A Thorny Passage
A Thorny Passage
This chapter first considers the return journey of travelers as opposed to the one they initially took going forward. The discussions then turn to travelers’ incorporation of their return journey into accounts of their outward journey, and how spatial history only advances by reflection. This discussion sets the stage for examining the historical significance of Australia’s first circumnavigator Matthew Flinders. Flinders helped establish that Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania) was an island; and explored the coast where the future Adelaide was situated. He also had a highly developed historical consciousness. In this last respect, his profound admiration for Captain Cook means that, in some way perhaps, to write about Flinders is also, albeit indirectly, to begin to retrace our own steps to Cook.
Keywords: explorers, spatial history, Australia, Australian history, circumnavigator, Matthew Flinders, Captain Cook
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