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The Torres Strait - named for its original discoverer, Spanish explorer Luis Vaez de Torres, in 1606 -
is a body of water between Australia and Papua New Guinea
where the Pacific and Indian Oceans meet and where there are 133 islands,
sandy cays and rocky outcrops of which 38 are inhabited. The population
of the Torres Strait at the last Census totalled 8.679 people. As the
only part of Australia with an active international border and where a
neighbouring country is visible from the shoreline, the Torres Strait has
gained a strategic focus with regard to customs, quarantine, immigration
and defence. (Saibai Island is just 3.6 km from PNG and as far north as
one can go without a passport.)
As the crow flies
Thursday Island is 3000 kilometres from Sydney and approximately 550 kilometres from Port
Moresby in Papua New Guinea and less than 320 kilometres from the coast of Irian Jaya.
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