A visit to the Abrolhos Islands has been on my bucket list for a long time and now I’ve finally done it. On a picture-perfect day we flew out of Geraldton airport on a small plane, headed for the Abrolhos archipelago, 55 to 60 km off the coast.
I’ve seen the maps and other people’s pictures but seeing the place for yourself is very different. The islands are spread over a long distance, organised in four groups. We flew over the Pelsaert Group and the Easter Group before heading for the Wallabi group, which is where the VOC ship Batavia was wrecked in 1629. That was my focus; how well had I depicted the setting in my book To Die a Dry Death, and what effect would this place have on me.
To start with, we flew over West Wallabi, where the soldiers under their inspirational leader Wiebbe Hayes, defended themselves against Jeronimus Cornelisz’s thugs. I took a picture of the ‘fort’ from the air. Fort is the wrong word, I think. They probably built a shelter to protect them from the everlasting wind. Our visit took place on a rare day when the wind didn’t blow.
Then we landed on East Wallabi. If anything, I think I overestimated the term ‘High Island’. Certainly East and West Wallabi are much higher than anything else out there – but most of the islands are pancake flat, little more than reefs left exposed above the sea. The High Islands are low sandhills built on a limestone platform. That said, they’re positively spacious in comparison to Beacon Island (Batavia’s Graveyard), the Long Island and Traitor’s Island. Wildlife is abundant. We saw lizards everywhere, a number of the resident wallabies, sea birds, dolphins cruising the reefs, every variety of fish. Because of the Leeuwin current, the water is warmer out there, so coral gardens grow in the shallow water.
The plants on the islands are another story. All the growth is stunted, with most bushes not much more than knee high. A few plants grow a little higher but shade would have been hard to find. I stood on the highest point of East Wallabi and looked across the sea to the line of bright sand which was the Long Island and the smaller low island which was Batavia’s Graveyard. Yes, I’m sure Wiebbe would have posted lookouts here when he learned of Cornelisz’s reign of terror.
We flew over Batavia’s Graveyard on the way back and also saw Traitor’s Island, where the survivors were first landed from the shipwrecked Batavia. It was from here that the ship’s longboat, loaded with all the senior officers, set sail for the city of Batavia (now known as Jakarta), leaving the rest of the survivors to fend for themselves. The fishing shacks on the islands are now empty and the plan is to remove them so that this island where so many horrendous events took place, can be properly excavated and its ghosts left in respectful peace.
After nearly 400 years, the hole the Batavia gouged in the reef is still visible. The Dutch ships Batavia and Zeewijk are just two of a large number of ships wrecked on these treacherous islands. On a normal day, when the white caps would cover the ocean, it’s easy to imagine mariners in peril of running onto these reefs. At night – well, it’s hardly surprising.
And me? What did this trip do for me? It was sobering. It was so easy to imagine people from another world landing here, maybe grateful to be alive but faced with the enormous problem of survival in a harsh, uncaring land. Complicate that with a psychopath and you have a horror story that no novelist could have dreamed up in a nightmare. Yet it’s also a story of great courage, ingenuity and the strength of the human spirit. Seeing what those people faced all those years ago simply highlights those qualities.
If you’d like to know more about the wreck of the Batavia, check out my history page.
A break from politics and pandemics – Greta van der Rol
[…] I developed something of an obsession, looking up and reading what I could. Every single one of those wrecks has a mystery about it, or a story of enterprise and courage. I visited the Zuytdorp wreck site at the base of the cliffs that bear her name – cliffs known and avoided by the Dutch mariners after 1629. I have been to both sites regarded as possible candidates for the place where Pelsaert marooned two of the Batavia‘s miscreants. I’ve been on the Batavia replica twice – once in Holland, once in Sydney. And I’ve visited the Abrolhos Islands off the coast in Western Australia where the Batavia went down. I wrote about it in that’s one ticked off the bucket list. […]
Malcolm Mendey
What a memory for you. Thanks for sharing this.
Greta
My pleasure, Malc. It’s an amazing, strange, spooky place.
Why Understanding the Past Matters by N. Gemini Sasson | Historical Fiction eBooks
[…] in relation to my new time travel novel, In the Time of Kings, but then my friend Greta van der Rol posted about her recent tour of Australia and I was inspired to write something totally different. Greta is the author of the historical […]
Chasing rainbows | Greta van der Rol
[…] dot the ocean, steep granite mounds, such a contrast to the pancake-flat platforms of the Abrolhos Islands. It’s late in the day, and the showers have stopped, although clouds still drift across the […]
The world has continued to turn | Greta van der Rol
[…] that long-ago meeting when I explained why I wrote To Die a Dry Death. I also think about my recent visit to the site of the tragedy, the Abrolhos Islands just off Geraldton. This man died far from the green fields of his home […]
juliabarrett
Oh wow. How amazing. What photos and memories. You are very brave. I would probably have been afraid to even get in the plain, but what incredible sights you’ve seen!
Greta van der Rol
Aw, not brave. I was just coming to look. It was a great experience.
Diane Nelson
I can’t begin to imagine how you felt seeing this for the first time. Thanks for sharing.
Greta van der Rol
It was an amazing experience