John Ingleton
December 9 2017
After Bruni d’Entrecasteaux had discovered Recherche Bay and after Felix Delahaye had planted the “French Garden” and after Charles Francois Beautemps-Beaupre had mapped Tasmania’s coast and after the expedition had returned to France with 1000’s of plant specimens collected by Jacques Labillardiere the French government sent another expedition under the command of Nicolas Baudin to finish the mapping of “Nouvelle-Holland” and collect ethnographic and geological information.
The Baudin expedition’s first landing in Australia on May 27, 1801 was near Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia – due to extensive national parks much of that coastline has been retained in a relatively natural state giving us a glimpse of what the French explorers would have encountered 200 years ago.
These pieces are the start of a new body of work which looks at what came after the d’Entrecasteaux expedition. It will utilise the map of the d’Entrecasteaux channel/Bruny Island as a link between the beginnings of the French exploration of Australia at Recherche Bay and what followed.
