Captain Francis BlackwoodPrint Page

The plaque commemorates the landing of Captain Blackwood who explored the area in 1843 and also commemorates the Bicentennial of Cook`s exploration of the coastline.  

The plaque notes that Captain Blackwood explored the area and it was erected in 1970 by the Sarina and District Historical Society as its contribution to commemorate the Bicentennial of Captain Cook's exploration of the coastline in 1770. A time capsule is beneath the plaque.

Francis Price Blackwood (1809–1854) was a British naval officer who while posted at several different locations during his time in the Royal Navy, spent much of his time posted in colonial Australia and was an instrumental pioneer of regions near Australia's east coast and nearby islands.

Blackwood was selected to command the sloop HMS Fly. He was appointed with the purpose of partaking in the initial hydrographic survey commissioned by the admiralty, which involved making explorations into and charting the waters of the Australian north-east coast.

Equipped with a wealth of costly instruments and housing two scientists, the Fly departed from Falmouth Cornwall in 1842, with the accompaniment of the cutter Bramble (under the command of Lieutenant Charles Yule). Having stopped in Hobart town between the months of August and October, it was not until December 1842 that the survey began, after the ships arrived in Sydney.

Over the following three years, Fly traveled and chartered from Sandy Cape to Whitsunday Island, and also sailed past a range of other locations including both Swain Reefs and the Capricorn and Bunker Group and the passage between these two. Fly also mapped and marked the outer lines of the Great Barrier Reef. 

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