How Australia was discovered

This is one of the articles reused from the Lyra's Letters newsletter:
  
How was Australia discovered? There are four concepts to cover:

European explorers

Willem Janszoon – a Dutch explorer – was the first European who saw mainland Australia in 1606 from his ship, the Duyfken. However, Janszoon thought that the unfamiliar land was part of New Guinea. The first European who saw Australia and knew it was Dirk Hartog. Hartog even returned with an artefact. He originally wanted to sail to Batavia, but somehow ended up at an island off the coast we now call Dirk Hartog Island.

Other explorers include Fredrick de Houtman, who was the first European to find Australia on purpose. Abel Tasman, who found and named Tasmania, also circumnavigated it and proved it was not part of what people called “Terra Australis”, the great southern land, which later proved to be Antarctica. Abel Tasman thought Tasmania as worthless to the Dutch company he was working for, but discovered New Zealand, and named it after a province in his home country.

James Cook is still credited for finding Australia, but in reality he was 114 years late, and sailed in 1770. Not to mention that Cook was only a lieutenant when he “discovered” Australia. Cook did, however, chart the relatively fertile east coast of Australia. His deeds are taught to every Australian schoolchild, despite him doing some things that would have been unpopular with Australians, such as finishing his journey without a major disaster.

Cook sailed to Australia knowing Australia was there. But to some, Australia took them completely by surprise, and surprises can be deadly...

Early Australian shipwrecks

In July 1629, more than 120 people died off the coast of Western Australia when the Batavia sank after it struck a coral reef. The ship was heading towards Batavia carrying a vast amount of money when officer Jeronimus Cornelez and a couple other officers planned to rob the ship of its wealth. Before their plans could be realised, the ship sunk and the captain of the ship paddled with some followers to Batavia to get help rescuing his comrades. The captain was shocked at what he saw when he came back. Murder had followed murder as the survivors fought amongst each other. When the captain came back, he sentenced six people to hanging. Two men were sentenced to the Australian mainland where they became the first European residents of Australia.

Another ship, the Aagtekerke, left Cape Town bound for Batavia in January 1726 and was never seen again.

There were 5 large ship disasters in Australia before 1800. However, the Europeans were not the only people to shipwreck Australia. There must have been many wrecks in Australia, say, about forty thousand years ago...

The first people in Australia

The artefact Dirk Hartog found was made by the Aboriginal people of Australia. These people were there, unseen, for forty thousand years until 1770 when the First Fleet arrived – by comparison North America was finally disturbed when Florida was founded in the mid – 1500s. There was still water between Southeast Asia and New Guinea 40000 years ago, but most of Indonesia was joined to Asia and New Guinea to Australia. The Aboriginal people took advantage of the shallow waters during the Ice Age and crossed the gap. There, at the far side, they spread across the country with astounding speed, mastering hellish deserts and icy mountains. Not only the Aboriginal people and the Europeans used boats, though...

The Ancient Egyptians

Twins, while playing in a beach in Victoria, found an ancient Egyptian coin encased in sandstone which was later dated to be 4000 years old. How did an Egyptian coin appear in Australia? Later the ruins of a possible Egyptian town was uncovered, complete with pieces of a pyramid. This stirred up more questions. Did Ancient Egyptians really start a settlement in Australia?

Other civilisations may have found Australia too. If you look at a Viking world map, you see Africa, Europe, part of India and...

Is that Australia?

My vacation in the Australian outback 2 -- Uluru to Kings Canyon

The outback vacation... As continued by Daniel.

On the next morning, I got up early to watch the sun rise.

I walked to the top of the nearby sand dune to have a great view of Uluru. I could also see Kata Tjuta, or "many heads." This was a cluster of mountains, 36 in total. They were 45 kilometers away from Uluru, although they were easy to see. They were large domes of rock, as high as Uluru and also made of Arkose.

The steepest desert mountain

The reason we were getting up early was that we were hiking around Uluru. We drove from Yulara campground to a small, dusty parking lot on the other side of Uluru from where the Mala walk started. From there, we circumnavigated the big rock counter-clockwise.

The sun's rays were just peeking out of the desert sand. It was beautiful, soft, golden light that slowly intensified as we walked around the head of Uluru, near the Aboriginal village there. Uluru is shaped like an arrowhead. We started by walking from one of the corners of the side, and now we were at the tip. The road was very nearby at this point, and tourists offloaded from buses. Now, to avoid the sacred sites nearby, the path took a turn and left the side of Uluru. Now we were walking through a mixture of outback scrub and spinifex bushes, with glimpses of the side of Uluru. The side was not dark red but orange in the sun's rays. 

The path joined the road for about a kilometer as it got closer to Uluru. We rounded a corner and saw a tiny piece of silver string winding up the side of the dark red Uluru. There was a trail of multicolored ants following it, up the rock face. They really looked ugly against the beautiful arkose. Another reason not to climb Uluru!

Walking around is probably more fun anyway. The remaining section of trail went very close to the side of Uluru, so I could examine the sandstone more easily. Uluru is a very dark red, fine conglomerate. If you looked closely, there were lots of holes where water could hide, so arkose is very porous. Soon, we were back at the car. It was starting to get hot, as it was noon, so we went.

Uluru is a gigantic rock. You can see it from fifty miles away, even among the sand dunes. You always underestimate the sheer size of Uluru. It is not just a rock, it is a mountain, the largest mountain in the desert.

The largest resort in the southern hemisphere!

Some Australians love to put records on everything. Yulara has won the record above.

Yulara is a gigantic place, with three large hotels, two gas stations, a large campground and caravan park wing with a swimming pool, many picnic shelters, four bathrrooms and an overlook. It is so big it even needs a town square. We went to town after walking Uluru, and saw an aboriginal dance there. Before we got to the dance, there was this guy showing a small crowd some boomerangs. He explained that the boomerangs in the desert did not turn around, they were designed to hit and twist around a kangaroo's legs in a way that the legs would both break.

Aborigines have a very unusual mythology. They do not tell stories to have knowledge of the world around them, but to teach lessons. There are incredibly many stories to tell, and as well as teaching lessons, they also give very accurate descriptions of the landscape, every strange tree, every weird rock, every cave, every hill, every everything. Aborigines also have law, but not the kind you obey. If you break the Aboriginal law, which is a very rare action indeed, you would not be under too much pain. Being forced away is as bad as it gets, because if you wait, a worse punishment will come. It actually works.

Aborigines do not own the land. Instead, the land owns itself. Aborigines consider themselves part of the land. I think the world would be better if everybody thought like them. War would be unheard of. Speaking of the land, Uluru - Kata Tjuta national park is very special as eight of the twelve owners of the park are Aboriginal Australian.

The three colors of Uluru

Seen from the main lookout, Uluru is black in the morning. It slowly turns to red, and then orange, throughout the day. At sunset, it is yellow. Yes, the big red rock is yellow at a certain time of day. Actually for only about five seconds.

I know this because I saw the sun set in front of Uluru. It may surprise most people, but five O'clock is the hottest time of day in the Outback. So, after doing nothing under the heat, we drove down to Uluru. 

In ten minutes, there was a change in the light, from orange to yellow to red. Fantastic color show.  
It started when we were already out of touch from the sun. First, I spotted a line of shadow running across the hilltop, towards us. Soon, the line passed over us, robbing the lookout of direct sunlight from the entire sun. Now, the sun was setting, but Uluru was still orange. The line spread across the shrubs, and then climbed the face of Uluru. All this happened within one minute. While it was climbing Uluru's face, another line of darkness swept over. This meant, for us, the sun had completely set. Then, there was a time when the sun was setting on both the top and the bottom of Uluru. Now the rock was yellow. The sun set on Uluru as the second line creeped to the top, and Uluru was red, just as it was that morning. We drove away.

 Many heads

 We woke up early on the next day, this time because we were hiking around Kata Tjuta.
Kata Tjuta was first found by the same explorer who found Kings Canyon, up north. He saw it on the other side of a desert lake from Kings Canyon. He tried to get past the lake, and failed because the lake stretched on so long. A little later, two explorers raced to Kata Tjuta from Kings Canyon. The one who succeeded did so by making a wide loop around the lake, and approached from the east of Kata Tjuta. He bumped into Uluru on the way, and continued the early English tradition of ignoring the natives and giving mountains new names by calling Uluru Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta the Olgas.

Kata Tjuta is found 45 kilometers west of Uluru, and the drive was long, but I could see us nearing the rocks. When I first saw a picture of Kata Tjuta, I thought those little tufts of green at the base of the rocks were grass, and the domes were only a meter high. I had undersized the domes over one thousand times, I realized with shock at an overlook near the campground. The heads were not boulders, but mountains. They must have been the weirdest mountains on earth.

Driving to the mountains, and seeing the sun rise behind them, I saw that Kata Tjuta is arkose, like Uluru. Indeed, Kata Tjuta had a very similar formation to Uluru, as a river delta. Kata Tjuta was the larger river delta, and all of the large rocks got swept down into it. As a result, the rocks are made of a very, very thick conglomerate, and there are rocks as large as your head are encased in the rock. Kata Tjuta used to be a monolith much larger than Uluru. Since then, it has weathered down, but the highest point, Mount Olga, still rises 2 kilometers out of the surrounding desert.

Two walks are available at Kata Tjuta, Valley of the Winds, and Walpa Gorge. Both walks have the word "wind" in their names. Walpa Gorge is a walk that winds between two rows of "heads" to the foot of Mount Olga. It is a rather bumpy walk, and takes two hours return. The valley walk makes a four hour loop among the mountains.

 The weirdest mountains

We took the Valley of the Winds walk. After walking through some brush, the trail headed past a small, rocky hill, and turned into a gap between two mountains. The early morning sun made everything nice, and I could see trees, swaying in the wind, on the mountain on the right. On the bottom of the gorge, a streambed shaded by bushes. Farther up, there was an area of gray rocky scree, and then the red rocky face of the mountain. We were mainly walking on the scree area.

We passed a lookout. Here, there was a green light. I had previously read that if the light was red, then you would have to turn back because of the heat. Behind us, we saw the parking lot and behind that, flat desert. In front of us was a large valley, ringed by mountains. There were trees, and in between, grassland. The trail continued into the valley.

We soon encountered a fork in the trail, and a sign. This was the beginning of the loop. We turned right. A few footsteps later, we were greeted by a shelter with water. There was a gigantic flock of zebra finches. The finches were flitting about, moving from tree to tree around the station. It was one of the most enjoyable bird sightings in the trip. We moved on.

The trail turned to the right again, and entered a gorge. the gorge was dark, deep, and silent, with gigantic red mountains looming overhead. There was a two meter "step" in the bottom of the gorge, and we climbed up the rock to get to the top of it. At the same time, the gorge bended north.
 Here, in the midst of the shadowy gorge, there was no trail. The vegetation continued with just shrubs, and when the trail reappeared, it started winding through them. Suddenly, the trail turned left up an even narrower gorge. I looked back at the main gorge. It ended soon after we walked away from it. After zig-zagging for a long time, we were at the top, and the most beautiful lookout of the trip.

The lookout looked down upon the red rock domes and speckled grassland of the valley. In no time, we were within it. After two hours of walking away from everywhere and everyone in the beautiful valley, we encountered a shelter with zebra finches, and the trail turned left and went down a streambed. The circuit was completed as we found the intersection, and headed back to the car and drove off for the campsite.

Seeing stars

The Australian outback has one of the most beautiful star displays in the world. This is because of three reasons:

1.  No light pollution. The Outback's biggest town is Alice Springs, population 30,000, and Alice Springs is not even in the desert, but in a large area of quartzite mountain ranges known as the Macdonell Ranges. The largest desert town other than Alice Springs can be Coober Pedy, population 3500, or Tennant Creek, also 3500. Other than this, Mt. Isa, Woomera, Eliott, Laverton, Wiluna, Kalgoorie, Broken Hill, and Bourke can all be counted, but all towns are only in the outer fringes of the desert.

2. No clouds. From Broken Hill on the way there to Coober Pedy on the way back, there were absolutely no clouds in sight, not even the high, wispy ones, and I was relived when I finally saw clouds again. There are rarely storms in the desert, and rain is infrequent, coming only four or five times per year in flash floods that last half a day. So, no clouds to interrupt passage of light out of the night sky.

3. Low moisture. When the sun is up, you cannot see the stars because the rays from the sun bounce off water droplets, dust, and air in the atmosphere. This is also the reason that you have a clearer night sky in space. There is no moisture in the desert, and not very much dust either, but there is air, luckily, so there is no chance you can see stars in the day. But the absence of dust and evaporation make a very beautiful night sky. 

At Dubbo, the night sky was not impressive at all. In Broken Hill, however, the night sky was amazing, and we could barely see the Magellanic clouds. In Glendambo, I could see the colors in the Milky Way. It was an amazing visual experience. The stars were very bright. The nebulas and globular clusters you could pick out easily. There were so many stars, it was hard to find the normal constellations.  

From Glendambo, we looked at the stars every night. They never became boring, even though there was a little light pollution in Yulara. We looked at a specific constellation a lot, and it was the Scorpion, sprawled over the top of the sky every night. Scorpio was also looking directly at Saturn and Mars. Another special treat throughout the vacation was the moon. There wasn't any.

 We all wanted to learn more about the stars we saw. That was why we went to a star talk after having dinner, the first star talk we went to in the southern hemisphere.



The southern celestial pole

It is not as easy in the south as in the north to determine true south/north by the stars. First of all, you have to locate the Southern Cross, which is sometimes below the trees, and the Southern Cross looks a lot like other parts of the sky.

Then, you have to extend the Cross by 4 1/2 times its length. This is only approximate, so if you want accurate, you also have to find the Pointers. Between these two stars you can draw a perpendicular bisector that also crosses the South Celestial Pole, therefore finding it.

I knew the part about the Southern Cross for a long time, but I learned about the Pointers that night, at the star talk. I had been to many star talks, but this one was the first one in this hemisphere. It was very interesting, and I leaned a lot.

Kings Creek

On the next day, we drove to Kings Canyon. Actually not all the way to the canyon resort, but to a campsite at a roadhouse a few minutes' drive away. It was named Kings Creek. Not far from the hot, exposed campsite was a lookout on top of a hill somebody named "Tank Hill". On that day, we set up camp and drove off to Kings Canyon for a short walk on the bottom. I was surprised to see that there was a canyon nearby that looked just like Kings Canyon, except larger! I later found out that Kings Canyon was the deepest canyon in the Australian desert, that it is sacred to the native peoples who named it Watarrka, that it stretched on for twenty kilometers after its initial 3000 meter stretch. We took a one hour return walk along the creekbed to a lookout platform. There we could see amazingly high cliffs in the canyon upriver, but the canyon bended out of sight, so we could not see the waterhole that was supposed to be at the end.

Kings Canyon

Kings Canyon is a spectacular place, all right. After watching the sunset from Tank Hill, which proved we were between two red hills in the Macdonell Ranges, I went to sleep and it was the next day. After reaching the Kings Canyon trailhead, we walked up Heartbreak Hill, from which I could see Lake Amadeus. An explorer saw Kata Tjuta from here. The trail turned right and became more and more obscure, heading deeper into beehive-shaped domes, until arrows were the only thing that kept us on track. We soon reached a fork in the trail and took the right track, knowing it would lead to a good lookout. And lead to a lookout it did, at the end of the trail and the end of a sliver of rock that was poking out above a waterhole we still could not see.

The track crossed the Garden of Eden part of the canyon via a footbridge. We walked down the canyon to the gigantic waterhole that was blocking the entire canyon, from side to side. After this we walked back up again, to a gate beyond which, despite the great number of tourists earlier on.
It was a beautiful, though, and passed some gullies and ravines before descending descendininto the valley and back to the trailhead.

We walked to the top of Tank Hill one more time before going to sleep and leaving on the next day to  Alice Springs.