Exploration of Australia

The European exploration of Australia was the exploration of Australia by Europeans or white explorers, encompassing several waves of seafarers and land explorers. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. Dutch seafarers visited the west and north coasts of the continent, as did French explorers.

However, the most famous of the explorers was that of Royal Navy Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook 164 years after the Janszoon's sighting, who after an assignment to make observations of the 1769 Venus Transit, followed Admiralty instructions to explore the south Pacific for the reported Terra Australis and on 19 April 1770 sighted the south-eastern coast of Australia and became the first recorded European to explore the eastern coastline. Explorers by land and sea continued to survey the continent for some years after settlement.

Some writers have advanced the theory that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to sight Australia in the 1520s.

A number of relics and remains have been interpreted as evidence that the Portuguese reached Australia. The primary evidence advanced to support this theory is the representation of the continent of Jave la Grande, which appears on a series of French world maps, the Dieppe maps, and that may, in part, be based on Portuguese charts. However, most historians do not accept this theory, and the interpretation of the Dieppe maps is highly contentious.

The French navigator Binot Paulmier de Gonneville claimed to have landed at a land he described as "east of the Cape of Good Hope" in 1504, after being blown off course. For some time it had been thought he discovered Australia, but the place he landed has now been shown to be Brazil (which is north-west of the Cape).

The most significant exploration of Australia in the 17th century was by the Dutch. The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, "VOC", "United East India Company") was set up in 1602 and traded extensively with the islands which now form parts of Indonesia, and hence were very close to Australia already. The first documented and undisputed European sighting of and landing on Australia was in late February or early March 1606, by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard the Duyfken. Janszoon followed the coast of New Guinea, missed Torres Strait, and explored and then charted part of the western side of Cape York, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, believing the land was still part of New Guinea. On 26 February 1606, Janszoon and his party made landfall near the modern town of Weipa and the Pennefather River, but were promptly attacked by the Indigenous people. Janszoon proceeded down the coast for some 350 km. He stopped in some places, but was met by hostile natives and some of his men were killed. At the final place, he initially had friendly relations with the natives, but after he forced them to hunt for him and appropriated some of their women, violence broke out and there were many deaths on both sides. These events were recorded in Aboriginal oral history that has come down to the present day. Here Janszoon decided to turn back, the place later being called Cape Keerweer, Dutch for "turnabout".

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