to find a navigable channel through the Great Sandy Strait. His explorations of the area is commemorated by a monument called Matthew Flinders Lookout at the top of an escarpment facing the bay in Dayman Park, Urangan (25.2893°S 152.9080°E? / -25.2893; 152.9080? (Matthew Flinder's Lookout)).Lieutenant Joseph Dayman was the first European to navigate through the Great Sandy Strait on 10 November 1846 in a small decked boat called the Asp. It had been intended that Dayman rendezvous with HMS Rattlesnake but that ship had already departed. Dayman decided it was safer to take the Asp through the Great Sandy Strait rather than risk taking the route to the ocean side of the K'gari (Fraser Island) as he was concerned about rounding the Breaksea Spit.