Mount Strzelecki

Bishop Nixon's sketch of the peaks of Flinders Island, 1857 (ALMFA, SLT)

Mount Strzelecki at 756 metres is the highest peak of the Furneaux Group of islands. Set in the Strzelecki National Park in the south of Flinders Island, it rises steeply from the coast. The Strzelecki Peaks are of Devonian granite. The mountain is accessible via the Strzelecki walking track and offers scenic views.

In his Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land (London, 1845), Captain J Lort Stokes, captain of HMS Beagle, named the 'high peaks' for his friend Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki (1797–1873), a Polish explorer and scientist who climbed the mountain in 1842. Mount Strzelecki is the first peak to be scaled in the Australian Three Peaks race, a non-stop sailing and mountain-running challenge held in Tasmania every Easter from 1989.

Kayleen Mort