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Maritime Heritage of the Batavia Coast: How accidental 500km trek renewed European interest in the Mid West

Howard GrayMidwest Times
Lieut. George Grey
Camera IconLieut. George Grey Credit: Supplied

In part nine of the series Maritime Heritage of the Batavia Coast, historian Howard Gray looks into how an accidental 500km trek from Kalbarri to Perth in 1839 renewed European interest in the Mid West of WA.

In 1822, European chart maker Phillip Parker King had to be content with what he could see of the Mid West coast from his ship HMS Bathurst some distance offshore.

The first land traverse by a European came about by accident in 1839, no doubt watched with a mixture of puzzlement, intrigue and nervousness by the First Australians whose land he passed through.

In September 1839 Lieut. George Grey hired the American whaling ship Russell to take a party of 12 from Fremantle to Shark Bay, intending to use three whale boats to explore the hinterland for land suitable for European settlement. Soon after their arrival they were hit by a cyclone and in various other mishaps lost one boat and most of their supplies and equipment.

Grey decided to terminate the expedition and row back to Fremantle. After successfully passing the 190km of forbidding Zuytdorp Cliffs, the two whale boats were wrecked as they came ashore at Gantheaume Bay (Kalbarri).

The party had no alternative but to walk to Perth, 500km away, setting out on April 2. It was near the end of summer. In places the paths of Aboriginal inhabitants provided easier passage and Grey keenly recorded what he saw of their way of life. They passed rivers, valleys and ranges that he later described vividly in his journals, giving names to some and effusively proclaiming their potential:

“I turned to the north-eastward, and there burst upon my sight a most enchanting view. In the far east, …, stretched a lofty chain of mountains, flat-topped and so regular in their outline that they appeared rather the work of art than of nature. Between this range and the nearest one lay a large rich valley vying with the most fertile I have ever seen in an extra-tropical country. In front of us lay another valley which drained a portion of the large one, and in both rose gently swelling hills and picturesque peaks, wooded in the most romantic manner. Whilst I stood and looked on this scene, my woes were forgotten. Such moments as these repay an explorer for much toil and trouble.

The distant range I at once named the Victoria in honour of Her Majesty; and being now certain that the district we were in was one of the most fertile in Australia I named it the Province of Victoria.”

From the slopes of the Moresby Flat-Topped Range, Grey observed and recorded “a bay or harbour” sheltered from the south by a sandy peninsula. A little further south the fertile flats on the banks of a river caught his attention, and he named it the Greenough River after the President of the Royal Geographical Society, sponsors of his expedition.

From there the travelling became more difficult. The party split in two and Grey, barely alive, staggered into Fremantle on April 21. It was a remarkable feat of endurance, aided by the knowledge and skills of their Nyoongar guide, Kaiber. The rest of his party was rescued, with just one – 18-year-old artist Frederic Smith – having succumbed along the way.

Grey’s descriptions of the land and his reporting of a bay or harbour near today’s Geraldton aroused great interest in the new and still struggling Colony of Western Australia. His eloquence was seen by some as exaggeration, but it sparked the next phase of European interest in the Mid West.

Howard Gray’s award-winning book Jambinbirri-Champion Bay is available at the WA Museum Geraldton or online at westralianbooks.com.au

He can be contacted at hsgray@midwest.com.au

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