Lacrosse Island

Lacrosse Island is an island in the Cambridge Gulf in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, located between Cape Domett on the eastern shore, and Cape Dussejour on the western. The island is in the local government area of the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley.

It lies at the point where Cambridge Gulf and Joseph Bonaparte Gulf meet at the Medusa Banks,[1] just north of the island. The south eastern end of the island is named 'White Stone Point', with the north western end is named 'West Bluff'.

During the Kimberley gold rush of the 1880s,[2] a boat utilised Lacrosse Island as the staging point for the "Bendigo Party" to proceed to the Kimberley goldfield.[3] Due to tidal ranges in the approach to Cambridge Gulf, careful note of the Lacrosse tidal range is needed.[4]

In the 1920s visitors to the island sought out turtle eggs.[5]

Fauna

Lacrosse Island is an important nesting area for the flatback sea turtle.[6]

Notes
  1. Australia. Fisheries Branch (1 June 1968), "First fishing boat built in U.S. for Australia (1 June 1968)", Australian fisheries newsletter, Dept. of Primary Industry, Fisheries Branch, 27 (6), ISSN 0818-7371
  2. "KIMBERLEY GOLD FIELD". Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser. XXVI (2184). New South Wales, Australia. 7 August 1886. p. 5. Retrieved 30 September 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. Diary of the "Bendigo Party" on the way to and at the Kimberley Goldfield, Western Australia, 1886, retrieved 29 September 2016
  4. Australia. Royal Australian Navy. Hydrographic Service (1979), Approaches to Cambridge Gulf (New ed. 15th June 1979 ed.), Hydrographic Service, R.A.N, retrieved 29 September 2016
  5. Sloan, Alan William (1925), Turtle and turtle egg hunting on Lacrosse Island, 20 September 1925, retrieved 29 September 2016
  6. Commonwealth of Australia, Natator depressus — Flatback Turtle, retrieved 4 January 2017

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