September 15, 2016

Dirk Hartog's Landing.

Australia Post released a stamp to commemorate 400 years of Dirk Hartog's Landing on 13th September 2016.

On 25 October 1616, captain Dirk Hartog of the Dutch East India ship Eendracht made landfall at an island off the coast of Shark Bay, Western Australia. Hartog’s ship had lost its way after setting out from Holland for Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. This unintentional landing made the Eendracht the second recorded European ship to visit the Australian continent and the first to arrive on the western coast. Two days later, before leaving what is now called Dirk Hartog Island, Hartog left a pewter dish inscribed with an account of his visit fixed to a wooden post at a location now called Cape Inscription. The Eendracht then sailed north-east, charting the Western Australian coastline, before eventually arriving in Batavia on 14 December 1616.

The painting of the Eendracht on the stamp is by Western Australian Adriaan de Jong and is based on early 17th-century Dutch paintings and documents.

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