Reading time: 6 minutes
It has long been assumed that Indigenous Australia was isolated until Europeans arrived in 1788, except for trade with parts of present day Indonesia beginning at least 300 years ago. But our recent archaeological research hints of at least an extra 2,100 years of connections across the Coral Sea with Papua New Guinea.
Reading time: 4 minutes
In 1663, Europeans called Australia ‘New Holland’, New Zealand was considered one land mass and Tasmania had only been sighted by Abel Tasman – it would be another hundred years before Europeans would set foot there.
Reading time: 6 minutes
The Great Barrier Reef is incredible, with turquoise water, stunning reefs and white sandy cays. Yet its name infers something quite different – a barrier: treacherous, dynamic and dangerous to navigate.
For millennia, people navigated and traded across the northern coast of Australia and the Coral Sea.
When early European seafarers came face-to-face with the world’s largest coral reef system, it was not the beauty they saw, but a nearly unnavigable structure that could easily sink their ships.
Reading time: 6 minutes
The Australian National Maritime Museum has announced a shipwreck found in Newport Harbour, off Rhode Island in the United States, has been confirmed as Captain Cook’s ship, HMB Endeavour.
Reading time: 6 minutes
week broadcast around the world. Found by the Endurance 22 Expedition using a state-of-the-art autonomous underwater vehicle, we now have images almost as iconic as those taken of the stricken ship by Australian photographer and expedition member Frank Hurley in 1915.
On his first journey Cook mapped the east coast of Australia, on his second the British Admiralty sent him into the vast Southern Ocean. Equipped with one of the first accurate chronometers, Cook pushed his small vessel not merely into the Roaring Forties or the Furious Fifties but become the first explorer to penetrate the Antarctic Circle, reaching an incredible Latitude 71 degrees South, just failing to discover Antarctica.
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Reading time: 8 minutes
In 1821, Gregor MacGregor, a seemingly ordinary man deceived banks, investors, the general public, and even European governments. He is ranked as one of the biggest conmen in history, perhaps the biggest conman the world has ever seen.
Reading time: 9 minutes The real-life story of French navigator Nicolas Baudin’s sea voyage to map...
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Reading time: 6 minutes Holiday in Hawaii and one of the birds you’re most likely to encounter is...
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Reading time: 6 minutes The rock art of northwestern Arnhem Land is world-renowned and represents...
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Reading time: 8 minutes It remains one of history’s best-known naval tragedies – and mysteries....
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Reading time: 8 minutes Just look at a map of Remote Oceania – the region of the Pacific that...
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