Australia Highseas

Australia Highseas occupies water off Western Australia, with the Indian Ocean to the north and west and the Southern Ocean to the south. Much of the shoreline faces dry interior country, yet the northern coast reaches the tropical Kimberley and the southwest has Mediterranean conditions. This sharp variation makes the adjacent land difficult to characterise as a single environment.

Indigenous peoples had long occupied that entire range of country before European exploration. Their ancestors arrived in Australia more than 50,000 years ago and possibly up to 70,000 years ago, spreading throughout the continent. Dutch explorers reached the western coast in the seventeenth century, with Hartog's expedition making the first recorded European landing in 1616.

Later European navigation added French and British surveys. In 1829 Britain established the Swan River Colony at Perth. The coastal waters then became part of colonial shipping.