Flinders spoke highly of it '...The advantages to be obtained here by a ship are briefly these: shelter against all winds in the Investigator's Road, wood for fuel, fresh water and a tolerable abundance of fish and turtle ...'

Flinders was not the first 'deep water' sailorman to go ashore on Sweers Island for he found some evidence of another visit.

In his journal he noted '...a square piece of timber seven feet long, which was of teak wood, and according to the judgment of the carpenter had been a quarter deck carling of a ship, was thrown up on the western beach' and on 'Bentinck's Island I saw the stumps of at least twenty trees, which had been felled with an axe, or some sharp instrument of iron; and not far from the same place were scattered the broken remains of an earthen jar. Putting these circumstances together, it seemed probable that some ship from the East Indies had been wrecked here two or three years back. '

Before he left Sydney for his epic circumnavigation of the Australian continent, Flinders had been instructed by Governor King to ascertain whether or not Australia was a single continent or not.

As the Governor wrote to Sir Joseph Banks. There is a need to '...solve the doubt whether the mountains are separated from other parts of New Holland by a sea or a strait running from the Gulf of Carpentaria into the Southern Ocean which is a very favourite idea in this country.'

As a result of his observation from Inspection Hill on Sweers Island, Flinders was satisfied that no such channel existed. The only possibility of an inlet from the Gulf was that sketchily indicated on what Flinders called the 'old chart', but from Inspection Hill it was clear that it was only the channel between Sweers and Bentinck Islands and the distant mainland.

Later he enthusiastically promoted the name Australia for what he had proved to be a continent and not immense islands to be called New South Wales and New Holland.

As Flinders wrote '...It is necessary, however, to geographical precision, that so soon as New Holland and New South Wales were known to be one land, there should be a general name applicable to the whole.'

He then went on to say 'Had I permitted myself any innovation on the original term, it would be to convert it into Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and as an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.'

It is hereabouts, in the remote Gulf Country, that 'Australia' - a single name for an undivided land - became possible and by the efforts of Matthew Flinders was finally adopted.