Situated a few kilometres south of the central business district of Sydney, Botany Bay was the site of a landing by James Cook of the HMS Endeavour in 1770. Cook's landing here marked the beginning of Britain's interest in Australia and in the eventual colonisation of this new Southern continent. In modern times the Bay is chiefly known for being the site of Kingsford Smith International Airport, Australia's largest airport. The land around the headlands of the bay is protected as Botany Bay National Park. Also within Botany Bay is Towra Point Nature Reserve.
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Located on the extreme north west corner of Australia, Dirk Hartog Island is situated between Shark Bay and the Indian Ocean. Though an isolated location, it is a significance corner in Australia's history in that it was here that two Dutchmen left pewter plates recording of their visits in 1616 and 1696; two French explorers fell out in 1801 over the ethics of removing the plates and taking them back to France; and 29 years earlier another Frenchman had claimed the place for France, leaving a bottle recording the event. It was to remain buried in the sand of Turtle Bay until 1988 when it was recovered by an expedition of the WA Maritime Museum.
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The sheltered bay on which Victor Harbor in South Australia stands was entered by Matthew Flinders in the HMS Investigator on 8 April 1802. Flinders was surveying the then-unknown South Australian coast, approaching it from the west. Much to his surprise, he then encountered Nicolas Baudin in Le Geographe near the Murray River mouth several kilometres to the east of the present day location Victor Harbor. Le Geographe, a corvette, had become separated from her consort, Le Naturaliste in a gale in Bass Strait.
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Tasmania's Bruny Island in general and Adventure Bay in particular is steeped in the rich history of Australia's early explorers, its convict past and the whaling industry which flourished in the early days. Long used by the Nuenonne band of the South East Tribe of Aborigines Adventure Bay was first sighted by Europeans when Abel Tasman arrived in November 1642. His ships, the Zeehan and Heenskerck, briefly entered Adventure Bay but fierce storms prevented him from landing. Adventure Bay is named after HMS Adventure. Captain Tobias Furneaux was in command of HMS Adventure when he visited and named the bay in March 1777.
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55 kilometres due west from the WA town of Geraldton is a unique group of islands, reefs and lagoons located near the Australian continental shelf-edge. These islands, known as the Abrolhos Islands or Houtman's Abrolhos, are the most southerly true coral reefs to be found in the Indian Ocean.The islands were named by Frederick de Houtman, a Dutch sea captain who sailed along the Western coast of Australia en route to Batavia (known today as Jakarta in Indonesia) in 1618.
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Possession Island, known to the local Kaurareg Aboriginal peoples as Bedanug, is a small and seemingly insignificant island of the tip of Cape York, the most northerly point of mainland Australia. It was here, just before sunset on Wednesday 22nd August 1770, that British navigator Lieut. James Cook came ashore and took possession of the east coast of Australia under the name of South Wales (he later amended it to New South Wales), for the King of England, His Majesty King George III, and set in motion a series of events that resulted in the establishment of the colony of New South Wales and later the commonwealth of Australia. A cairn marks the location.
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Located between Princess Royal Habrour and King George Sound near Albany, Western Australia, Possession Point on Vancouver Peninsula is the place where, on 29th September 1791, Captain George Vancouver took possession of Western Australia to as far east as Esperance. The locality is marked with a cairn documenting the event. It has far greater significance in the history of Australia than most people realise. Vancouver had travelled all the way from the west coast of America to the south west corner of the Australian continent just to claim a section of it for the British crown. Having done that, he promptly headed back into the Pacific where he had come from for a further two year's of exploration there.
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