This series follows the Captains Flat Rd from Queanbeyan down to Captains flat. Each cache features a captain, real or fictitious. Keep an eye out for mystery clues.
Please note: while this is not a busy road, country traffic will not be anticipating your unexpected stops. Please take all care when pulling over and exiting/reentering your vehicle.
Captain Matthew Flinders RN (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was an English navigator and cartographer, who was the first to circumnavigate Australia and identify it as a continent.
Flinders made three voyages to the southern ocean between 1791 and 1810. In the second voyage, George Bass and Flinders confirmed that Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) was an island. In the third voyage, Flinders circumnavigated the mainland of what was to be called Australia.
Heading back to England in 1803, Flinders' vessel needed urgent repairs at Isle de France (Mauritius). Although Britain and France were at war, Flinders thought the scientific nature of his work would ensure safe passage, but a suspicious governor kept him under arrest for more than six years. In captivity, he recorded details of his voyages for future publication, and put forward his rationale for naming the new continent 'Australia', as an umbrella term for New Holland and New South Wales – a suggestion taken up later by Governor Macquarie.
Flinders' health had suffered, however, and although he reached home in 1810, he did not live to see the publication of his widely praised book and atlas, A Voyage to Terra Australis.
Boeing737 qc'd this trail and will log her find after FTF.