The maritime European exploration of Australia consisted of several waves of European seafarers who sailed the edges of the Australian continent. Dutch navigators were the first Europeans known to have explored and mapped the Australian coastline. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. Dutch seafarers also visited the west and north coasts of the continent, as did French explorers.
Dirk Hartog Island is an island off the Gascoyne coast of Western Australia, within the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. It is about 80 kilometres long and between 3 and 15 kilometres wide and is Western Australia's largest and most western island. It covers an area of 620 square kilometres and is approximately 850 kilometres north of Perth. It was named after Dirk Hartog, a Dutch sea captain, who first encountered the Western Australian coastline close to the 26th parallel south latitude, which runs through the island. After leaving the island, Hartog continued his voyage north-east along the mainland coast. Hartog gave the Australian mainland one of its earliest known names, as Eendrachtsland, which he named after his ship Eendracht, meaning "concord". The island is now the location of a major environmental reconstruction project, Return to 1616, that has seen all introduced livestock and feral animals removed, with eleven native species now in various stages of reintroduction.
Duyfken, also in the form Duifje or spelled Duifken or Duijfken, was a small ship built in the Dutch Republic. She was a fast, lightly armed ship probably intended for shallow water, small valuable cargoes, bringing messages, sending provisions, or privateering. The tonnage of Duyfken has been given as 25-30 lasten.
HMAS Encounter was a second-class protected cruiser of the Challenger class operated by the Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Australian Navy (RAN). She was built by HM Dockyard Devonport and completed at the end of 1905.
The Mahogany Ship refers to a putative early Australian shipwreck that is believed by some to lie beneath the sand in the Armstrong Bay area, approximately 3 to 6 kilometres west of Warrnambool in southwest Victoria, Australia. In many modern accounts it is described as a Spanish or Portuguese caravel after the wreck was associated with the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia by Kenneth McIntyre in his 1977 book The Secret Discovery of Australia. The most recent research has questioned this theory and provided other explanations.
Makassar people from the region of Sulawesi in Indonesia began visiting the coast of northern Australia sometime around the middle of the 18th century, first in the Kimberley region, and some decades later in Arnhem Land. They were men who collected and processed trepang, a marine invertebrate prized for its culinary value generally and for its supposed medicinal properties in Chinese markets. The term Makassan is generally used to apply to all the trepangers who came to Australia.
The theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia claims that early Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans to sight Australia between 1521 and 1524, well before the arrival of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606 on board the Duyfken who is generally considered to be the first European discoverer. While lacking evidence, this theory is based on the following:
Over 1400 ships have been wrecked on the coast of Western Australia. This relatively large number of shipwrecks is due to a number of factors, including:
Tryall was a British East India Company-owned East Indiaman launched in 1621. She was under the command of John Brooke when she was wrecked on the Tryal Rocks off the north-west coast of Western Australia in 1622. Her crew were the first Englishmen to sight or land on Australia. The wreck is Australia's oldest known shipwreck.
Whaling was one of the first viable industries established in the Swan River Colony following the 1829 arrival of British settlers to Western Australia. The industry had numerous ups and downs until the last whaling station closed in Albany in 1978.
Pearling in Western Australia includes the harvesting and farming of both pearls and pearl shells along the north-western coast of Western Australia.
Lantaka or rentaka was a type of bronze portable cannon or swivel gun, sometimes mounted on merchant vessels and warships in Maritime Southeast Asia. It was commonly equipped by native seafaring vessels from Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Malaysia. Lela and rentaka are known by the Malays as meriam kecil, the difference is that rentaka is smaller in length and bore than a lela.
The Carron is a river in central Scotland, rising in the Campsie Fells and flowing along Strathcarron into the Firth of Forth. It has given its name to several locations in Stirlingshire, as well as a type of cannon, a line of bathtubs, two warships, and an island in the Southern Hemisphere.
Beyond Capricorn: How Portuguese adventurers secretly discovered and mapped Australia and New Zealand 250 years before Captain Cook is a 2007 book by journalist Peter Trickett on the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia. Although its thesis is similar to that advanced by Kenneth McIntyre in 1977, Lawrence Fitzgerald in 1984 and others, the publisher and some news reports presented it as being a new theory on the discovery of Australia.
Drysdale River is a river in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Lady Elizabeth was a British ship built in 1869 by Robert Thompson Jr. of Sunderland. Robert Thompson Jr. was one of the sons of Robert Thompson Sr. who owned and operated the family ran shipyard J. L. Thompson & Sons. Thompson Jr. eventually left the family business in 1854 to start his own shipbuilding business in Southwick, Sunderland. She was 658 tons and was classified as a barque cargo sailing ship with one deck and three masts. She had a keel and outer planking made from American rock elm and a fore end made from English elm. The stem was made of teak and English oak with an iron floor as the deck. The ship also had copper and iron fastings. The ships was also registered in London under the name Wilson & Co. Messrs Wilson & Co. was based out of Sydney, Australia. The ship carried a comparative classification under American Lloyd's as "First class-third grade"
Louis Francois Marie Aleno de Saint Aloüarn was a notable French Navy officer and explorer.
The Australian Netherlands Committee on Old Dutch Shipwrecks (ANCODS) is an organization tasked with maintaining and allocating artefacts from 17th and 18th century Dutch shipwrecks off the coast of Western Australia. It was founded in 1972 by the Agreement between Australia and the Netherlands Concerning Old Dutch Shipwrecks.
The HMS Investigator Anchors are the two anchors that jettisoned from HMS Investigator on the morning of Saturday, 21 May 1803, by her commander, Matthew Flinders, in order to avoid running aground on Middle Island in the Archipelago of the Recherche on the south coast of New Holland. In 1973, the anchors were located and recovered by members of the Underwater Explorers Club of South Australia (UEC). The recovered anchors became the subject of an ownership dispute between various governments, particularly those of South Australia and Western Australia due to their historic significance as artefacts of a major voyage of European exploration. The dispute was resolved with the ownership of the anchors going to the Australian Government who subsequently gifted one of the anchors to the South Australian Government. The pair of artefacts is also known as Flinders' Anchors.
The Cetbang refers to cannons produced and used by the Majapahit Empire (1293–1527) and other kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago. There are 2 main types of cetbang: the eastern-style cetbang which looks like a Chinese cannon and is loaded from the front, and the western-style cetbang which is shaped like a Turkish and Portuguese cannon, loaded from the back.
