page_title: European maritime exploration of Australia
section_title: Later exploration from the sea
hierarchical_section_title: European maritime exploration of Australia / Later exploration from the sea
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the explorer's route in Australia. Español: Mapa de las rutas de exploración de Phillip Parker King en Australia.
context_page_description: The maritime European exploration of Australia consisted of several waves of white European seafarers that sailed the edges of the Australian continent. Dutch navigators were the first Europeans known to have explored and mapped the Australian coastline. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. Dutch seafarers also visited the west and north coasts of the continent, as did French explorers.
  The most famous expedition was that of Royal Navy Lieutenant James Cook 164 years after Janszoon's sighting. After an assignment to make observations of the 1769 Venus Transit, Cook 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.
context_section_description: In 1796 (after settlement), British Matthew Flinders with George Bass took a small open boat, the Tom Thumb 1, and explored some of the coastline south of Sydney. He suspected from this voyage that Tasmania was an island, and in 1798 Bass and he led an expedition to circumnavigate it and hence prove his theory. The sea between mainland Australia and Tasmania was named Bass Strait. One of the two major islands in Bass Strait was later named Flinders Island by Philip Parker King. Flinders returned to England in 1801.
  Meantime, in October 1800, Frenchman Nicolas Baudin was selected to lead what has become known as the Baudin expedition to map the coast of Australia/New Holland.  He had two ships, Géographe and Naturaliste captained by Jacques Hamelin, and was accompanied by nine zoologists and botanists, including Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour. He reached Australia in May 1801, being the first to explore and map a part of the southern coast of the continent. The scientific expedition was a great success, with more than 2500 new species described. The French also met Indigenous people and treated them with high respect. Many Western Australian places still have French names today from Baudin's expedition (Peron Peninsula, Depuch Island, Cape Levillain, Boullanger Island and Faure Island); the Australian plant genus Guichenotia honours the name of Antoine Guichenot. In April 1802, the Le Naturaliste under Hamelin explored the area of Western Port, Victoria, and gave names to places, a number of which have survived. Ile des Français is now called French Island.
  Flinders' work came to the attention of many of the scientists of the day, in particular the influential Sir Joseph Banks, to whom Flinders dedicated his Observations on the Coasts of Van Diemen's Land, on Bass's Strait, etc.. Banks used his influence with Earl Spencer to convince the Admiralty of the importance of an expedition to chart the coastline of New Holland. As a result, in January 1801, Flinders was given command of HMS Investigator, a 334-ton sloop, and promoted to commander the following month.
  Investigator set sail for New Holland on 18 July 1801. Attached to the expedition was the botanist Robert Brown, botanical artist Ferdinand Bauer, and landscape artist William Westall. Due to the scientific nature of the expedition, Flinders was issued with a French passport, despite England and France then being at war. Flinders first sailed along the south coast to Sydney, then completed the circumnavigation of Australia back to Sydney.
  While each was charting Australia's coastline, Baudin and Flinders met by chance in April 1802 in Encounter Bay in what is now South Australia. Baudin stopped at the settlement of Sydney for supplies. In Sydney he bought a new ship, the Casuarina, a smaller vessel which could conduct close inshore survey work, under the command of Louis de Freycinet. He sent home the larger Naturaliste with all the specimens that had been collected by Baudin and his crew. He then headed for Tasmania and conducted further charting of Bass Strait before sailing west, following the west coast northward, and after another visit to Timor, undertook further exploration along the north coast of Australia. Plagued by contrary winds and ill health, it was decided on 7 July 1803 to return to France. The expedition stopped at Mauritius, where he died of tuberculosis  on 16 September 1803. The expedition finally came back to France on 24 March 1804. According to researchers from the University of Adelaide, during this expedition Baudin prepared a report for Napoleon on ways to invade and capture the British colony at Sydney Cove.
  The British suspected that the reason for Baudin's expedition was to try to establish a French colony on the coast of New Holland. In response, the Lady Nelson and the whaler Albion, both commanded by Lieutenant John Bowen, sailed from Port Jackson on 31 August 1803 to establish a settlement in Van Diemen's Land, and on 10 October 1803 a convoy of two ships HMS Calcutta and Ocean led by Captain David Collins carrying 402 people e
caption: Voyages of Phillip Parker King
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