West Wallabi Island
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Indian Ocean, off the coast of Western Australia |
| Coordinates | 28°27′55″S 113°41′41″E / 28.46528°S 113.69472°ECoordinates: 28°27′55″S 113°41′41″E / 28.46528°S 113.69472°E |
| Archipelago | Houtman Abrolhos |
| Area | 6.21 km2 (2.40 sq mi) |
| Coastline | 14.93 km (9.277 mi) |
| Administration | |
|
Australia
|
|
| State | Western Australia |
| Demographics | |
| Population | Uninhabited |
West Wallabi Island is an island in the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of mainland Australia.
West Wallabi Island was important in the story of the Batavia shipwreck and massacre. Following the shipwreck in 1629, a group of soldiers under the command of Wiebbe Hayes were put ashore there to search for water. A group of mutineers who took control of the other survivors left them there in the hope that they would starve or die of thirst. However the soldiers discovered that they could wade to East Wallabi Island, where there was a fresh water spring. Furthermore, West and East Wallabi Islands are the only islands in the group upon which the tammar wallaby lives. Thus the soldiers had access to sources of both food and water that were unavailable to the mutineers.
Later the mutineers mounted a series of attacks, which the soldiers beat off. The Weibbe Hayes Stone Fort, remnants of improvised defensive walls and stone shelters built by Wiebbe Hayes and his men on West Wallabi Island, are Australia's oldest known European structures, more than 150 years before expeditions to the Australian continent by James Cook and Arthur Phillip.
In the context of the Batavia mutiny and massacre, East Wallabi Island is often referred to as "Wiebbe Hayes' Island". This was the name given it in contemporary sources, and was used by historians as long as it remained a lost toponym.
Nominally located at 28°28′3″S 113°41′12″E / 28.46750°S 113.68667°E, West Wallabi Island is the largest island in the Houtman Abrolhos, with an area of 6.21 km² (about 2.5 sq miles) which is more than a third of the total land area of the archipelago. It is located in the north-west of the Wallabi Group, the northernmost of three island groups in the Houtman Abrolhos.
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