Dirk+Hartog

​ Dirk Hartog was born Dirk Hartog was the first European to ever set foot on Western Australia. He was baptised on the 30 October. He named the land he set foot on Dirk Hartog Island. When Dirk Hartog was 30 years old he was given his first command, to serve as a private merchant in the Baltic and Mediterranean seas. He spent several years doing that and was then appointed master of the VOC ship Eendracht. The ship set sail in January 1616. He and his crew were headed for the East Indies. Before reaching the Cape of Good Hope the Eendracht was separated from the fleet in a windy, raging storm. Bravely the sailors continued their journey alone. Following the route set by Hendrik Brouwer in 1610 Hartog went roughly 7000 kilometres east before turning north and setting a course for Java. Hartog turned too late and the Eendracht was far too east than she should have been and made landfall on the Australian Coast just north of Shark Bay in Western Australia. On 26 October 1616 Hartog stepped onto Australian soil. 81 years later another VOC captain found his plate and replaced it with his own. You can now find his plate in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. == Dirk Hartog (1580—1621), the 17th Century Dutch sea captain and explorer, whose expedition was the first European group to land on Australian soil.Dirk Hartog left the employ of the VOC upon his return to Amsterdam in 1617, resuming private trading ventures in the Baltic. He died in 1621. The fashion for skirts worn open at the front to display a rich petticoat or separate for peat continued into the 1580s. The forepart was a heavily decorated panel to fill in the front opening; it might be sewn to a plain petticoat or pinned in place. Often the forepart matched the sleeves. ==


Dirk hartog continued sailing north as far as north west cape. His voyage heralded the beginning of the unveiling of the west coast of the south land, and soon hartog’s name for the region.