First European Steps

First Europeon Steps - Ship Wrecked Sailors

Twenty seven years after Cooks voyage, castaways from the East India Company's Cove, badly damaged during a voyage from Bengal to Sydney, became the first recorded non Aboriginal people to set foot on the coastline.

The Sydney Cove's Lascar crew suffered terribly from the cold. The second mate was reported to of been washed overboard and the men too ill and exhausted to operate the ships pumps. Three weeks later till beached, Hamilton despatched the ships commercial agent William Clarke, Chief mate Hugh Thompson, the ships carpenter, two European seamen and twelve lascars in the Sydney Cove longboat to sail north to Port Jackson, Captain Hamilton and the remaining crew stayed with the damaged ship. In a desperate struggle of survival, for three months Clarkes account of the journey shows they walked through Tathra between April 3-5, 1797. They got as far as Point Hicks, where the long boat was wrecked in a storm, so the 17 sailors had to set out and walk the 300 or more miles to Port Jackson. Along the sea shore and through the coastal bush, meeting aborigines with occasional gifts of food, they endured terrible hardships. April 19, nine had reached their limits of endurance and elected to stay behind. Of the ten walkers who continued, only five survived a further fortnight. by May 14 Thompson and the ships carpenter elected to withdraw. The next day Clarke, one European seamen and one Luscar seaman - three men survived to reach Wattamolla Beach, just south of Port Hacking, where they were found two months after starting their walk by fishermen.

A whale boat was immediately dispatched to search for Thompson, the carpenter and the castaways to the south. They were never found.

Governor Hunter sent the schooner Francis to rescue captain Hamilton and a portion of the Sydney Cove's cargo. Accompanied by the Eliza, the Francis returned for the remaining cargo in January 1798. Both vessels set out on the return voyage. Eliza sailed first, but failed to arrive in Sydney and was presumed to have floundered in a heavy gale.

Governor Hunter, impressed by Clarkes descriptions of a seam of coal (in the area known as Coalcliff), instructed Surgeon George Bass to go in search. He was back in eight days with specimens of coal.