Dauan (Mt Cornwallis Island)
Situated just over 133 kilometres north of Thursday Island and around 905 kilometres north-northwest of Cairns in the Torres Strait Island Region's Top Western Islands, Dauan (Mt Cornwallis Island), six kilometres southwest of Saibai has the Strait's highest peak (Mt Cornwallis, 295 metres), which is the northern end of Australia's Great Dividing Range. According to local lore, the island is the giant man-eating snake Norinori's head, left after two eagles dropped him into the sea.
The 365-hectare island is approximately three kilometres long, and three kilometres wide. It lies ten kilometres from the New Guinea mainland. Dauan village is located on a narrow coastal strip along the northern shoreline. The island is generally accessed by boat from Saibai.
The soil is relatively fertile, with vine forests covering much of the steep terrain, grasslands around the island's foothills and mangroves and wetlands along the shore. Local family gardens utilise
groundwater from permanent springs.
When William Bligh, in the Providence and Assistant, visited Torres Strait in 1792 and mapped the main reefs and channels, he named the island's high point Mount Cornwallis. However, the distance from the Strait's main sea passages meant that few Europeans had visited Dauan before the 1860s.
Missing Links:
Mount Cornwallis
Norinori
