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Surgeon George Bass has the distinction of being the first European to discover the region when he sailed into Pambula River after taking shelter from a southerly gale at the mouth of the inlet on December 18, 1797 some 27 years after Cook sailed past. The following day the explorers rowed up the river to record the following in his journal: "The lower parts downwards as far as the bar is one of the prettiest of harbours....Every small bight has its little sandy beach, and every turning its trim rocky point...I have named this place Barmouth Creek". Next day sailing south, he entered and named Twofold Bay and logged his journal describing the bay as, "seemed capable of affording security for shipping". Bass making this exploratory journey down the coast from Sydney in this 9 metre long whaleboat travelled as far south as Westernport Bay in Victoria. The row boat was built in Sydney with banksia wood and lined with cedar. |
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Bass returned and in his report naming Twofold Bay, and its sheltered inlets of Snug Cove, coupled with beliefs that Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) was an Island, motivated Governor Hunter's commissioning of Lieutenant Matthew Flinders and Surgeon George Bass to undertake another journey of exploration in 1798. Taken in the sloop Norfolk, a longboat salvaged from the wrecked Sirius and decked and refitted on Norfolk Island. the only ship ever built there and made from native pine. |
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| During a spell of rough weather bass and Flinders anchored Norfolk in Snug Cove in Eden and from 9 - 17 October 1798, surveying and naming Twofold Bay, Whale Spit, Red Point and Snug Cove Head and sounding and charting Twofold Bay's coastline, a map of which was produced in 1814. On the same trip the whole island of Tasmania was circumnavigated, completely proving the existence of Bass Strait. The two friends were interested in the plant and animal life in and around Twofold Bay. |