Broad Sound is a large bay on the east coast of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, in the state of

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, northwest of the state capital,

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

. It is about long and across at its widest point. The Torilla Peninsula forms the eastern side of the bay; Shoalwater Bay is on the other side of the peninsula. The sound has a large

tidal range Tidal range is the difference in height between high tide and low tide. Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and Sun, by Earth's rotation and by centrifugal force caused by Earth's prog ...

of about . This is the largest variance on the eastern Australia coastline.

History

British explorer

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

, in HMS ''Endeavour'', sighted the bay in May 1770, naming it for its size. The next European navigator in the area was

Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then ...

in HMS ''Investigator'' in 1802. The town of

St Lawrence Saint Lawrence or Laurence (; 31 December 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roman emperor Valerian ordered in 258. ...

was established midway between

Rockhampton Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. In the , the population of Rockhampton was 79,293. A common nickname for Rockhampton is "Rocky", and the demonym of Rockhampton is Rockhamptonite. The Scottish- ...

and Mackay on St Lawrence Creek and developed as a port for the export of cattle from the

hinterland Hinterland is a German word meaning the 'land behind' a city, a port, or similar. Its use in English was first documented by the geographer George Chisholm in his ''Handbook of Commercial Geography'' (1888). Originally the term was associated wi ...

, with a large meatworks built close by in 1893. The processing and export of meat and cattle continued until 1919 when rail links were built elsewhere, making the port redundant. By 2006 the population of St Lawrence had dropped to 125, out of a population in the Broad Sound area of 268.

Description

Broad Sound is 50 kilometres in length and 20 kilometres wide. The bay has a low-lying coastline with wide

mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

s exposed at low tide and backed by extensive areas of

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...

s. The head of the bay has the greatest tidal range on Australia's east coast - around . The coastline is punctuated by the mangrove-lined estuaries of several rivers and creeks, including Herbert and St Lawrence Creeks and the Styx River. Behind the mangroves is a hinterland of low, rounded hills covered by a mix of grassland and low

eucalypt Eucalypt is any woody plant with Capsule (fruit), capsule fruiting bodies belonging to one of seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australia: ''Eucalyptus'', ''Corymbia'', ''Angophora'', ''Stockwellia'', ''Allosyn ...

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

. The climate is

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones immediately to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Ge ...

with a dry winter.Queensland by Degrees. Parts of the sound and adjoining estuarine systems are in a Declared Fish Habitat Area, the states largest such area.

Birds

The extensive tracts of mangroves and mudflats, comprising some in the southern part of the bay, have been classified by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

. It supports globally important populations of the straw-necked ibis (with up to 15,000 individual birds), Australian bustard, Latham's snipe,

sharp-tailed sandpiper The sharp-tailed sandpiper (''Calidris acuminata'') is a small-medium migratory wader or shorebird, found mostly in Siberia during the summer breeding period (June to August) and Australia for wintering (September to March). Taxonomy The gen ...

and

mangrove honeyeater The mangrove honeyeater (''Gavicalis fasciogularis'') is a species of bird in the honeyeater family Honeyeater, Meliphagidae. The species was once considered to be conspecific with the varied honeyeater, but it is now treated as a separate specie ...

.Birdata.

References

Notes

Sources