Mediocre Expectations Trivia Quiz

Answer: 40,000

The Noongar people, which comprised of fourteen different peoples, occupied a vast territory that stretched from Geraldton, a little over 400 kilometres north of the State's capital city Perth, down to Esperance, 720 kilometres south east of Perth. Their seasons would be dictated by the changes to their environment and it is understood that they observed six seasons that spanned a period of eleven months.

The coastal plains were extremely important to them, both as a hunting and gathering ground as well as being a spiritual haven. With this in mind, it is understandable that there were great clashes with the Europeans when they arrived. The Noongar people would endure massive displacement which would be exacerbated in the late nineteenth century when gold was discovered in the State.

Artifacts have been found in this region that show of the Noongar existence dating back 38,000 years. However, this could stretch back even further as a report in the Guardian in 2017 told of archaeologists locating evidence of indigenous occupation in a cave on Barrow Island (a further 800 kilometres north of Geraldton) that dates back 50,000 years.

Answer: Duyfken

In 1605 Janszoon was commissioned to seek out the south and east lands. His mission aboard the Duyfken was to find the fabled land of Beach, that Marco Polo had supposedly described as being rich in gold, and lay beyond the "furtherest reaches of the known world". In February of 1606 he found himself in the passageway between Australia and New Guinea known as Torres Strait ... months before Torres himself would sail through and name it. He would land in the area known as Cape York (Queensland), making him the first European to touch land on Australia. Why didn't he claim it? He'd found the land to be extremely swampy and, after losing ten men in skirmishes with the locals he lost interest very quickly.

Janszoon would return to Australia ten years later, this time he would land on an island called Point Cloates off the North West Cape of Western Australia. Once again he didn't follow through as well as he should have, assumed that the point was just a small island, did not circumnavigate it and moved on.

The Duyfken had a remarkable history. Built in the Netherlands in 1595 it was fast and agile but still able to carry 60 tonnes of cargo. It was involved in the Battle of Bantam Bay in 1601 against Portuguese ships, a victory that would see the Dutch dominate that area for the next 200 years. A replica of the Duyfken was built in Fremantle (Western Australia) by historical enthusiasts and it resided there for eight years. It now sits permanently in Sydney within the Australian National Maritime Museum.

(Footnote) Eendracht means Concord or Unity, Vergulde Draeke is Gilt Dragon and Zwaanenrivier is the Swan River.

Answer: Dutch

There are a number of claims as to who made the first landing on Western Australian soil but, until Hartog, these were all disputed and had no evidence to satisfy their veracity. Amongst those were Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho who, in 1492, produced maps that purportedly were of the west coast of Australia but no proof exists that he actually landed. Gomes de Sequeira, a Portuguese explorer, also laid claim to landing here in 1525 but, once again, there's no proof.

Dirk Hartog was born into a Dutch seafaring family and, in 1616, employed by the Dutch East Indies, he was appointed master of the ship Eendracht. Strong storms around the Cape of Good Hope saw him separated from the rest of the fleet and then, blown off-course by the Indian Ocean's "Roaring Forties" (wind) found himself, unexpectedly, amongst a group of islands in the Shark Bay area of Western Australia. Hartog left behind a pewter plate that would mark his presence there and leave a short description of his journey. He had no idea that he was now the second European to have set foot on Australian soil. He saw little else of interest in the land bar severity and so made his way northward, making charts as he did so.

Remarkably, 80 years later, Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh would land in the same spot and locate Hartog's plate. He replaced it with one of his own, adding more details to Hartog's inscription, and then took the original back to the Netherlands. In 2000 the Dutch loaned the plate to the Australian Maritime Museum for an exhibition. Considering its importance to Australia's settlement history, the museum made overtures to purchase the plate but it was not for sale. Hartog's landing point in Australia has been renamed Cape Inscriptiont and the island now bears his name (Dirk Hartog Island).

Answer: Batavia

This is one of saddest and bloodiest maiden voyages of any ship. Built in Amsterdam as the new flagship for the Dutch East India Company she was en-route with a fleet, to the Dutch East Indies, when she was wrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos, now known simply as the Abrolhos Islands. Forty of the 341 passengers drowned as they attempted to swim for land. The ship's captain Francisco Pelsaert, left a merchant named Jeronimus Cornelisz in charge, while he sailed off to Batavia to get assistance. Cornelisz then sent twenty of the strongest men inland to seek water. This was a ruse and he used their absence to stage a mutiny and, in the process, killed off 125 people, which included women and children. They kept some of the women as sex slaves.

In the meantime, the men who'd been sent off to find water (and left for dead) did the unexpected and found fresh water. On their return they were organized by a soldier, Wiebbe Hayes, and staged a battle against the mutineers. At the height of the battle Pelsaert arrived and put an end to the mutiny. Cornelisz, along with six of his men, were tried and executed, making them the first Europeans to be legally executed on Australian soil. As their crimes were of a lesser nature, two other men were left behind to fend for themselves in the harsh country, making them, technically, the first Europeans to establish a settlement in Australia.

Answer: Cygnet

Dampier proved himself to be one of the great English explorers and is spoken of in the same terms as Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir James Cook. He commenced life on the sea as a merchant, joined the Royal Navy before finding himself on a pirate ship under the command of Bartholomew Sharp. He would then transfer to the privateer ship the Cygnet raiding the East Indies, Guam and the Philippines. In 1688 the ship was anchored of the northwest of Australia near King Sound. In the two months that the crew spent maintaining the ship Dampier, a keen naturalist, remained ashore and kept a journal of any local flora and fauna that he could find. This would prove invaluable to him later. Dampier would end up marooned with two other crew members on the Nicobar Islands. He'd eventually make his way back to England, however, by the time he got there, he was penniless and without assets. That is, apart from his journal and a slave that he'd befriended. He sold the slave so he could eat.

However, thanks to his journal, he was able to and publish the book, "A New Voyage Around the World" in 1697. This made him a public sensation and drew him to the attention of the Admiralty. Which, in turn, led to a commission from King William III to explore the east coast of New Holland (Australia) with a new ship, the HMS Roebuck. As they started out too late to round the Cape Horn they went via the Cape of Good Hope which led them the western coast of Australia, through Shark Bay (where Hartog had been) and northward. This gave Dampier the opportunity to make a detailed study of the flora and fauna and take specimens. The voyage would eventually fail to reach the east coast but Dampier did return to England with valuable information and new maps of the coast. There are numerous geographical features in Western Australia, including a town, named after Dampier as well as a bay named after the HMS Roebuck.

(Footnote) The reason for the Cygnet being an "appropriate" name is that a cygnet is a young swan and the capital city of Western Australia, Perth, sits on the Swan River.

Answer: Quokkas

Apart from creating new maps of Australia's western coast, De Vlamingh's exploration of this area would prove to be one that bore little fruit. He was sent to the area in a bid to find any survivors of the Ridderschap van Holland, a ship that was two years beyond its return date. On 29th December 1696, they landed on Rottnest Island and saw a sizable number of quokkas, which they mistook for large rats.

As a consequence they named the site 't Eylandt 't Rottenest, which translates to Rats Nest Island.

Despite this he spoke fondly of the island in his journal. From there they sailed up the (and named) the Zwaanenrivier (Swan River) after large flocks of black swans that he'd sighted on its waters. He then headed north, eventually landing on Dirk Hartog Island and replacing the former's pewter plate.

He would return home without finding any trace of the Ridderschap van Holland.

Answer: France

In 1770 Captain James Cook had already claimed the east coast of New Holland (as Australia was then known) on behalf of Great Britain but, to this point, no one had officially laid claim to the country's west coast. Two years later Louis de Saint Alouarn, on behalf of King Louis XV and France did so. His ship arrived at (what is now) Turtle Bay on Dirk Hartog Island, surprisingly, not far away from Inscription Point, where Hartog and, later, de Vlamingh, would leave pewter plates announcing their arrival.

St. Alouarn commemorated the moment by having his officer, Jean Mengaud de la Hage, step ashore, plant a white ensign in the ground and leave behind a bottle with (i) a letter claiming the territory and (ii) two silver coins (ecus). However, by not establishing a permanent settlement in the state, the French claim was never secured.

(Footnote) St. Alouarn's letter was never found. A WA Maritime Museum search of the Turtle Bay area, in 1998, did find a bottle sealed with lead. The bottle did hold an ecu but the rest was all sand.

Answer: Esperance

In 1791, d'Entrecasteaux's mission was to search for Jean-Francois de La Perouse, who'd left Botany Bay (on Australia's east coast) three years prior and had not been seen since. Side-tracked after receiving a false report they eventually found their way to Cape Leeuwin (Australia's south-western extremity) where they'd hoped to find the southern coast of Australia and then hug and map the shoreline all the way to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). They'd reached this point in early December, rested for a few days and then moved further south. The seas became rough and they missed safe harbour at King George Sound. As they turned east toward the Great Australian Bight the weather became extreme and both of their ships were nearly lost. They were saved when sailor Legrand spotted the anchorage and shelter. They named the site Esperance, which was also the name of the ship that Legrand was on. Ironically, Esperance is a French word for hope.

The crew was unable to find fresh water at Esperance and moved on. They would abandon their quest of mapping the southern coastline and took the shortest course to Van Diemen's Land, as they found the landscape even sparser and there were no supplies of fresh water to be found.

Answer: Named the site of Perth, the capital Of Western Australia

Captain James Stirling would found Perth in 1829 and would name it after the town of Perth in Scotland because the town held a strong connection to Stirling's patron, Sir George Murray.

In 1800, de Freycinet was tasked with exploring the south western and southern coastlines of Australia under the guidance of Nicolas Baudin. This was conducted with two ships, the Naturaliste and the Geographe. Two years later he was made captain of the Casuarina and tasked with the surveying of the rest of Australia's coastline. Completing his mission successfully, he returned to France in 1804 and, in partnership with Francois Peron, published their findings in "Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes" (1804).

Freycinet then published his map of Australia's coastline in 1811, making him the first to do so. However, he did manage to do so by default. Matthew Flinders had been the first to complete a survey of Australia's coastline but, at the time that Louis published his maps, Flinders was being held prisoner, ironically by the French, in Mauritius and could not put his findings out first.

The importance and impact of de Freycinet's work was not lost on Australia and there are numerous areas, parks, bays and capes that bear his name here, particularly in the south west corner of Western Australia. In addition, the ships that he was aboard or captained, the Naturaliste, Geographe and Casuarina have also been honoured in a similar manner.

(Footnote) In 1817 de Freycinet was given command of the Uranie and used it to complete a circumnavigation of the globe.

Answer: Albany

The Governor of New South Wales (and by default Australia) Governor Darling had identified that the south west corner of Western Australia provided a significant strategic naval advantage and, in an effort to forestall any initiatives by the French, he ordered that a military post be established in the King George Sound (Albany) area as soon as possible. An expedition left Sydney on the 9th of November in 1826, on board the Amity, under the command of Major Edmund Lockyer and arrived at the site on Christmas day. Lockyer had with him two officers, twenty troopers and twenty three convicts to establish and maintain the post.

Written into Lockyer's instructions was that if they came across any French settlers in the area they were to be summarily informed that all of New Holland (Australia) was now "subject to His Britannic Majesty's Government". It was on 21st January 1827, that Lockyer completed the ceremonies and officially claimed the land of Western Australia on behalf of the British Crown.