Fitzroy
Electorate created by the 1887 redistribution from the southern portion of the Blackall electorate, it encompassed a region south of Rockhampton to as far as Mount Larcombe. The name was dropped in 1959 and revived in the 1991, mainly from parts of the former electorates of Broadsound and Peak Downs. Abolished in 2008 and divided between Callide, Gregory and Mirani.
River, entering the ocean at Port Alma, downstream from Rockhampton might not fit within most definitions of North Queensland but the system's northern limit is beyond Nebo, where the Connors and Isaac Rivers have their sources. The Fitzroy was named after the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Charles FitzRoy, by Charles and William Archer in 1853 .
Shire, west and south of Rockhampton, was amalgamated with Livingstone Shire, Mount Morgan Town and Rockhampton City in 2008 to form Rockhampton Regional Council. The region's first European settlers were the Archer brothers who took up the Gracemere pastoral station in 1855.
Flat
Island located near Cape Manifold and identified by Cook on 28 May 1770 as low and flat.
Flattery
Cape, on the East coast of Cape York Peninsula, 220km north of Cairns, named by James Cook (10 August 1770) We now judged ourselves to be clear of all Danger, having, as we thought, a Clear, open Sea before us; but this we soon found otherwise, and occasioned my calling the Headland … Cape Flattery. It is a high Promontory, making in 2 Hills next the sea, and a third behind them … From this Cape the Main land trends away North-West and North-West by West.
Cape Flattery Silica Mines currently operates on a mining lease of about 63 square kilometres, with an estimated resource of more than 200 million tonnes of silica sand, established in 1977. It supplies superior quality silica sand to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and other countries in Asia. Cape Flattery is the largest global exporter of silica sand, and has the highest production of silica sand in the world.
Flinders
Electorate created by the 1887 electoral redistribution from the Burke electorate, north and south of a line running through Cloncurry, Richmond and Hughenden. In 1931 the name was changed to Carpentaria, but revived in the 1949 redistribution. Abolished in 1991 and replaced by the new electorate of Charters Towers.
River in northwest Queensland, the longest in the state rising in the Burra Range, part of the Great Dividing Range, 110 kilometres northeast of Hughenden and flowing westerly towards Julia Creek, then turning north to the savannah country downstream of Canobie. The Cloncurry and Corella Rivers, its major tributaries, enter the river from the southwest above Canobie. The river is fed by three main tributaries, the Corella and Cloncurry Rivers and Porcupine Creek and enters and into the Gulf of Carpentaria, 25 kilometres west of Karumba through two mouths, with the second known as the Bynoe River. It was named after Matthew Flinders by Captain John Lort Stokes of HMS Beagle in 1841.
Floraville
Gulf country station taken up in 1865 by Towns and MacDonald.
Flying Fish Point
Coastal locality 7 km north-east of Innisfail. It was named by George Dalrymple, in 1873 after the cutter 'Flying Fish' in his expedition. It is the northern head of the mouth of the Johnstone River; the southern head, Coquette Head, was also named by Dalrymple, after the expedition's second cutter. Land in the area was leased by Thomas Fitzgerald, Innisfail's pioneer sugar planter, but the site was resumed by the government in about 1883 for pilotage purposes.
Forsayth
Former mining town south-west of Cairns that was part of the Etheridge minerals area and is located in Etheridge Shire. When gold was discovered at Forsayth in 1871 the area was named Finnigans Camp (the name of the discoverer), but the name changed to Charleston shortly thereafter. By the 1890s there were three towns within a few kilometres of each other: West Charleston (surveyed 1885), Charleston (1891) and Charleston North (1896) with, Castleton (1890) was about 10 km south.
The branch railway from the Cairns-Chillagoe line was extended from Einasleigh to Charleston in 1910, with the name of the railway-terminus town changed to Forsayth, after the Commissioner for Railways, James Forsayth Thallon. The railway was used mainly to transport copper ore to the Chillagoe smelters. During 1924-36 a gold battery operated at Mount Moran, west of Forsayth, and the remains are listed on the Queensland heritage register.
Today, Forsayth is the terminus of the Savannahlander tourist railway, from Cairns via Kuranda and Einasleigh, rated as one of the great train journeys of the world. The railway station is heritage-listed.
Fort Bowen
Gulf country station taken up in 1865 by Gibson.
Frankland
Islands about 10 km offshore from the mouth of the Russell and Mulgrave rivers at Russell Heads, about 45 km south-east of Cairns named by Cook on 9 June 1770.
Freshwater
Residential suburb of Cairns on the Cairns to Kuranda railway line, immediately east of the Freshwater Creek on land rising back to the Whitfield Range. Initially, like its near neighbour Stratford, a rural locality in Mulgrave Shire, postwar urbanisation began to fill in the area around the railway station. By the 1960s Stratford and Freshwater had merged together and they now constitute a single urban area, separated from Cairns city by the Mt Whitfield Range.