What explorers explored Australia in the 16th and 17th Centuries?

Answer 1

After the Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1597, they went on to India, the East Indies, Spice Islands, Macao and Japan. They also set up a trading post in Timor in 1514. From here, expeditions were sent out. The extent of these is seen in the Dieppe Maps, which were based on Portuguese maps showing the northern and eastern coasts of Australia. A recorded exepedition in 1523 of three caravels under Mendonca sailed down the east coast, hoping to intercept Magellan, who was leading a Spanish expedion around the bottom of South America (Magellan evaded them by turning north and coming across to the Philippines). For example see map (Figure 8): http://www.surveyors.org.nz/Documents/Paper%202%20-%20R%20J%20King.pdf In 1606 The Duyfken charted the Gulf of Carpentaria giving the first written account of contact with the Australian continent. In the same year, Torres, a Portuguese in the employ of the Spanish governor of America, after an aborted expedition to New Caledonia, tried to return via the Philippines to the east of New Guinea but was prevented by contrary winds and sailed to its west, 'discovering' Torres Strait, though he already knew of its existence from the Portuguese discoveries. In 1616, Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog sailed too far whilst trying out Henderik Brouwer's recently discovered route from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, via the Roaring Forties. Reaching the western coast of Australia, he landed at Cape Inscription on 25 October 1616. In 1642, Abel Tasman discovered New Zealand, as well as a previously unknown island on his voyage past the "Great South Land", or "New Holland". Initially called Van Diemen's Land, this island later became Tasmania, one of the states of Australia. Dutch trading ships thereafter rode the westerly winds across the iandan Ocian, using the Western Australian coast as a truning point north to Batavia. Some were lost on the coast. In 1697, Dutch sailor Willem de Vlamingh reached "New Holland", as it was then called, charting the southwest coast of Western Australia. Thereafter other expeditions completed mapping of the western half of Australia. See map: http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/southland/ In 1699 Englishman William Dampier reached Dirk Hartog Island in Western Australia and followed the coast to Roebuck Bay an the Dampier Archipelago.