The Encounter - Postcards Special Feature
SEGMENT 4
As The One and All rounds Cape Donnington near Port Lincoln and heads for open water….on board Captain Ian Kuhl……takes time out to get his bearings in the old manner. The Global Positioning System can pinpoint his whereabouts to a matter of metres….but Ian’s work as skipper has given him a greater appreciation of the achievements of Flinders.
“Quite a brilliant man and some of the things we take for granted now he worked on two hundred odd years ago”.
When you next watch the TV weather report and hear that the barometric pressure is falling and wind shifts are forecast…..then spare a thought for Flinders. He was the first to note they were connected. And on top of that pioneering meteorology. He also helped solve the mystery of erratic compass bearings on board ship. And of course his skill as a navigator and map maker is still acknowledged today as he charted all the way up Spencer Gulf beyond modern day Port Augusta.
And it was here that his hopes of finding a major river or strait dividing the continent in two were finally dashed…..helping to establish once and for all that this continent was in fact one great island………Australia……as he would call it later.
“The naturalist Robert Brown and a party set off from the Investigator about where the power station now is for what they thought was going to be a five mile trek to this mountain. It turned out to be more like fifteen and so some of them had to spend a rather cold night on top. Perhaps by way of consolation Flinders called it Mount Brown. Meanwhile, the Captain and ship’s surgeon came up here and Flinders climbed this hill for this magnificent view and then they kept going about another three kilometres that way until their oars were stuck in the mud on both sides…..the very top of the gulf”.
These magnificent water colours and sketches by the artist Ferdinand Bauer confirms that his and Robert Brown’s wanderings on the top of this peak and at the head of the Gulf were well spent.
From on top of Mount Brown the naturalist could see the magnificent ranges that swept away to the north and south………they would later be called the Flinders Ranges.
The curiosity of the scientists and sailors on board The Investigator was endless as they criss-crossed the two major gulfs…….but as he was naming our coastal features years later Flinders was thinking of his career.
At the bottom of Yorke Peninsula…..named after a First Lord of the Admiralty………the Investigator swept past some of our most rugged coastal scenery……and as she did…..it seems Flinders had a succession of powerful friends in mind. Cape Spencer was named after Earl Spencer yet another Lord of the Admiralty……as was the major gulf to the west.
“There were three lords of the Admiralty. Spencer had first sponsored the voyage at Sir Joseph Bank’s request. Saint Vincent was the Lord, First Lord when Flinders first sailed and Yorke was the First Lord when he returned. So there were very specific aspects there. Patronage was a very important aspect of life at the time. Flinders was hoping that it would help to make his career”.
And to the south a majestic outcrop of limestone. Flinders named it Althorpe Island after the Earl Spencer’s estate in Northhamptonshire.
Many ships have come to grief here…….and so nearly eighty years after Flinders discovered it…….the lighthouse keepers established a base on Althorpe Island. Until recently it was still manned. Now the Friends of Althorpe….including keeper John Lawley, make regular pilgrimages.
“Its full of nostalgia for me…….its a special place….density its one of our motivating things….its got a lot of meaning and that for me”.
The winch from jetty to clifftop is the quick way…… but for John Lawley there’s no escaping a climb which the keepers have made since the late 1870s. But it’s certainly worth it……..offering spectacular views to the rugged cliffs of Kangaroo Island further south.
The Investigator’s landscape artist, William Westall, later captured on canvas his romantic impressions of first their contact here……a painting which must rank as one of the most historically important depictions of pre European Kangaroo Island.
Westall’s original sketches were made on the north coast of the Island…..not far from where we’ve anchored in The One and All at American Beach and as the run rose you get a sense of how it must have seemed to Flinders and his crew.
“One shackle (bell rings) two shackles (ring bells) anchors away”.
The Investigator anchored……..replenishing supplies of water. After so long at sea……….Kangaroo Island with it’s abundance of wildlife must have seemed like a Garden of Eden.
“Having survived a gale the first contact Matthew Flinders really made with Kangaroo Island was here and the night before the officers had had their glasses trained on the headland and they saw black lumps like rocks in motion. Of course they were Kangaroos. And the next day they went ashore they were so tame that they could bang them on the head or shoot them……..more than thirty of them. And a delightful regale they provided wrote Flinders…. That was an understatement…….they hadn’t had fresh meat for four months. So this is Kangaroo Head and in gratitude he named it Kangaroo Island”.
A Garden of Eden certainly for the birdlife at American River.
Now the charter boats and anglers have these idyllic waters pretty much to themselves. Flinders….in a long boat…..made his way up this waterway….and he waxed lyrical about this “hidden lagoon of an uninhabited island……situate upon an unknown coast near the antipodes”.
And of the pelicans……their a tourist attraction today at American River but Flinders knew their undisturbed paradise would soon be lost. He wrote “Alas, for the pelicans! Their golden age is past”.
From here………with new provisions….the crew set off.
Even today……..spotting another vessel in open waters can given you a bit of a surprise…..so imagine the reaction of the crews on board The Investigator and Le Geographe….when the cries of Ship Ahoy! Were heard eleven nautical miles off the coast of modern day Victor Harbor.
“It was along this south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula that Matthew Flinders headed towards the moment where three worlds were about to come together. The British in their ship The Investigator….the aboriginal people of the Ngarangerri nation were no doubt tracking them along the coast…….as they would have the French ship Le Geographe as Captain Baudin came up the Coorong. And out here the miracle occurred……they sighted each other……they closed that great gap in the map. Despite all of the gulfs and island’s along this previously unknown coast……and it happened on April the 8th 1802 as the sun went down on what we now call Encounter Bay”.
After the break……..the naturalist encounters with the marvels of Kangaroo Island.
SEGMENT 5
After his historic encounter with Matthew Flinders off the South Australian coast……….Nicholas Baudin knew the south coast of Kangaroo Island was his to chart…..but sickness and fatigue had taken their toll………and the French was soon forced to make for Port Jackson……….as Sydney was then known.
The French spent several months here……..obtaining provisions before heading south again……to complete some unfinished business.
So back they came……..in January 1803…….Nicholas Baudin……….aboard Le Geographe and Loius Freycinet at the helm of the schooner, Casuarina, reached the as yet unexplored south coast. From the air you can see what they were up against……..as they sailed west passed a fearsome coastline.
Surely they would have marvelled at the island’s remarkable geological formations before taking in the Casuarina Islets off the coast……named after Le Geographe’s consort…….and then rounding what they would later call Cape Du Coudic.
From here they followed the coast as it swung north west sailing all the way to Cape Borda where Baudin had broken off his survey the previous April.
Now become the first to circumnavigate the island he named it Isle Borda……after a famous marina and mathematician back home. His enemies on board would later win the day…having it renamed Isle Decres…….after the French Minister of Marine.
“Here at Penneshaw or Hogg Bay on KI Nicholas Baudin spent a month early in 1803. His scientists collected a huge number of specimens they took on water. They were looking for that seepage out of the rocks……that Flinders told them about……and that’s where Frenchman’s Rock was carved and the original is now up in the gateway information centre in town and maybe this is the spot where the first European woman set foot on KI way back in 1803……Mary Beckwith. Sentenced to death in London for pinching some calico as a teenager……..transported to Port Jackson…..she not only ended up in Le Geographe but in the Captain’s cabin. Sacre Bleu”.
By now Baudin was desperately ill with tuberculosis…….a shadow of a captain on a ghost ship. But still they pressed on…..the scientists collecting specimens and the artists recording them in watercolour. Dromaius Baudinianus……the pygmy emu…..a creature peculiar to Kangaroo Island and now extinct……was spotted by the French near this ravine on the Island’s west coast. Francoise Peron thought they were cassowaries…..and the French later named this spot Ravine de Casoars. To the naturalists the island was a treasure trove of new and exotic creatures. Leseuer’s watercolours capture something of the mystery of the marine life which still fascinates divers to this day.
Jellyfish.
Now divers from across the globe venture to KI’s northern cliffs to find the very creatures which held the French and English naturalists in awe. Back then there were probably many more Australian Sea Lions and New Zealand Fur Seals than there are now……..but the journey of discovery for today’s divers is no less spectacular.
Both the French and the English Artists were determined to capture this new world in all its wonder……………………….now the Weedy and Leafy Sea Dragons……..the seals and all the rest continue to attract modern day adventurers from around the world.
For dive instructor Jim Thistleton the appeal for those scientists who surveyed this coast back in the early 1800s is obvious.
“This coastline is special in as much as you’ve got the high cliffs…….you’ve got good waters…….and in the waters you’ve got such a diversity. Three ocean currents meet in this area…east west and south plus warm water out of the gulf. It gives the range and diversity under the water that’s possibly unparalleled in the world. There’s so much here we don’t know about”.
Baudin and his crew must have felt the same as they loaded Le Geographe with new and intriguing specimens…..bound for the Empress Josephine’s chateau in France…..where they would serve as strange and wonderful reminders of an exotic voyage of discovery.
But finding these amazing specimens was one thing…….getting them back to Paris was quite another.
“Pretty cosy below One and All and wouldn’t have been any roomier on Le Geographe either. Baudin was very unhappy on the way home because he lost two kangaroos….they died…..they got wet despite being under tarpaulins so two scientists on board they were moved out of their cabins…..seven kangaroos were moved in….bad feelings but they made it to Paris”.
Nicholas Baudin was gravely ill……but the French were determined to put their Gallic stamp on the map of South Australia. As they reached what is modern day Ceduna.. Freycinet named this Baie Murat…..Murat Bay….after the Marshal Murat…..the King of Naples….and Napoleon’s brother-in-law.
By now Baudin had cut the crew’s water ration…..further aggravating tensions on board as they set out for home. At times both Le Geographe and The Investigator…………must have seemed like floating menageries as each expedition…….tended to the needs of their living cargo…..with exotic specimens….and some not so.
“It’s recorded that Baudin had spot the dog aboard…..but flinders had a special companion and he’s with him to this day outside the Mitchell Library in Sydney……there he is looking up from the ledge at him….In the Mariner’s Biographical tribute to trim the cat……..he showed his sense of humour as well. He wrote that Trim weighed ten to twelve pounds on the fresh Meat’O’Meter…. And that he was always seated a quarter of an hour early for dinner.
On board for the charting of the unknown coast he was also the first cat to circumnavigate Australia….. in the crew of that almost year long voyage that was to add to Flinder’s remarkable record……this is a cat with a place in history”.
After the break…….tragedy for Baudin and Flinders on the Island of Mauritius.
SEGMENT 6
Sydney Harbour today ranks as one of the most impressive in the world…but when Baudin and Flinders sailed in here in 1802…. It was a remote settlement of fewer than five thousand people at the other end of the globe. During their encounter off the coast of South Australia………Flinders noted the sorry state of Baudin and his crew and invited the Frenchman to winter at Sydney….or Port Jackson as it was then known.
The crew of the Le Geographe arrived here on the 20th of June 1802….severely weakened by scurvy.
“Port Jackson was to become the final safe harbour for Nicholas Baudin after nearly thirty years at sea…………In the winter of 1802…..despite France and Britain being at odds. He became friendly with Governor King……his winter camp was captured by the shipboard artist Leseuer and then they sailed for one last leg of his great voyage……even more specimens to collect and a final French flourish of names to add to Kangaroo Island. Perhaps as they sailed he might have sensed that he would not make it back for personal glory before the emperor.
NAPOLEON.
By 1803 Flinders on the other hand, was desperate to return to England to find a replacement for the leaky Investigator……..so that he could complete his charting. As he left the heads of Sydney Harbour...it seemed the winds of fate were already running against him. His ship the Porpoise was wrecked in the Coral Sea…….prompting Matthew Flinders to leave his crew on a sand bank and return on a thousand kilometre rescue mission in a cutter to pick up another vessel.
“Flinders left again from Port Jackson…..Sydney Harbour……and this time in his headstrong haste to get home to complete his work to be feted by the Lords of the Admiralty……he took command of the Cumberland….a ship not fit for the task. In his own words it was exceedingly crank…..it was very leaky…he was about to pay a huge price for that decision. From here on he was dogged by disaster”.
From the east coast of Australia…..Flinders sailed for home but was forced into Mauritius….then known as Isle de France. It was enemy territory under the command of the Governor Charles Decaen. With the Cumberland in a desperate state……..Flinders and his crew limped into port…..to a meeting which both men would remember for the rest of their lives….and Flinder’s hat…now in the Mitchell Library in Sydney……would play its part in history.
“And it’s amazing in history how small things determine people’s attitudes. I mean Flinders would not remove his hat….his battered old hat…..which had been with him you know…..been with him for some years. And this irritated Decean and he comments on it years later that Flinders would not remove his battered old hat”.
Flinders was travelling under a French passport….issued for the Investigator and not the Cumberland……it was a complication which would lead to his detention as a spy. Under house arrest on this heavily garrisoned island. Flinders would pass the time….writing letters…working on his charts and the story of his expedition…Voyage to Terra Australis. The chess set and flute at the Mitchell Library point to his other past times as he, no doubt, longed for his wife Anne and England.
Baudin had arrived at Isle de France four months earlier……desperately ill from tuberculosis…….and would be dead in a matter of weeks. He’d overseen one of the greatest voyages of discovery ever undertaken by France……..but his rightful place in history would be usurped by those who would write it. Baudin’s nemesis…..Francoise Peron…..would return to Paris with Le Geographe precious cargo and set about writing his own version of Le Voyage on Terre Australe.
“He so detested Baudin that he could not bring himself to mention the Captain’s name in the formal history of the voyage….the only mention Baudin gets….and this was probably written by Freycinet rather than Peron…..was that on the occasion of his death and funeral the entry is “Monsieur Baudin ceased to exist”.
After six and a half years imprisonment Matthew Flinders was finally released and returned to England…..and later reunited with his wife Anna whom he hadn’t seen for nine years.
“He appears to her to be a man in his seventies and of course he’s only thirty six. He was suffering from the disease which would finally kill him….which is stones in the bladder…..and he prepares now to complete his life’s work.”
For the next four years……Flinders labours on his charts and his epic narrative…but by now he was a broken man……with one last tragic irony to come.
“There he is on his death bed and the great book that he’s lived his life to produced is rushed from the publishers uhm Nichol to his house and put in his arms but he dies before he can see it. He’s already presumably unconscious”.
The exquisite works of Leseuer and Petit made their way to the museums of France…and the Le Geographe’s living cargo…..Kangaroos and all……into the glasshouses and rolling fields of Empress Josephine’s Malmasion estate in Paris. The Investigator also eventually made it home…..bringing with it thousands of specimens collected by the naturalist Robert Brown and the gardener Peter Goode…..and captured on paper by Ferdinand Bauer. Two voyages then…….which while not properly acknowledged at the time…..now take their rightful place in history.
“Their documents and their paintings and their measurements and whatever else describe a world to us which is now vanished. I mean it’s the world of Australia at very first contact before Europe has had a chance to influence the course of events here”.
“So in the end both Captains failed to make their mark in their own time in their own countries. Matthew Flinders really because his charts came out years too late when Britain was consumed by the fall of Napoleon and much more. Nicholas Baudin…..maybe not such a great leader of men….his main crime was that he died before his story was told…..so that was his enemies….particularly the naturalist Peron who simply erased him from French history. But two centuries later on the other side of the world we salute both Navigators for their science and because they put us, South Australia on the map”.
Many of the art works and the historical exhibits seen on tonight’s program are bound for The Art Gallery of South Australia and the Maritime Museum.
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