Little Feet Goes South

Little Feet is finally moving from Little Red Dot!

Nah, I am not going for good. I am away for some time, on an exchange programme offered by the company.

Yes, lucky me. 2016 has been a rough year for me. But as someone wise says, every cloud has a silver lining, I have a few silver linings this year. I am thankful.

So, I am currently moving from Little Red Dot to another dot, but this one is huge dot. I am typing this from the land down under, in Sydney, Australia.

Australia is the sixth largest country in the world consisting 1 main huge island and other 8,221 small islands with the total area of 7.7 million square kilometres, spanning across 3 time zones. Flying from east coast to the west coast takes 5 hours or so. This country is sure huge.

The natives of Australian were the Aborigines. They lived all over the island although most populated areas were along the coast line. They survived by hunting and gathering. They made tools such as spears, boomerangs, etc. There were probably millions of them spreading around the island.

Captain James Cook was recorded as the founder of Australia, but actually a few other people have reached this island before him. Only they landed at the wrong places.

In 1606, Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon sailed between Papua New Guinea and Australia and set ashore at Cape York, believing it was part of New Guinea. He explored for a bit but found that the land was not suitable for settlement, thus returned.

The red dot is Cape York (Source: maps.google.com)

10 years later in 1616, Dirk Hartog, on his way from Netherlands to Batavia, accidentally reached Shark Bay. He found nothing interesting thus continued sailing to Batavia. He named the island T Landt van d'Eendracht, after his ship.

He landed at the west coast of Australia

In 1622, an English voyage was shipwrecked and landed on Montebello Island, east of main island of Australia. The shipwreck caused the death of 93 mens and the surviving 10 men sailed to Batavia by long boat. After that, British was banned from using the southern route.

John Brooke was stranded there

In 1623, Jan Cartensz was commissioned to continue the expedition of 1606. He landed at Cape Keerweer, explored and found the Aborigines to be poor and miserable looking with no knowledge of precious metals and spices.

In 1627, Francois Thijssen ended up near Cape Leuwin at the most south west of Australia. He then mapped more than 1,500 km of southern coast from Albany to Ceduna.

411 hours. That's how long you will walk.

In 1642, Abel Tasman set ashore at Blackman Bay. Due to failed attempt to sail to North Bay, he swam and planted Dutch flag at the shore of North Bay. Two years later, he sailed back to Australia and mapped the northern coast of the island. He named it New Holland. However, his expedition was considered disappointment since he did not find any trading area or useful shipping route.

The routes of the first and second exploration

William Dampier sailed to King Sound, Western Australia in 1688 and returned to the region in 1699. He was the one who took note of the peculiar hopping animal in the region.

King Sound, where William Dampier marooned his ship

In 1696, Willem de Flamingh charted parts of the west coast and it significantly improved the navigation route on Indian Ocean. Parts of the places that he charted were Rottnest Island, Swan River, Dirk Hartog Island.

From Rottnest Island to Dirk Hartog Island

In 1770, Captain James Cook, upon completing another voyage, continued his exploration of the South Pacific. He first reached New Zealand and sailed further west and finally reached the west coast of Australia. He continued to sail north along the east coast and charted many then unknown features of the island. One of them was the potential of Botany Bay as settlement area. James Cook was then back to Australia on second and third voyages to continue mapping the east coast, which he named New South Wales.

In 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip was sent to set up a new penal colony in New South Wales. On 26 January 1788, British flag was raised at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson. Since then, the date has been remarked as Australia Day.

After that, many expeditions to map Australia were carried out by British. The colonial expansion started from Sydney and the Aborigines were oppressed. Until today, only about 2% of the residents of Australia are the native Aborigines.

It's a bitter history for the Aborigines. After so many fruitless expeditions, finally the British found the true value of Australia and the ecosystem was ruined from then. However, perhaps the true beauty of this magnificent land was destined to be sought and found by the big country that could help the development.

Enough for the history lesson. Note for myself, I shall make this one year fruitful and I shall find more about myself that is still hidden.

Little Feet is going to keep walking, running, waltzing, dancing.

Little Feet is having millions of footprints in this land down under.

Love is in the air,
Little Feet