Dirk Hartog Island, WA: Why visit Inscription Point?
Inscription Point on Dirk Hartog Island in Western Australia was where the first evidenced European landing on Australian soil took place.
At Inscription Point on Dirk Hartog Island, Western Australia, a wooden stake sticks out from a rock cleft. Attached is a rusting metal plate. Scratched into it, a message reads: “I’ll be back in 2016. Dirk Hartog of the Eendracht.”
It’s fair to say that this is not the original plate at Inscription Point. In October 1616, Dirk Hartog was one of several Dutch East India skippers who plied the trade route from the Netherlands to what is now Indonesia. This was way before Lt James Cook claimed Australia for Britain.
Dirk Hartog Island: How the Eendracht came to Australia
The Eendracht became detached from the fleet in Cape Town, then followed the quicker Roaring Forties route east. Dirk Hartog miscalculated when to turn north, though, and did so later than usual. This brought him into contact with a strange, forbidding coastline now known to be Western Australia’s. He made landfall at an island on the western fringe. And now Dirk Hartog Island is named in his honour.
Why is Dirk Hartog Island significant?
Dirk Hartog wasn’t the first European to land in Australia. That honour falls to fellow Dutchman William Janszoon who, in 1606, got chased off Cape York in the north-east. But Janszoon probably thought he was in New Guinea, and Hartog was the first to leave documentary evidence of Europeans visiting Australia.
Where is Dirk Hartog’s plate?
That evidence – an engraved pewter plate – can now been found in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. It was commandeered by later Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh, who decided to take the plate and leave a replacement. Vlamingh’s plate, in turn, was taken away by Frenchman Louis de Freycinet. This is now on display in the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle.
How to get to Inscription Point on Dirk Hartog Island
400 years on from Hartog’s historic visit, today’s clearly makeshift post and plate are joined by a lighthouse. Its shadow proves to be the only shade for miles around on an inhospitable, forbidden landscape. It’s no wonder that the Dutch didn’t show much interest in exploring it further.
Getting to Inscription Point isn’t quite the achievement it was 400 years ago, but it takes a fair old effort. Dirk Hartog Island forms the western flank of Shark Bay. It is not named sarcastically, should anyone be thinking of swimming across from Denham, the only passable imitation of a town in the region.
Denham is 826km north of Perth. Unless taking a 4WD over a very sandy track and a barge from Steep Point, a pre-arranged ferry from Denham to the Dirk Hartog Island Eco Lodge is the only way across. Then, from the Lodge, it’s a bumpy two-and-a-half hour drive over corrugated pseudo-tracks that pass wild sand dunes and pink-tinged lakes.
Dampier’s Landing on Dirk Hartog Island
A few kilometres away from Inscription Point at a spot called Dampier’s Landing. Here in 1699, another European ship landed, this time a Royal Navy vessel captained by William Dampier. He named the area Sharks Bay. But more importantly, he made a collection of plants that grew on the island. It was the first scientific collection made in Australia, and the specimens he collected are still preserved in Oxford University’s Sherard Herbarium.
Dirk Hartog Island Eco-Lodge
The Dirk Hartog Island Eco-Lodge offers several accommodation plus tours packages. These include all meals, soft drinks and return transfers from Denham. Alas, there’s a minimum stay of five nights and places book up well in advance.
Other things to do in the Shark Bay area include feeding the Monkey Mia dolphins and seeing the Shark Bay stromatolites – examples of the oldest living organisms on earth.
More Western Australia travel
Bar and restaurant hop in Maylands, Perth.
Stay in a gardens-surrounded apartment at Seashells Yallingup.
The best things to do in Norseman, Western Australia.
What is there to do in Cocklebiddy on the Nullarbor?
Stay by the water at Mindarie Marina in Perth.