Misadventures in Nature's Paradise: Australia's Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island during the Dutch Era

Graeme Henderson, Robert de Hoop and Andrew Viduka

Misadventures in Nature’s Paradise explores the earliest history of Australia’s Indian Ocean territories of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island.

A time possibly coined the Dutch Era, saw Dutch cartographers voyaging eastward across the southern Indian Ocean to the East Indies, and occasionally falling victim to shipwreck disasters. On their journey, Dutch voyagers would rely upon trade routes established by seafarers from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. These local seafarers would speak of terrible dangers in the unknown waters of the south: strong ocean currents, dark shadows and giant birds of prey. The Dutch would later develop a shorter trade route between South Africa and Indonesia which would take their vessels southward and then toward the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) islands as we know them today.

The authors of this volume, historical maritime archaeologists Graeme Henderson, Robert de Hoop and Andrew Viduka, tease out some of the real-life ramifications of the Indian Ocean and European myths upon the destiny of the Cocos (Keeling) and Christmas islands and provide evidence that indicates several eighteenth-century Dutch ships foundered close to these beautiful islands. Their wrecks still await discovery.

Product Details

PUBLICATION DATE: November 2022

ISBN: 978-1-76080-230-1

FORMAT: C format paperback

EXTENT: 256 pages

SIZE: 234 (H) x 158 (W) mm

RIGHTS: World

CATEGORY: History, Maritime history