out by Captain Francis Price Blackwood on HMS Fly and Captain Charles Yule who commanded HMS Bramble.
In 1844 and 1846, Ludwig Leichhardt and Thomas Mitchell explored what would later become Rockhampton, noting the quality of grazing lands in the district.
In 1853, brothers William and Charles Archer followed in the footsteps of Leichhardt and Mitchell. They settled in Gracemere, twelve kilometres west of the present day City of Rockhampton. By 1858, the town of Rockhampton was officially proclaimed, and settlement began in earnest. The following year, gold was discovered at Canoona, approximately 50 kilometres north, and also due west of Shoalwater Bay on the northern end of what would later become known as the Capricorn Coast.
Settlement
In 1860, European settlers began claiming land in the Shoalwater/Byfield area. In 1865, the Ross family, the first whites laid claim to large tracts of land. Andrew Ross and his sons, Robert and James soon owned most of the seafront land from Raspberry Creek near Byfield to the Fitzroy River, an area that nowadays constitutes most of the Capricorn Coast. Robert Ross, who would go on to both fame and infamy, set himself up at present-day Taranganba. He set aside a reserve a few kilometres north and named it Bald Hills.
In 1867, the town reserve was surveyed then proclaimed as suitable for settlement. The Government Surveyor reported the site as "Yapoon, a spot northward of Emu Park about nine miles, was most suitable as a watering place." The name, especially given its definition, is believed to have come from the Darumbal people, the indigenous tribe local to the region. Indeed, on the western fringe of Rockhampton City, an expansive wetlands system was named Yeppen-Yeppen Lagoon. On that basis, the etymology of the two districts is believed to be the same.
Initial settlement was slow however. Though intended to become a township, the region's rich soils attracted
