The human history of Western Australia commenced between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago with the arrival of Indigenous Australians on the northwest coast. The first inhabitants expanded across the east and south of the continent.
King George Sound is the name of a sound on the south coast of Western Australia. Originally named King George the Third's Sound, it was referred to as King George's Sound from 1805. The name "King George Sound" gradually came into use from about 1934, prompted by new Admiralty charts supporting the intention to eliminate the possessive 's' from geographical names.
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island, either to evade captors or the world in general. A person may also be left ashore as punishment (marooned).
Sir Charles Hardy Islands is in the reef of the same name adjacent to Pollard Channel & Blackwood Channel about 40 km east of Cape Grenville off Cape York Peninsula.
Neva was a three-masted barque launched in 1813. She made two voyages transporting convicts to Australia. On her second voyage carrying convicts she wrecked in Bass Strait on 13 May 1835. Her loss was one of the worst shipwrecks in Australian history; 224 lives were lost.
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.
SS Admella was an Australian passenger steamship that was shipwrecked on a submerged reef off the coast of Carpenter Rocks, south west of Mount Gambier South Australia, in the early hours of Saturday 6 August 1859. Survivors clung to the wreck for over a week and many people took days to die as they glimpsed the land from the sea and watched as one rescue attempt after another failed.
Frederick Reef is in the Coral Sea Islands, over 220 nautical miles (410 km) northeast of Gladstone, Queensland. The reef gets its name from Frederick, which first reported sighting the reef.
Saumarez Reef is one of the southernmost reefs to be located in the Coral Sea Islands and part of the Coral Sea Shelf; it contains three main reefs and numerous smaller reefs all of which form a large crescent-shaped formation open to the northwest, about 27 by 14 km, area less than 300 km².
Cato Reef, a part of Cato Bank, is an area in the Coral Sea off the central coast of Queensland, Australia.
Amity was a 148-ton brig used in several notable voyages of exploration and settlement in Australia in the early nineteenth century.
SS Ferret was an iron screw steamship of 460 tons built in Glasgow (Scotland) in 1871 by J & G Thomson, Glasgow.
The Arpenteur was a brig owned by William Owen and John Ridley. It was wrecked at Hassell Beach in Cheyne Bay near Cape Riche when a gale ran it ashore 7 November 1849.
Lady Lyttleton was a barque that sunk in the Emu Point Channel in Oyster Harbour near Albany in the Great Southern region of Western Australia.
Wave was a brig that was wrecked in 1848 at Cheynes Beach near Cape Riche, Western Australia.
Fanny Nicholson was an iron framed, timber clad barque that sank in 1872 in Frenchman's Bay in King George Sound near Albany in the Great Southern region of Western Australia.
The Newcastle was a clipper ship of the Green Blackwell line that operated on routes from England to India and Australia in the late 19th century. Built in 1857 in Sunderland, England, she was wrecked near the northern tip of Queensland, Australia, in 1883.
