Kalbarri

The coast around Kalbarri lay beside the Indian Ocean passages used by Dutch East India Company ships sailing towards the East Indies. Cliffs, offshore reefs and uncertain landfalls made this a dangerous edge of that route. The Murchison River reaches the sea along this shore. In November 1629, after the wreck and mutiny of the Batavia, Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom were put ashore on the mainland with food, weapons and goods for exchange. They were set ashore near Wittecarra and Red Bluff, and nothing more is known of what became of them. Farther north, the Zuytdorp was wrecked in 1712 beneath steep cliffs.