Gladstone

Gladstone is a port city on the central coast of Queensland, on the harbor of Port Curtis near the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. The town is named after William Gladstone, the British statesman, who as colonial secretary backed a plan for a new colony on the harbor.

Matthew Flinders sailed into the harbor in 1802 and named it Port Curtis after the admiral Sir Roger Curtis. A settlement for the short-lived colony of North Australia was landed on its shore in 1847 but was given up within months. The town that grew up afterward shipped cattle and wool from the inland stations of central Queensland, and a meatworks opened on the harbor early in the 20th century.

Coal from the mines of the Bowen and Callide basins is loaded onto ships at the coal terminals of the Port of Gladstone. Queensland Alumina refines bauxite from Weipa into alumina at its refinery on the harbor, and Cement Australia makes clinker at its plant at Fisherman's Landing. Liquefied natural gas from the coal seams of inland Queensland is shipped from three plants on Curtis Island across the harbor.

Heron Island, a coral cay on the reef, is reached by boat from the Gladstone marina, and green and loggerhead turtles nest on its beaches in summer. Each Easter the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race ends in the harbor, where crowds gather on the waterfront to watch the boats arrive. The Tondoon Botanic Gardens grow plants native to the region of Port Curtis. The Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum shows works by Queensland artists in a former town council building.