Which European " discovered" Australia - not Cook

[bob10]

March, 1606, William Janszoon , in command of 'Duyfken', charted 300 km. of the west coast of cape York peninusula, Qld. and is currently recognised as the first authentic European "discoverer" of Australia.[ It was here for a long time before that, as the beche-de-mer harvesters of Asia were aware] After Janszoon, came such Europeans as Torres, hartog, Pelsaert, Dampier and Cook. I'm sure I have looked over a replica of Duyfken, which was sailed around Aus. a couple of years ago, & if that is the same vessel that janszoon sailed from Europe, then I take my hat off to them. Bob

[Defender Mike]

Spanish captain Torres passed through the strait bearing his name in the same year 1606 on his way to Manila. A Spanish helmet is supposed to have been found in a cave on Prince of Wales island in the 1960's. How he knew he could pass through this treacherous area will remain a mystery but some believe he had maps from previous Spanish expiditions. My favorite explorer from this era is William Dampier and the stories of his voyages can be downloaded from the net for free. There were many visitors to The great south land before Captain Cook . I have stood on the cliffs at Steep Point across from Dirk Hartog island and imagined what Hartog and his crew must of thought of this land they had found. It hasnt changed much since those days . William Dampier found the locals a bit hostile and shot one this didnt do the ship wrecked crew of the Zuytdorp much good when they arrived a few years later and it appears they were all killed in a massive battle some miles inland . The leyland Brothers found the site on one of their first expeditions many skulls of both indigenous and european with either bullet or axe wounds depending on which team they batted for. Yes its an interesting place with many more wrecks and treasures to be found in the years to come.
Mike

[d3syd]

Those early explorers amaze me. What they did was akin to travelling to another planet. If something when wrong it was up to their own resourcefulness and wit to survive.

Just think what when through Cook's mind when he holed his boat off Cape Tribulation and had to limp into the Endevour River for repairs.

[bob10]

There is some speculation that China was here long before any of them. Gavin Menzies, in his book," 1421, The year China discovered Australia ", argues that point. Other scholars, however, dispute that. Bob

[bee utey]

The quibble is about the word "discovered". Cookie boy was the first to unambiguously map in detail enough of Australia to show its existence to the people who mattered, the English crown. I believe Cook would have carried maps from any earlier explorers with him. He was also the first explorer to carry chronometers to accurately set the longitude of the east coast. Others may have found bits of Oz but Cook discovered Oz in the military/political sense.

And to this day WA and QLD people imagine they are somehow different from the SE Australians because of these earlier lost and found attempts.

Also don't forget Matthew Flinders being the first person to map once around Australia and Tasmania, his map is the first to actually call this land "Australia".

[mojo]

And to this day WA and QLD people imagine they are somehow different from the SE Australians because of these earlier lost and found attempts.

Can't speak for the westerners, but I wouldn't necessarily say we Queenslanders think we're different from the rest of you lot. Just superior in every way (looks, intelligence, sporting prowess etc)

Cheers
Sean

[Ean Austral]

From what I have read , what Bee utey say is correct, the main reason Cook was so successful was that he worked out how to chart longitute, which enabled him to visit the same places time and time again. He was also very well respected by the native's of countries he visited because he was always generous with gifts if his ship and crew were looked after.

Captain Bligh, and mathew flinders learnt their trade of navigation from Cook and if you read what Bligh did when they were set adrift in the long boat from the mutinee on the bounty , it has to be 1 of the greatest feats of seamanship ever.

If you look at the charts that Flinders did on his trip around Australia, they are some of the most acurate Navigation charts ever produced. Remember he was only in his 20's when he did alot of that.

The main thing the Pom's also did was travel with a couple of war ships in their convoys and never hesitated to board vessels and remove the captains Charts of area's they hadn't been, so it wasn't all their own
doing.

You have to also admire the fact that when they set out on these journeys they did so with the knowledge they wouldn't be home for years, not month's or days as we do in todays society.

The Pom's also became known as Limey's because of Cook, as he was 1 of the only people who sailed with Lime's on a ship as he believed it would stop Scurvy, and low and behold, from what I have read, Cook never had crew suffer or die from scurvy.

Doesn't really matter who it was, you have to admire them all, as they definately came from the age when ," Ships were made of wood, and Men were made of Steel..

Cheers Ean

[wrinklearthur]

Can't speak for the westerners, but I wouldn't necessarily say we Queenslanders think we're different from the rest of you lot. Just superior in every way (looks, intelligence, sporting prowess etc)

Looking - for thinking intelligence - in - Queensland sporting prowess ?

[JDNSW]

There is some speculation that China was here long before any of them. Gavin Menzies, in his book," 1421, The year China discovered Australia ", argues that point. Other scholars, however, dispute that. Bob

Gavin's book is a very good example of using selective data and ignoring anything that does not fit your preconceived ideas. A couple of examples - in different parts of the book he postulates a higher sea level than at present, and a lower sea level - at the same time!

A further example of the strength of his evidence is that he claims that the Chinese discovered the gold fields in the Orange area by using the Hawkesbury - Nepean river system to penetrate the Great Dividing Range simply by sailing upstream. Anyone who is familiar with these rivers is aware just ludicrous this is.

It is quite possible, however, that Chinese did touch the Australian coast in this period, although there is little evidence to support it.

What Cook did was to map and describe the east coast, showing that it was a single large continent, and describing for the first time a part of Australia that had some attraction to Europeans. (The rest of the coast looks pretty miserable to anyone from Europe!)

It needs to be borne in mind that up until about Cook's time, the general attitude was that European explorer's results were considered state secrets. Which meant that many of the results were lost. This is particularly the case for Portugese explorers, where all reports, maps etc were legally required to be kept only in the state archives in Lisbon, which were totally destroyed in the 1755 earthquake. About the time of Cook, the British government realised that with British ships being dominant in trade, the advantage to the country of all these having good maps was greater than the disadvantage of potential enemies also having them, so publication of maps and exploration results was encouraged. With other countries not so open, the credit for 'discovery' generally went to the English explorers, similar to that for scientific discoveries, where the 'discovery' goes to the first to publish.

John

[Don 130]

And what about this? A mystery that still hasn't been adequately explaned.

The “Mahogany Ship” is one of Australia’s most intriguing and enduring shipwreck mysteries.

In 1836, two survivors of a capsized whaling boat reported sighting a large shipwreck in sand dunes between Warrnambool and Port Fairy. Shipwrecks were not unusual in the area at the time, but the reported construction of dark timber, possibly mahogany, and the ship’s hull design were vastly different from the vessels which sailed the local waters in the early 19th century.


Don.