Ben Nicker , bennynic as the aboriginal community called him. 16 years old he crossed the Tanami desert alone. In the book ,the red centre, he described a tall ship carved into a rock in Dutch. This was long ago before Alice Springs. Just the telegraph building there. Fantastic book of a tough pioneer.
I remember watching this when it first aired and was enthralled. Years later I read about the Batavia shipwreck and how they left 2 mutineers on the mainland to fend for themselves. It's always made me wonder if there were Europeans living in Australia well before the first fleet.
Im pretty sure he’s got a episode on the Batavia or Malcom Douglas has its real interesting especially like the Egypt hieroglyphs out the back of Sydney blue mountains somewhere things like surely people have been here before Abel Tasman seen back in the day
@@capt.bart.roberts4975 Yep. Those "Egyptian writings" are really the work of Alien Space Travelers. The ABC are going to do an interview with their local Ambassador as soon as they can show proof that they have equal rights for all fourteen sexual orientations on their homeland. 🙄😱
@@looking8030 The heiroglyphs have been debunked. There are hieroglyphs there are that are completely inappropriate for the period they were supposed to have been put there.
Dutch ships more aborigine paintings found in QLD seaside cave 2016 the capt's hat &ship images gave it away 1600's 1770 english ship capt cook discovers OZ nz and islands Who first discovered Australia? Explorer Willem Janszoon While Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and traded with nearby islanders, the first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606. The Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and charted about 300 km of coastline.
According to the article the stranded people were clothed in oxhide. The chief was an ancestor from an officer named Van Bearle (correct spelling will be Van Baarle) and they were living there for 170 years. Surely there must be evidence of that.
I think Les is onto something. There's lots of little nuggets of information and small clues that suggest Dutch settled inland a while before Botany Bay and the British expeditions. It will be like finding a needle in haystack but there's possibly more dutch evidence in the outback yet to be found.
You'd think there would've been others who made the trip who would've written about it, especially as it's an extraordinary tale. But like everything in time things disappear and are forgotten about or just lost
Let's not forget the pewter plate hammered into a post on Dirk Hartog Island, north Western Australia by the Dutch way before any English had arrived proclaiming it part of the Dutch colonies...nor the Aborigines of the coastal Kimberley lands that had blonde hair and lighter skin, who told stories of trading with people in big sailships over a century before the British arrived.
The rock art at 16:35, does anyone know more about this, I'm struggling to find any information online. Cheers. Also, as a young fella, I used to put Les Hiddins name on my swags, cross it out and write my name next to it like he handed them down to me lol
Of course the Dutch were the first, or among the first, in many parts of the world. Also in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, the US, etc. The Brits just followed us around, outnumbered us and took over in some parts. Spanish or Portuguese in other parts. But for sure Australia has a Dutch history.
it’s complicated. let’s just say i live in a suburb called “holland park” . Portuguese were here first. Brisbane was only “settled” after the Anglo Dutch Treaty 1824 . Western Australia same deal. There’s more to the story. heaps. 🤠
The Chinese might have been here long before that, my father trawled up a pile of stuff off Brisbane back in the 80s, most was smashed in the nets but a tea pot survived and it was examined by an archeologist and he said it was from the early 1200s
Its possible that 160, or was it 170 ago. There was a permanent large body of water where it was supposed to be. I do wonder if maybe using a satellite to take pictures of the area, might not be what is needed. I know lots of things have been seen and found that way. It is an interesting story.
A hundred and seventy one years before Nickson made his journal, the British were at war with the Dutch. I'm wondering if the British had suppressed any information about Dutch settlement in Australia in that intervening period. It's also curious that the Dutch had a leading role in the discovery of Terra Incognita for many years and that the first official name of Australia was New Holland. Perhaps this might have been that the finish of the war between Britain and Holland was in the mid 18th century, just prior to the first fleet. Naming it New Holland may have been a compensation after the truce.
I reckon Nixon got as far as that base camp and couldn't be bothered with it all. Made up a story for the boss men and went home. That would explain why his account was so realistic, he was definitely in the country and experienced the conditions. Either that or he was messing with some bush tucker he shouldn't have, perhaps a fungal variety.
There was a boat wrecked on some islands 80 miles of the coast of western australia. on its way to asia on thr spice route. apparently they sent a lifeboat to the aussie coast before even you are talking about and were the first white men on Australian Soil 100 years or more (1600's) before Cook. I read about it sometime ago. Maybe i can find those details again
In 1995 west Deniliquin nsw along the Murray river a farmer found the remains of a Viking long boat, it had weapons, remains of skeletons , sewing kits on board. A government agency along with a work crew and police seized the boat remains. It made prime local news, the farmer was furious. Nothing more was ever mentioned.
Well if you go by this what's in this episode, that would place the Dutch landing sometime in the 1610's. Now by other nation's standards, the 1610's is a fairly well documented period of history. But in Australia records are a bit dodgy prior to 1788. Now, at that time, the only people in the region, the only Europeans anyway, that could have possibly been able to set up a colony like what's described here were Dutch merchantmen, and presumably their families as well working for the Dutch East India Company in what's today Indonesia. Now, the Dutch East India Company never did set up a colony in Australia, if they did, I'd be typing in Dutch not English, so, if there were a Dutch colony, it wouldn't have been set up deliberately. The closest incident that we know of that sounds like what Lt Nixon was talking about was the wreck of the Batavia in WA. But we know what happened there, there was no permanent settlement, and the ones who survived eventually made it back to Indonesia.
The question is a good 'un. Many ended up in Adelaide(my opinion) The Dutch who rocked up in WA, took one look at the place ,said : We can't grow dope here . ....and left. 🤣
Actually they saw no trading opportunities where they could rip the locals off. That's more what the Dutch mentality is about rather than smoking weed.
Great show. I love it. Back in the early 80s there was an Australian Bush food type show not by Leslie J Hiddins but by an old white man with a big white beard. Would anyone know the name of that show please?
I knew a guy once showed me a ball that looked like a crusher ball from a mining site, wrong!!! It was a series of balls he found while walking ahead of the dozer so as to not interfere with Aboriginal site's. Apparently the Dutch had a conflict with the indigenous peoples and fired a few deck gun shells at them, they were all over the ground,sad history but true.
Before any of these Europeans, and still fifty thousand years after the indigenous Australians, were people from China, what's now Indonesia, and what's now PNG. 🤷
That's no secret, that from 1606 onwards starting with Willem Janzsoon, Dutch ships sailing to the East Indies got blown off course and sighted Western Australia, there were 2 or 3 shipwrecks too, one where the survivors were stranded on an island off the coast of WA. They navigated more than 2 / 3rds of Australia, Tasmania and NZ. Hence names like Arnhem Land, New Zealand (after the Dutch province of Zeeland) etc. The questions is whether any of those shipwrecked survivors made it inland and established settlements and stayed for generations.
So naive Les. You mention Australia as a new nation referring to colonist finding Australia. Their was a nation that already existed on this continent. The Nation of the Aboriginals. 10's of thousands of years of history. But you refer to the first white man in this country. M8 this country has a history, but not considered by the white man. Just saying
Yet it wasn’t a nation of aboriginals, if anything it could have been classed as nations of aboriginals. Also he never said it didn’t have a history before white man.
Come on, man - you must be having a go at Les. I mean, it’s obvious the regard he has for Aboriginal Australians since he largely credits to them all of the knowledge he gained about “bush tucker” and survival practices that went into his Army publications. This is one guy who’s down with the various tribes in the north and clearly recognizes their history and place in that land - on a previous episode he highlighted campfires that were 30,000 years old. But just like there was never a “nation” of Africans, there were disparate tribes with their own customs and ways who competed against each-other.
He’s a legend, no doubt about it………Absolutely terrific stuff!!! 😊
They bred into the native population eventually. I read once.
T'rrifc, I believe you meant to say...
Imagine sitting round the campfire just listening to Les' stories. Would be amazing
Same if Mal Douglas or Jack Absalom etc were still alive.
Not wrong mate. Don't get blokes telling stories like this anymore,
Nothing more dangerous than a officer with a compass and map. Classic 😂
What an absolute legend Les is
Ben Nicker , bennynic as the aboriginal community called him. 16 years old he crossed the Tanami desert alone. In the book ,the red centre, he described a tall ship carved into a rock in Dutch. This was long ago before Alice Springs. Just the telegraph building there. Fantastic book of a tough pioneer.
I watched this series when I was a kid and now I'm sharing them with my kids. Les the Legend lives on.
You must be an 80's baby
'This box of tricks is a thing called a GPS'
I remember watching this when it first aired and was enthralled. Years later I read about the Batavia shipwreck and how they left 2 mutineers on the mainland to fend for themselves. It's always made me wonder if there were Europeans living in Australia well before the first fleet.
Im pretty sure he’s got a episode on the Batavia or Malcom Douglas has its real interesting especially like the Egypt hieroglyphs out the back of Sydney blue mountains somewhere things like surely people have been here before Abel Tasman seen back in the day
Have you seen those or heard of the Egyptian writings? That’s interesting asf
Debunked. 😐
@@capt.bart.roberts4975 Yep. Those "Egyptian writings" are really the work of Alien Space Travelers. The ABC are going to do an interview with their local Ambassador as soon as they can show proof that they have equal rights for all fourteen sexual orientations on their homeland. 🙄😱
@@looking8030 The heiroglyphs have been debunked. There are hieroglyphs there are that are completely inappropriate for the period they were supposed to have been put there.
That was fantastic ! Loving watching these series again.
Bring this series back
Thumbs up for not having the comment section turned off.
Fascinating. Love this series. Good on ya, mate!
Interesting stuff Les.. . I wonder if u ever found out more to this story. Did the Dutch in fact live here for a period and where did they live?
Amazing story!
Fascinating history and stories! 🌺
It’s weird that the only info I now about this whole project is this documentary from 32 years ago
What a great series...I'm loving watching these. It's an entirely plausible story. The Dutch were all over South East Asia like a rash.
Dutch ships more aborigine paintings found in QLD seaside cave 2016 the capt's hat &ship images gave it away 1600's
1770 english ship capt cook discovers OZ nz and islands
Who first discovered Australia? Explorer Willem Janszoon
While Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and traded with nearby islanders, the first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606. The Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and charted about 300 km of coastline.
yeh they teach that in school mate.
terrific eposide, by a living legend
According to the article the stranded people were clothed in oxhide. The chief was an ancestor from an officer named Van Bearle (correct spelling will be Van Baarle) and they were living there for 170 years. Surely there must be evidence of that.
Yes" Van Baarle is a real Dutch last name..
The article specified animal hides, not oxhides. Probably kangaroo skins.
I think Les is onto something. There's lots of little nuggets of information and small clues that suggest Dutch settled inland a while before Botany Bay and the British expeditions. It will be like finding a needle in haystack but there's possibly more dutch evidence in the outback yet to be found.
If the Dutch wouldn’t have thrown the 🗺 on the English shore they would’ve never found Australia 🇦🇺
You'd think there would've been others who made the trip who would've written about it, especially as it's an extraordinary tale. But like everything in time things disappear and are forgotten about or just lost
ABC should remake a series like this with todays technology. Be amazingggggg!
They've lost the ability to make quality content, only care for race division crap today
Todays technology? please tell me what would change, a new 4WD?
@@Envy_me94 they wouldn't make it because the purple wigs would call it "racist" and "glorifying colonialism"
@@Envy_me94 LIDAR cameras in the helicopters
Malcolm Douglas, Les Hiddins and the Leyland Brothers are the BEST at Australian Outback with History.👍👍👍👍
Jack Absalom's programmes are pretty good too.
16:33 Whom ever chipped that would never think that there will be more than 28K pairs of eyes looking at it. 6th Nov 2022
Australia used to be a great country in 1996.
Australia used to be a great country before the Europeans arrived
@@niuean3000 maybe before anybody did.
Great Bloke, great stuff , love it. Les's alphabet had 25 letters , he never liked the H in words so he never pronounced it.
There's a few of us who use the odd H mate!
Lesley got him flash motorcar , this one got him cold breeze inside aye.
Having revealed Nixon's probable misuse of a sextant to determine a location, why did Les not use a sextant and try to reproduce the error?
That rock carving is stacked
Let's not forget the pewter plate hammered into a post on Dirk Hartog Island, north Western Australia by the Dutch way before any English had arrived proclaiming it part of the Dutch colonies...nor the Aborigines of the coastal Kimberley lands that had blonde hair and lighter skin, who told stories of trading with people in big sailships over a century before the British arrived.
Ginger and fair hair can be common in Aboriginal children. May have more to do with sun and seawater though.
@bossdog1480 agree. Sun bleached. Surfer's get it too. Coastal types.
where is that engraving?
The rock art at 16:35, does anyone know more about this, I'm struggling to find any information online. Cheers.
Also, as a young fella, I used to put Les Hiddins name on my swags, cross it out and write my name next to it like he handed them down to me lol
Of course the Dutch were the first, or among the first, in many parts of the world. Also in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, the US, etc. The Brits just followed us around, outnumbered us and took over in some parts. Spanish or Portuguese in other parts. But for sure Australia has a Dutch history.
I feel like I've seen you before. Knife guy? I think I was looking at a Joker Canadiense in particular if that sounds familiar.
But they never settled in large numbers.
Has anyone picked up the references in that Dutch article? DNA?
it’s complicated. let’s just say i live in a suburb called “holland park” . Portuguese were here first. Brisbane was only “settled” after the Anglo Dutch Treaty 1824 . Western Australia same deal. There’s more to the story. heaps. 🤠
Dude that area is named after Julius holland who purchased the property/area back in 1865 I think we’ll I’m pretty sure
The Chinese might have been here long before that, my father trawled up a pile of stuff off Brisbane back in the 80s, most was smashed in the nets but a tea pot survived and it was examined by an archeologist and he said it was from the early 1200s
@@markshort9098 well geneticist’s have found the dingo originated from a dog found in Southern China.
@@markshort9098 That's a fascinating story I would love to know more
I am in love with this show, it insipred me to make my own channel haha.
I wonder if Les eventually did find more evidence of this lost settlement.
Love This Guy.Aussie myself.
Take a shot every time Les says liekhardt
Its possible that 160, or was it 170 ago. There was a permanent large body of water where it was supposed to be. I do wonder if maybe using a satellite to take pictures of the area, might not be what is needed. I know lots of things have been seen and found that way. It is an interesting story.
There’s a big lake called lake woods nearby to the area but it’s unfortunately flat there
wow! very interesting! thanks ABC ! 📹🏜️🌄🏞️🛻🤙😎
Interesting how the Australian bush is so similar to our Bushveld in SA. Except its without the Big five. Still the spiders will suffice!
Hence the whole Bushveldt Carbineers thing...
A hundred and seventy one years before Nickson made his journal, the British were at war with the Dutch. I'm wondering if the British had suppressed any information about Dutch settlement in Australia in that intervening period.
It's also curious that the Dutch had a leading role in the discovery of Terra Incognita for many years and that the first official name of Australia was New Holland.
Perhaps this might have been that the finish of the war between Britain and Holland was in the mid 18th century, just prior to the first fleet. Naming it New Holland may have been a compensation after the truce.
I reckon Nixon got as far as that base camp and couldn't be bothered with it all. Made up a story for the boss men and went home. That would explain why his account was so realistic, he was definitely in the country and experienced the conditions. Either that or he was messing with some bush tucker he shouldn't have, perhaps a fungal variety.
I'd love to know his motive behind the ruse
Compelling content !
I wish I could go and search.
That's a map, compass and a plan!
Where is that engraving of the medieval woman
Some places remain undiscovered. Not because no-one ever got there. Just that no-one made it back alive!
Great story
There was a boat wrecked on some islands 80 miles of the coast of western australia. on its way to asia on thr spice route. apparently they sent a lifeboat to the aussie coast before even you are talking about and were the first white men on Australian Soil 100 years or more (1600's) before Cook. I read about it sometime ago. Maybe i can find those details again
The Dutch had a colony in WesternAustralia
In 1995 west Deniliquin nsw along the Murray river a farmer found the remains of a Viking long boat, it had weapons, remains of skeletons , sewing kits on board. A government agency along with a work crew and police seized the boat remains. It made prime local news, the farmer was furious. Nothing more was ever mentioned.
Loads of Dutch ship wrecks in the 17th century. Batavia June 1629 for instance. SO yes is possible.
Loads? No
why would they move into the interior and not stay on the coast?
Looking for area with better resources? 🤷♂️
massive lakes like Yamma Yamma lots of birds and fish to eat.
Well if you go by this what's in this episode, that would place the Dutch landing sometime in the 1610's. Now by other nation's standards, the 1610's is a fairly well documented period of history. But in Australia records are a bit dodgy prior to 1788. Now, at that time, the only people in the region, the only Europeans anyway, that could have possibly been able to set up a colony like what's described here were Dutch merchantmen, and presumably their families as well working for the Dutch East India Company in what's today Indonesia. Now, the Dutch East India Company never did set up a colony in Australia, if they did, I'd be typing in Dutch not English, so, if there were a Dutch colony, it wouldn't have been set up deliberately. The closest incident that we know of that sounds like what Lt Nixon was talking about was the wreck of the Batavia in WA. But we know what happened there, there was no permanent settlement, and the ones who survived eventually made it back to Indonesia.
25,14. Would passengers from a ship travel a 1000 k from the sea? More likely some where on the west coast.
The red centre. Worth reading.
That really is about as central to nowhere, as it's possible to get!
Very beautiful, but still central to nowhere.
ABC you are back on my Christmas card list.. ps you production assistants are now all getting the “tricky dicky” Richard Nixon joke aren’t you. now
1996
The question is a good 'un. Many ended up in Adelaide(my opinion)
The Dutch who rocked up in WA, took one look at the place ,said : We can't grow dope here .
....and left.
🤣
Actually they saw no trading opportunities where they could rip the locals off. That's more what the Dutch mentality is about rather than smoking weed.
Read the book BATAVIA
The Dutch man Abel Tasman explorer en .Kaptain. Tasman sea etc
Great show. I love it. Back in the early 80s there was an Australian Bush food type show not by Leslie J Hiddins but by an old white man with a big white beard. Would anyone know the name of that show please?
Malcolm Douglass?
Malcom Douglas maybe?
Malcolm Douglas. Across the top
Santa?
😂
The music supervisor really dropped the ball in this episode. So overused and distracting. One of my biggest problems with season 3
Awesome awesome awesome
What did the natives use for sunscreen ?
Melanin.
I knew a guy once showed me a ball that looked like a crusher ball from a mining site, wrong!!! It was a series of balls he found while walking ahead of the dozer so as to not interfere with Aboriginal site's. Apparently the Dutch had a conflict with the indigenous peoples and fired a few deck gun shells at them, they were all over the ground,sad history but true.
You speak English good youl be OK Tim from Australia 🇦🇺.
It's a tall story alright. 🇬🇧🇦🇺
the country was called new holland !
i didnt know that
Hey Les
Do you ever encounter snakes aka ( joe Blake’s )
It'll be those crazy Boers again. They trekked all over the place .
They was with Aboriginals to help them cheers
Before any of these Europeans, and still fifty thousand years after the indigenous Australians, were people from China, what's now Indonesia, and what's now PNG.
🤷
That hat. 🇦🇺👍🍺🍺
this guy is like steve irwen's cousin
There are still some real men in this Country..
portugese
I remember a book that had New Holland and Van Deimans Land.
That's no secret, that from 1606 onwards starting with Willem Janzsoon, Dutch ships sailing to the East Indies got blown off course and sighted Western Australia, there were 2 or 3 shipwrecks too, one where the survivors were stranded on an island off the coast of WA. They navigated more than 2 / 3rds of Australia, Tasmania and NZ. Hence names like Arnhem Land, New Zealand (after the Dutch province of Zeeland) etc. The questions is whether any of those shipwrecked survivors made it inland and established settlements and stayed for generations.
Do DNA test…
So naive Les. You mention Australia as a new nation referring to colonist finding Australia. Their was a nation that already existed on this continent. The Nation of the Aboriginals. 10's of thousands of years of history. But you refer to the first white man in this country. M8 this country has a history, but not considered by the white man. Just saying
Yet it wasn’t a nation of aboriginals, if anything it could have been classed as nations of aboriginals. Also he never said it didn’t have a history before white man.
Come on, man - you must be having a go at Les. I mean, it’s obvious the regard he has for Aboriginal Australians since he largely credits to them all of the knowledge he gained about “bush tucker” and survival practices that went into his Army publications. This is one guy who’s down with the various tribes in the north and clearly recognizes their history and place in that land - on a previous episode he highlighted campfires that were 30,000 years old. But just like there was never a “nation” of Africans, there were disparate tribes with their own customs and ways who competed against each-other.
Li