Willem+Janszoon

Willem Janszoon (sometimes spelt Jansz) (c. 1570–1630) was a Dutch navigator and he was the first European known to have seen the coast of Australia. In 1606 he made the first recorded European landing on the Australian continent, but he did not know that he had done this. He thought he was in New Guinea.

In 1603 he set sail aboard the //Duyfken// (or //Duijfken//, meaning “Little Dove”), and went to search for new places to trade in New Guinea and other places which the Dutch thought existed but did not know where they were.
 * First voyage to Australia**

From New Guinea Janszoon sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria on the northern tip of Queensland. In 1606 he became the first European to set foot on Australian land when he landed on the western shore of Cape York in Queensland, near where Weipa is now.

Janszoon did not realise he had discovered the Australian continent. He mapped the coastline, but he thought it was part of New Guinea because he had missed the Torres Strait, the body of water in between New Guinea and Australia. But his map, the Duyfken chart, was used by other Dutch mapmakers to show part of Australia for the very first time. Dutch maps from then on always made the mistake of joining New Guinea to Australia.

Janszoon was not very impressed with this new land. The land was swampy and some of his men were killed by Aborigines when they went ashore at Cape Keerweer (“Turnabout”), south of Albatross Bay. There were no towns, cities or roads and he did not find anything to trade.

So he went back to Bantam in the Dutch East Indies (now called Indonesia.) He decided to call the land he had discovered Zeeland, but nobody took any notice and later on Abel Tasman used it to name New Zealand.

In 1618 Janszoon said that he had landed on an island at 22° South. He did not sail all the way round it, so he did not know that it was actually the North West Coast of Australia.
 * Second voyage to Australia**

You can read more about Janszoon at the [|VOC Historical Society website.]