Social history since colonisation: Explorers
The Chinese, Malays and Portuguese all claim to have been the first non-Aboriginal explorers of Australia's north coast. The first surviving written account comes, however, from the Dutch. In 1623 Jan Carstenzoon made his way west across the Gulf of Carpentaria to discover Arnhem's or Speult's Island (believed to be Groote Eylandt). One of the two vessels under his command was the Arnhem.
Abel Tasman was the next documented explorer to visit this part of the coast on his voyage from Cape York to Shark Bay in 1644. He mapped the eastern opening of Van Diemen's Gulf and was the first person to record European contact with the Aboriginal people of the region.
The next explorer to venture into the region was Matthew Flinders. He surveyed the western shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1802 and 1803. Flinders was not impressed with the country and he found the natives he encountered hostile. He does record more favourably his contact with Macassan fisherman.
The first English navigator to enter the Gulf of Carpentaria was Phillip Parker King. Between 1818 and 1822 he made a number of coastal voyages, during which he explored and named the three Alligator Rivers after the large numbers of crocodiles, which he mistook for alligators. He was generally unenthusiastic about the region, finding the country low, dreary and flat, although the mangroves supported vast numbers of waterbirds. He saw no Aboriginal people but noted their fires.
Ludwig Leichhardt was the first land-based European explorer to visit the Kakadu region, in 1845 on his route from Moreton Bay in Queensland to Port Essington in the Northern Territory. He followed a creek down from the Arnhem Land escarpment, then went down the South Alligator before crossing to the East Alligator and proceeding north. Leichhardt showed remarkable skill in finding his way through unknown country. On 26 November 1845 he recorded the return to camp by one of his party, accompanied by a 'whole tribe of natives'. They were armed with small goose spears, and with flat wommalas; but, although they were extremely noisy, they did not show the slightest hostile intention. One of them had a shawl and neckerchief of English manufacture; and another carried an iron tomahawk, which he said he got from north-west by north.
In 1862 John McDouall Stuart travelled along the south-western boundary of Kakadu but did not see any people.
In 1866 John McKinlay set out from Escape Cliffs on an expedition that lasted six months and is recorded as a complete fiasco. The party travelled south and east, possibly as far as the East Alligator River. Hampered by rising waters and boggy conditions caused by a severe wet season, they were forced to retreat. After killing and skinning their horses they built a raft using the skins and rafted along the river to the coast and on to Escape Cliffs.
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