The Australian Institute of Navigation

Extract

Australia's place in Navigation is due, in several aspects, to her geographical environment. Her first discovery is still a navigational mystery, and her first appearance on world charts about 1530 was confused by thepolitical division of longitude between Spain and Portugal. To people in the western hemisphere the most famous names in navigation are those of Columbus, da Gama, Magellan and Drake. These men were all aiming at the rich trades of the Spice Islands, whether they made for the West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Magellan's Straits, or the North-West Passage. They were followed by a stream of men who preferred the well-known tracks to any leading into the trackless wastes and barren coasts or Australia.