The Zuytdorp mystery

By J. Heather

For months I’d been dreaming about “Welcome Strangers” and “Golden Eagles”, scanning geo maps and fossicking out every scrap of info about the old Western Australian gold town of Cue and its surrounding districts. But after two rain-filled weeks, freezing winds, hot rocks and a collection of spent bullets, I’d thrown in the towel and retreated to the Murchison Club Hotel to console myself with a whisky or two. In conversation I told a local my luck was out and I’d soon he heading home. He nodded sympathetically and suggested “Before you shoot through, nip out to Walga Rock.” I thought he might be putting me onto gold, but he smiled and said, “No gold mate but there’s a ship out there, or at least a painting of a sailing ship. They reckon it’s been there for about 300 years.” In lieu of gold nuggets I was interested. I hadn’t run across anything about sailing ships in my researches so I decided to spend my last day checking this one out. Just past Austin Downs station I caught sight of the rock, a great monolith, rising out of the sandplain, glowing orange-red in the morning sunshine. Once there it didn’t take long to find the painting. Situated at the end of a gallery of Aboriginal rock paintings, it’s a very simple work rendered in a white material, possibly bird lime. There’s no mistaking what it’s meant to represent and it looks very old. Underneath the ship there are several lines of what appears to be writing of some sort but I wasn’t able to make any sense of it. Gazing at the painting I felt certain that the artist must have been a European, so completely different is it to the surrounding works of art. But there were no Europeans in these parts 300 years ago. Or were there? Back in the city I found out what I could about the strange painting and discovered that it had been tentatively dated at between 200 and 300 years old by the WA Museum. The writing was described as an attempt by an illiterate person to form letters and there the matter rested.

In June 1712, with 280 seamen and soldiers on board, a Dutch East Indiaman, the Zuytdorp was wrecked on the WA coast near Shark Bay, about 60 kilometres north of the present-day town of Kalbarri. The ship was driven onto rugged limestone cliffs which in parts reach a height of more than 250 metres. It’s a dangerous and inhospitable stretch of the coastline and it wasn’t until 1927 that the remains of the wooden ship were discovered by Tom Pepper, who was fencing and trapping dingoes. It was definitively identified as the Zuytdorp by geologist Phillip Playford in 1954, based on coins found at the site. It soon became apparent that many people had survived the disaster. There was evidence they had managed to salvage gear from the ship including nautical instruments, casks, barrels and sea chests. They had hauled these things to the cliff tops, established a camp there and constructed a huge signal fire. They were aware that a fleet of four East Indiamen had been due to leave the Cape 17 days behind them and they must have pinned their hopes on being picked up by these ships.

Amongst the ashes of the signal fire, globules of molten brass and the hinges and other metal parts of chests were found. This leads one to picture the terrible situation the survivors found themselves in. Perhaps in the distance a lookout caught sight of the white sails of one or more ships of the flotilla and shouted for the fire to be lit. As those same sails began to vanish over the horizon everything that would burn was desperately thrown onto the blaze in a last-ditch effort to attract attention. One can imagine the despair as they watched their chance of rescue slipping away. Walga Rock is a long way from the Zuytdorp wreck site, about 350 kilometres in fact, but both are at the same latitude and are linked by the Murchison River which flows into the sea at Kalbarri. The survivors would have had to move south to encounter it and there is evidence that they did move to the south-east to obtain water from a native soak that was still in existence after white settlement of the area. Before this they may have lingered for a time near the wreck site, hoping perhaps that a search vessel might be despatched after their failure to reach Batavia (no such ship was sent). But as summer arrived, they would have been driven from the waterless environs of the cliffs and their search for both water and food would almost certainly have brought them into contact with the aborigines. It’s not hard to imagine the castaways throwing in their lot with these people.

The sailing ship at Walga Rock

The Murchison is a seasonal river and is a natural highway into the interior. All along its course there are soaks and rockpools where game come to drink. Walga Rock is on the Sanford River, a tributary of the Murchison. Its size and the extensive rock paintings there identify it as a focal point in aboriginal culture and religion and a natural gathering place. Perhaps, nearing the end of his lifespan, a lonely Dutchman chose this important site to record his memories and under this painting attempted to leave a message in the manner of his own civilization. Inland nothing has ever been found to definitely link the Zuytdorp with the unexplained ship painting but there remains time yet. When she struck the cliffs the Zuytdorp was carrying a rich cargo including more than 248,000 guilders in cash, consisting of ducatons and half ducatons, schellingen and various pieces-of-eight. Scores of these coins have been recovered from the cliff tops indicating that they were carried there rather than flung up by the ocean. Later, in making contact with the aborigines, these coins may have been used as gifts or trade tokens and some actually made their way into the interior, carried either by the aborigines or by the survivors themselves. There were also reports of some aborigines with European features. Searching for such relics from the Zuytdorp would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, but keep it in mind on your next gold-hunting trip to the Murchison fields.