Duyfken in the context of "European maritime exploration of Australia"

New Holland (Dutch: Het Niew Holland or Nieuw-Holland) is a historical European name for mainland Australia, first encountered by Europeans in 1606, by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard Duyfken. The name was first applied to Australia in 1644 by the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman, and for a time came to be applied in most European maps to the vaunted "Southern land" or Terra Australis even after its coastline was finally explored.

The continent of Antarctica, later named in the 1890s, was still in largely speculative form; it resumed the name Terra Australis (sometimes suffixed Non Cognita, lit. 'unknown'). Its existence had been speculated on in some maps since the 5th century, under the theory of "balancing hemispheres".

The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia. The land is mostly flat and about half of the area is used for grazing cattle. The relatively undisturbed eucalyptus-wooded savannahs, tropical rainforests and other types of habitat are now recognised and preserved for their global environmental significance. Although much of the peninsula remains pristine, with a diverse repertoire of endemic flora and fauna, some of its wildlife may be threatened by industry and overgrazing as well as introduced species and weeds.

The northernmost point of the peninsula is Cape York.The land has been occupied by a number of Aboriginal Australian peoples for tens of thousands of years. In 1606, Dutch sailor Willem Janszoon on board the Duyfken was the first European to land in Australia, reaching the Cape York Peninsula.

Willem Janszoon captained the first recorded European landing on the Australian continent in 1606, sailing Duyfken from Bantam, Java. As an employee of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), Janszoon had been instructed to explore the coast of New Guinea in search of economic opportunities. He had originally arrived in the Dutch East Indies from the Netherlands in 1598, and became an officer of the VOC on its establishment in 1602.

In 1606, he sailed from Bantam to the south coast of New Guinea, and continued down what he thought was a southern extension of that coast, but was in fact the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula of northern Queensland. He travelled south as far as Cape Keerweer, where he battled with the local Aboriginal people and several of his men were killed. As a consequence, he was obliged to retrace his route up the coast towards Cape York and then returned to Banda.