Download coordinates as: Curtis Island is an offshore locality in the Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia.

However, many ships encountered difficulties negotiating the many sand bars at the entrance to the Fitzroy River, so a pilot station was requested in 1862.

[46] Spender says that "The years which she spent on Curtis Island and which played such a crucial part in determining her values – and her voice – could hardly be described as middle-class, indulgent or privileged".

By that time, Nauru had been extensively mined for phosphate by companies from Australia, Britain and New Zealand damaging the landscape so much that it was thought the island would be uninhabitable by the 1990s.

In 1962, Australian Prime Minister, Bob Menzies, said that the three countries involved in the mining had an obligation to provide a solution for the Nauruan people, and proposed finding a new island for them.

[50][51] The costs of resettling the Nauruans on Curtis Island was estimated to be £10 million, which included housing and infrastructure and the establishment of pastoral, agricultural, and fishing industries.

[52] However, the Nauruan people did not wish to become Australian citizens and wanted to be given sovereignty over Curtis Island in order to establish themselves as an independent nation, which Australia would not agree to.

[5] As at April 2019, a vehicular and passenger ferry runs services from Gladstone to Southend via Farmers Point on Facing Island on 5 days of the week.

[57] Curtis island is home to the Capricorn yellow chat (Epthianura crocea macgregori), a tiny bird which is considered critically endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

The population was reduced to just a couple of pairs 20 years ago, but now there are almost 40 on Curtis Island.

The chat has been moving inland, but closer to the trees, they are more likely to be prey for birds like sparrow hawks.

Central Queensland University researcher Bob Black has been studying the bird for 20 years.