Deal Island

Deal Island may refer to:

Deal Island (Tasmania)

Deal Island is a granite island, with an area of 1576.75 ha, in south-eastern Australia. It is the largest of Tasmania’s Kent Group, lying in northern Bass Strait between the Furneaux Group and Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. It is now part of the Kent Group National Park, Tasmania’s northernmost national park, which was gazetted in 2002. In 2004 the national park was extended to include the state waters of the three major islands of the Kent Group marine waters.

The Beagle Commonwealth Marine Reserve, the Kent Group, is located at the southern end of the Commonwealth reserve.

Deal Island has been extensively modified in the past by human activity in the construction of facilities and the vegetation clearance and regular firing associated with grazing livestock. It has a lighthouse, airstrip (closed), roads, jetty, two houses, a dam and a museum.

Climate

Lighthouse

Deal Island has the highest lighthouse in the Southern Hemisphere, standing 305 metres (1,001 ft) above sea level and was sometimes visible at night from Wilson's Promontory, 80 kilometres (50 mi) away. The lighthouse was built in 1848 and deactivated in 1992. While active, the height caused problems with visibility in low cloud conditions. Management and conservation is under the control of the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service. On 26 April 1943 during world war two an RAAF A25 Airspeed Oxford aircraft crashed killing all four crewmen. The aircraft wreck and their graves are about 15 metres apart at the bottom of the cliff. The bodies have since been disinterred and buried at Springvale, Victoria. Eyewitness accounts say the plane flew low over a ship which was actually a wreck, and then failed to regain enough height before hitting the cliff.