page_title: List of Dutch explorations
section_title: Pennefather River, Northern Australia (1606)
hierarchical_section_title: List of Dutch explorations / Explorations / Voyages of discovery / Pennefather River, Northern Australia (1606)
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a photo of the relica of the Duyfkenunder sail, taken around 2006. The original Duyfken was commanded by Willem Janszoon as was the first European ship to have contact with Australia, in 1606, when they charted 300 kilometres of west Cape York.
context_page_description: The Netherlands had a considerable part in the making of modern society. The Netherlands and its people have made numerous seminal contributions to the world's civilization, especially in art, science, technology and engineering, economics and finance, cartography and geography, exploration and navigation, law and jurisprudence, thought and philosophy, medicine, and agriculture. Dutch-speaking people, in spite of their relatively small number, have a significant history of invention, innovation, discovery and exploration. The following list is composed of objects, unknown lands, breakthrough ideas/concepts, principles, phenomena, processes, methods, techniques, styles etc., that were discovered or invented by people from the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking people from the former Southern Netherlands. Until the fall of Antwerp, the Dutch and Flemish were generally seen as one people.
context_section_description: The Dutch ship, Duyfken, led by Willem Janszoon, made the first documented European landing in Australia in 1606. Although a theory of Portuguese discovery in the 1520s exists, it lacks definitive evidence. Precedence of discovery has also been claimed for China, France, Spain, India, and even Phoenicia.
  The Janszoon voyage of 1605–06 led to the first undisputed sighting of Australia by a European was made on 26 February 1606. Dutch vessel Duyfken, captained by Janszoon, followed the coast of New Guinea, missed Torres Strait, and explored perhaps 350 kilometres (220 mi) of western side of Cape York, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, believing the land was still part of New Guinea. The Dutch made one landing, but were promptly attacked by Maoris and subsequently abandoned further exploration.
  The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, and made landfall on 26 February at the Pennefather River near the modern town of Weipa on Cape York. The Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent "New Holland" during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement.
caption: Duyfken replica under sail. The first documented and undisputed European sighting of and landing on Australia was in late February or early March 1606, by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard the Duyfken. Australia is more than three times the size of Greenland, the world's largest island. Australia is sometimes dubbed "The Island Continent", and sometimes accorded the role of "Earth’s largest island but smallest continent".
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