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Greenhill rash School Notice Board
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My grandfather says that Captain Cook discovered Australia in l770.But I don’t think that’s right．What does everyone else think?Susan Strong
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I agree with you．Susan．When your grandfather was at school people were taught that CooK discovered Australia，but it’s really only part of the story．Lots of other people had already explored northern and western parts of the continent before Captain Cook arrived.Captain Cook was probably the first European to sail up the east coast of Australia，however，and he was the first it70-produce a map of the east coast．He called the land he saw“New South Wales”and claimed it for England．Brett Taylor
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So,who WAS the first person to discover Australia?Paul Baker
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I think the Spanish and the Portugese were the first to catch sight of the north coast of Australiabut it was a Dutch captain who first mapped part of the north coast in l 606．Brett Taylor
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I don't think you can say these people“discovered”Australia because they didn’t know they had reached a continent．They just saw small pieces of land and marked them on a map of the ocean．Over the next hundred years many adventurers from Holland，Spain，Portugal and England sailed up and down the west coast and mapped the pieces they saw．Then in l644 a Dutchman called Abel Tasman made a map on which he drew all the land they knew about at the time and guessed the rest．He called the country on his map“New Holland”．Mary White
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Then，who gave Australia its name?Sam Hill
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I know the answer to that．Long after Abel Tasman had mapped the west coast，and more than 30 years afler Cook had mapped the east coast，another Englishman，called Mathew Flinders，sailed right around Australia for the first time．This was between l 802 and l 803．Flinders produced a map that proved that New Holland and New South Wales were part of the same continent.And on this map he wrote for the first time the word Australia．So I guess you could say，he was the first person to discover Australia!Susan Strong
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Haven’t you all forgotten something very important?The Europeans weren’t the first people to sail to Australia．The Chinese were here long before them．In fact，some people believe Chinese sailors regularly journeyed to Australia as early as the ninth century to dlg tor copper.Later， between l421 and l424，ships from the great Chinese fleet led by Zheng He sailed to Australia. I read about this on a website called www．1421．tv．Nick Chance
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I'm afraid you’re all wron9．The first people to discover Australia came from Asia at least 40,000 years a90．They walked south across a land bridge that used to join the Asian and Australian continents together．Then about l0,000 years a90，at the end of the Ice Age，the level of the oceans rose and those people living in the Australian continent were trapped．They are the ancestors of the modern—day Aborigines．Patrick Hall
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