I'd find it more believable that the Portugese made it to Shark Bay WA or thereabouts then disappeared. Missing records are a bit like the dog ate my homework... it's too convenient. Perhaps the Vic mahogany ship sketches were drawn from the memory of others, like police identikit images. A parallel example is aboriginal recollections of Vic volcanoes; I think later arrivals implanted the idea and the prior inhabitants obliged with stories.

I'm amazed Abel Tasman walked 40 km through horizontal scrub to near Zeehan Tas, named after one of his ships. No trinkets but better documentation.

A secret map which "bears little resemblance to the shape of the east coast that we're well acquainted with today."

"...the lintel stone mentioned above – to McIntyre's great dismay – went missing."

Speaks volumes...

As interesting as this is? Australia was discovered and settled by other folks over 60,000 years ago. There were other waves of settlers who came in waves of migration a long ago as 12-14,000 years ago.

We were fortunate that the English got here before the French, established an English colony. Had the French not been outsmarted by a very astute Cook, this place could've become a French possession?

Given that possibility? The second world war, the defeat of the French by the Germans, who knows what that would have meant for the indigenous population?

I mean, we would've been seen by the master race, who slaughtered 6 million Jews, as vermin? Would have treated us we far less humanity or respect!? Than the invaders!?

This possibility should inform us that it's past time for a treaty, recognition and a truth and reconciliation outcome. A bill of irrevocable rights!

Once the pages of history are accurately recorded, based on proven factual information, not he said, she said humbug, we just might be able to get over ourselves and our alleged history!

Replete with colour coded infanticide, tribal wars/intertribal massacres, rape and worse. Like, say child sexual abuse as part of a clung to, primitive culture/elitist lawgivers.

Let's get it all out there rather than cherry-picked subjectively selected colour coded, (reverse apartied) atrocities?

Portuguese, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Timorese, What of it!?

That was then, a vastly different world that bears little if any resemblance to today's world.

The new invaders are pathogens carried here from the four corners of the globe, and completely indifferent to whomsoever they target for extermination!

Let's not limit the truth-telling to the last 200 years/white-based crimes/atrocities. Remembering the first wave of white settlement was as walking corpses in iron manacles.

Who wanted to be here with all the fervour and conviction of wanting a hole in the head. These then were the invaders who did to us what we'd already done to each other and worse, long before a man named Cook set foot on this land.
Alan B.

Dear Alan B,

You write; "Given that possibility? The second world war, the defeat of the French by the Germans, who knows what that would have meant for the indigenous population?"

Well the French ultimately gave up their colonies as did most of the other colonising nations. The record show the English tended to hold on to them and never leave. Australia, USA, New Zealand, Canada etc. The case could be made that the indigenous population would have fared markedly better.

As to a wave of imports 12 to 13,000 years ago it didn't happen. Studies on the indigenous Y chromosome show the following;

"The first complete sequences of the Y chromosomes of Aboriginal Australian men have revealed a deep indigenous genetic history tracing all the way back to the initial settlement of the continent 50 thousand years ago, according to a study published in the journal Current Biology today (25th February 2016).

The study by researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and collaborators at La Trobe University in Melbourne and several other Australian institutes, challenges a previous theory that suggested an influx of people from India into Australia around 4-5 thousand years ago. This new DNA sequencing study focused on the Y chromosome, which is transmitted only from father to son, and found no support for such a prehistoric migration. The results instead show a long and independent genetic history in Australia."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/wtsi-gr5022316.php

Steele it’s ok it’s just another lie from Alan, he has been outed for lying on numerous article posts he has made Recently.

Alan likes to think he knows all by posting long boring waffle that few people are interested in reading again and again.

Alan, I am still waiting for you to give evidence on your ‘space age’ lie detection equipment, perhaps you could oblige or is that just another lie amongst so many others?
Galen

It has also been argued, and as the Portuguese were the best European navigators and seafarers up to that time not unlikely, that the Portuguese were well aware of the existence of Brazil well prior to the treaty of Tordesillas.

Ateday,

Columbus sailed on all the eastern Atlantic seas from Iceland and the Baltic down to the Gulf of Benin, and it's possible that he sailed across to Brazil and back to Spain.

As for the Portuguese sailing along Australia's southern coast: somewhere in the archives (I've typed it up but can't locate the reference), there is mention in the 1850s of ruins found on the Narrung Peninsula, alongside Lake Alexandrina. Of course, they could have been ruins built originally by marauders before 1830 based on Kangaroo Island.

Or of course, ruins of Aboriginal farming towns.

Joe

Steele, it's not what the french may have done or how late they did it Hypotheritically?

But rather what use the Germans would, could have made of this land and her resources as the midterm blitzkrieg victors and one wonders how long the Brits would have lasted without their southern larder and our pilots etc

. As a French colony, one wonders how far the brits would have gone to save us from the excesses of the Nazis and Nippon? I mean how much did they value the indigenous population back then, the average white Aussie?

Galen: Oh yes mate, we do have unbeatable space age lie detection and it can be deployed covertly! And that's where you and yours get your comeuppance! And can't come too soon, if it hasn't already? Heh, heh.
Alan B.

Alan again you have failed to provide any evidence to support your claims. As far as I can tell this is just further evidence of your inability to back up your wild claims, vis just another lie from you and more evidence of your dishonesty. You should be ashamed of yourself.

To the subject at hand there are claims Chinese mariners sailed the waters of Australia up to 1000 years ago! Here is but one link worth reading http://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/08/12/did-chinese-mariners-reach-australia-before-the-europeans/%3foutputType=amp

It was also mentioned somewhere else the same fleet also visited New Zealand.
Galen

Galen,

Given the earlier massive expansion of the Indian Saka empire after about 70 AD, all across south-east Asia to the Philippines, is it also possible that Indian traders/sailors sighted Australia a thousand years before the Chinese ? There is an old Hindu temple near what is now Manila.

Come to think of it, Cheng Ho visited a mosque in Canton before his voyages, around 1420: mosques in southern China - does this mean that the Arabs discovered China ?

And before them, the Austronesians, the ancestors from what is now south-eastern China and Taiwan of the Polynesians, perhaps four thousand years ago ?

Joe

"A common feature or all Portuguese exploratory voyages was to establish a 'wintering post' or some sort of temporary settlement with a fort and storage facility, close to the next geographical segment of their mission. They did this at Bittangabee Bay...."

I'm very familiar with Bittangabee. I used to camp there in the national park every Christmas and Easter for about 20 years. Proper camping - no fresh water, no toilets, no shower, open fire, collect your own fuel. Walk about 2km to a fresh water creek to have a bit of a bathe. Nothing like the glamping they do these days.

Anyway, I've visited the so-called Portuguese ruins. Its origin is in the eye of the beholder but the locals know it was built around 1844. But it is possible that it was built using stones worked by previous visitors.

I'm sure the author is utterly convinced about the story of Portuguese visitors but it is highly disputed and his essay would have been a lot better if that was at least acknowledged.

There's lots about it around if you want to ferret it out. Most of it was pre-digital so is in hard copy. I have a couple of printed essays and I'm sure the local libraries would source things for you. But Wikipedia has a reasonable summary of the problems with the theory.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_Portuguese_discovery_of_Australia#Bittangabee_Bay

I'm not saying its definitely wrong. Its one of those things you'd really like to be true, but probably isn't. The consequences either way are nil so just fun to speculate.

Whether Cook was the first on the east coast or 15th is really by-the-by. He was the first to bring back usable data that was used. The first non-aboriginals to see Botany Bay may have been Portuguese or Spanish or Dutch or Chinese or Indonesian. But the first to see it and have their observation acted on was Cook. That's his legacy vis-a-vis this nation.

Early Portuguese & Spanish charts appear to show more detail of NE Australia than mere guesswork !

There is a theory that Cook had a map of the East Coast as, when his ship hit the reef and needed urgent repairs, he didn't look for a safe anchorage to the South, where he had already sailed, but went North into presumably unknown waters and just happened to sail into a safe place to careen the ship.

Seems like a bit of a wild gamble for a very experienced seaman.

Is Mise,
There was simply no way the ENDEAVOUR could have sailed 'back'. The trade winds don't permit that. That Cook either knew or had a chart of Torres Strait is almost certain but he never did claim to have discovered the gap, he confirmed it !
I found some Pig iron ballast blocks that were jettisoned from the ENDEAVOUR & they were on display at a mate's museum for years & eventually EHP took them because they were historical & locked them away in a shed & I was later informed that there was no treatment & they simply crumbled away to nothing !
He went into the Endeavour River because the Pinnaces scouted ahead to look for a sheltered place & found there.
There was also a very old anchor at Cape York & because it was below high tide it was preserved by being frequently inundated by sea water. When some Army blokes took it back to their barracks it lasted about 4 months before it too crumbled to nothing.

individual,

Thanks for that, it seems quite logical.

I'm pleased to report that I saw a lot of new coral growth today from shallow to 15 metres.
Water temperature at half a metre was 33degrees & at 3 metres 30 degrees C.
Nice & pleasant at depth but uncomfortable at the surface.

Galen

As a wouldbe card carrying member of the RSPCA and not wanting to be agist, we need to be kind to Alan B.

On account of his childlike wonderment about technology which mixes hope (in his dotage) with science fiction.

Yes Alan's verbose comments (straining for the 350 word max) may seem like a comment thread infestation to many,

well most...

But we should humour the old bugger - as his next comment may be his last. A relief to many...well most.

On Alan's " ‘space age’ lie detection equipment" intonations. I agree with you. Such equipment doesn't exist.

Australia is not known to use lie detectors, old or new, due to the subjectivity of human operators and too many false positives.

Also in open sources (like "Berlin Station") "good" spooks/moles (eg. from training by SVR, FSB and GRU, etc) are taught to beat the machines by heartrate-reducing-breathing, visualisation techniques, even tightening their anuses (see "The Americans") and anticipating the "tough" questions.

So the RSPCA
Says "be kind to Alan today"

Pete,
Thanks I do try but old Alan just keeps on keeping on!

I will call him out until he gets it right, here’s hoping ;-)
Galen

On another intelligence issue - Bernard Collaery and Witness K happenings:

The Canberra Times, March 19, 2020 reports http://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6686921/coronavirus-concerns-could-delay-collaery-case/

TITLE "Coronavirus concerns could delay Bernard Collaery case"

"Concerns about the coronavirus pandemic could delay the case of a Canberra lawyer accused of breaching national security laws.

Bernard Collaery is fighting allegations that he conspired with the former spy known as Witness K to reveal classified information about a secret operation in which Australian Secret Intelligence Service spies bugged East Timor's cabinet room during sensitive oil and gas negotiations.

At a pre-trial hearing in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday, Mr Collaery's barrister, Phillip Boulten SC...said he was not yet making a formal application to vacate a scheduled April hearing, but he was "alive to the issues confronting this court because of the coronavirus".

He said one of his instructing solicitors was already unable to participate in court proceedings because of the pandemic, while Mr Collaery would rely upon domestic and international witnesses who might not be able to get to Canberra.

...Mr Collaery's defence intends to call evidence from a range of witnesses including former East Timorese presidents Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos-Horta.

...Mr Boulten made reference to the "drastic measures" many courts had taken to combat the spread of COVID-19. He gave examples including the High Court, which will not sit in Canberra or on circuit between April and June.

Barrister Jeremy Kirk SC, for the Commonwealth Attorney-General, told Justice Mossop...that if the court went down the path of requiring witnesses to give evidence from remote locations rather than in person, there would be difficulties.

Much of the evidence would touch on national security issues, and Mr Kirk expressed doubt as to whether audio-visual link and telephone arrangements would suffice given the sensitivity of these issues..."

See the whole 715 word article at http://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6686921/coronavirus-concerns-could-delay-collaery-case/