Why go
Coastal names become more revealing once you know the sequence of European voyages. Willem Janszoon's documented landing, Dirk Hartog's stop near Shark Bay and Abel Tasman's journeys came before Cook's east-coast survey. The account is about European mapping of a continent already inhabited by Aboriginal peoples.
The full story
The Dutch ship Duyfken, commanded by Willem Janszoon, made the first documented European landing in Australia in 1606. In the same year, Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through the strait north of the continent. Dutch routes to the East Indies then brought further encounters with Australia's coast. Dirk Hartog landed on an island off Shark Bay in 1616. The ship Leeuwin rounded the southwest corner in the 1620s, leaving its name at Cape Leeuwin. Dutch expeditions also charted northern waters, including the Gulf of Carpentaria. Abel Tasman's 1642 voyage reached what Europeans called Van Diemen's Land, later Tasmania; his second voyage added observations of the northern coast. In 1769 James Cook sailed to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus. His subsequent voyage surveyed the east coast, the major section not yet charted by Dutch navigators. These journeys expanded European maps and later colonial ambitions. They did not mark the beginning of knowledge or life on the continent.