Oceania & Pacific · Modernised and illustrated edition
A Voyage to Terra Australis
Modernized, illustrated English edition of A Voyage to Terra Australis by Matthew Flinders (1802).
Eight men drowned, a French rival met at sea, and the south coast of Australia drawn at last.
Read more ↓- about 230 pages
- Paperback
- English
- 19th century
Countries covered: Australia
About this book
February 1802. Beyond the Nuyts Archipelago, no chart guides the Investigator any longer: Matthew Flinders follows a coast of New Holland that no European has yet surveyed.
On 21 February, the cutter sent to look for water vanishes in the currents with the master, John Thistle, the midshipman William Taylor and six seamen. The search is in vain. Flinders names Memory Cove and Cape Catastrophe, gives the nearby islands the names of the lost men, then resumes his course. The discoveries follow: Port Lincoln, named in honour of his native county, Spencer Gulf followed up to its head, Kangaroo Island, whose animals at last give the whole crew fresh meat, and then Gulf St Vincent.
On 8 April, a sail appears on the horizon: the Géographe, under Nicolas Baudin. The meeting between the Englishman and the Frenchman remains courteous, but each measures what the other has discovered. By way of King Island and the broad bay of Port Phillip, Flinders reaches Port Jackson, where he refits his ship and makes up his crew before setting out again to the north.
The account of a bereavement, a rivalry and a stubborn patience, by the man who traced the south coast of Australia.
Product details
- Publisher
- Itinerarium Éditions
- Series
- Oceania & Pacific
- The author
- Matthew Flinders
- Date of the journey
- 1802
- Modern edition by
- Isabelle Perol
- Language
- English
- Format
- Paperback, 6 × 9 in (15.2 × 22.9 cm)
- Pages
- about 230
The author
Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders was born in 1774 at Donington, in Lincolnshire, and joined the Royal Navy at fifteen, where he trained under William Bligh. With George Bass he explored the coast of New South Wales, then in 1798 established that Tasmania is an island. Commander of the Investigator from 1801 to 1803, he surveyed the coasts of New Holland, met Nicolas Baudin in 1802, and was then held for nearly seven years on Mauritius. His narrative, A Voyage to Terra Australis, appeared in London in 1814; he died the next day, at forty.
All books by Matthew Flinders →The journey mapped
In the Same Place, Through the Centuries
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François Péron et Louis de Freycinet, Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes (1800-1804)
This is the account from the other side: that of Nicolas Baudin's expedition, which Flinders meets on 8 April 1802 at Encounter Bay.
Read a free edition → -
Charles Sturt, Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia (1828-1831)
Flinders had followed the shore of Encounter Bay without seeing any great river come out there.
Read a free edition → -
Thomas Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia (1831-1836)
Surveyor General of New South Wales, Thomas Mitchell sets out from Sydney, where Flinders had refitted his ship, but heads inland.
Read a free edition → -
Edward John Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound (1840-1841)
Setting out from Adelaide, the city born on the shores of Gulf St Vincent, Edward John Eyre first heads north, beyond the head of Spencer Gulf that Flinders had reached in 1802.
Read a free edition →
The modern editor
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