Great Keppel Island

Great Keppel Island (Woppaburra: Wop-Pa) lies 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) off the coast from Yeppoon, in the locality of The Keppels in the Shire of Livingstone, Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Capricorn Coast of Central Queensland. The traditional owners of the island are the Woppaburra people. The largest of the eighteen islands in the Keppel Group, Wop-Pa covers an area of 1308 hectares.

The tropical climate and numerous beaches attract tourists from all points, and the island is visited by more than 50,000 people each year. A range of budget accommodation caters to tourists. There are 17 white-sand beaches and almost the greatest cover of hard coral reefs on the Great Barrier Reef. The coral diversity of the reefs matches that of the Whitsunday Islands and there is clear water most of the year around.

The island is served by ferries and there is a small airport. Formerly, major airlines served the island, mostly with small Twin Otter aircraft suited to the short runway. However, since the closure of the resort, the small private airport is unattended and 24 hours advanced approval is required to land there.

The islands were named by James Cook in April 1770 after the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral Augustus Keppel.

Prior to European settlement, the island was home to an estimated 60–80 Woppaburra people, and centuries-old middens testify to the quantity of seafood found in the surrounding waters. It is believed that they occupied Wop-pa for around 10,000 years. The Woppaburra are recognised by the Australian Government as the traditional owners of the island. The first recorded visit to the island by Europeans was by naturalist John MacGillivray, aboard HMS Rattlesnake, in 1847. By the end of the 19th century, European settlers had killed or removed most of the indigenous population.

In 1866, Robert Ross obtained a lease over Great Keppel "from year to year and not exceeding five years", in partnership with C.E Beddome and Sir Arthur Palmer (Rowland, 2007), and so began the pastoral era on the islands. In 1882, the lease of Great Keppel drew interest and competition. Shaddock (1981) notes that the Lands Department held a public auction for 6 square miles (16 km²), with the successful applicant being Robert Lyons of Rockhampton.

In its early European history, the island was used to raise sheep. William T. Wyndham, became the first permanent European inhabitant on Great Keppel, having been appointed by Lyons as stock-keeper. Wyndham developed good relationships with the Woppaburra and was just in his treatment of them. Wyndham had both the highest peak on the island and a cove on the east coast named in his honour. He left the island after witnessing the mistreatment of the Woppaburra people by the lessee, who forcibly removed 30 people following the killing of some sheep. The remaining people were forced to work for the lessee in squalid conditions and over the next 20 years their numbers dwindled until the final forced removed of the last 18 Woppaburra people in 1902.^{[citation needed]}

The island was effectively vacant from 1903 to 1918. At that point, Michael and Lizzie O'Neill took over the grazing lease and ran sheep, also building a new homestead in the central part of the island. Michael O'Neill died in 1923 but Lizzie remained on the island, remarrying a young fisherman, Ralph Leeke in 1924. The homestead is now known as Leeke's Homestead and is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register. Leeke's Beach and Estuary are also named after Ralph and Lizzie. The marriage did not last and Ralph left the island but Lizzie remained, running the sheep by herself until the early 1940s.