Dutch Discoveries of Australia – Early voyages and shipwrecks off the West Coast –

“As far back as the early 1600s, the Dutch East India Company instructed its merchant ships to strike out westwards after the Cape of Good Hope on their way to the East Indies. This brought the company ships close to the dangerous unknown west coast of Australia. Landfalls were made and gradually these early Dutch seafarers charted accurate maps of the region, but not until after long years of hardship, heartbreak and tragedy.
The eventual and successful circumnavigation of Australia by Abel Tasman was not the only legacy of early Dutch discoveries of Australia. The remains of at least four shipwrecks have been discovered off the west coast, those of the Batavia, the Vergulde Draeck, the Zuytdorp and the Zeewijk, with their stories of deprivation, of rape and murder, and of death and despair.

This book gives, apart from the stories of the travels of the first Dutch discoverers, information on the excavation and restoration of the wrecks through the work of modernday marine archaeology.’