Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), Thursday 3 January 1935, page 12


Who First Landed On The Mainland?

That is a question which perhaps cannot now be settled with anything like definiteness. Men who had left whaling or sealing ships were the first white settlers on Kangaroo Island,

but we know that some of them went over to the mainland and took unto themselves 'wives' by force; so they must have landed there. But there is something more definite than that, if we consider Baudin's Rocks (or Godfrey Island) as part of the mainland, for I believe that they are connected therewith by a reef. We read in the 'Letters of Victorian Pio neers' that Captain Hart, who was three times Premier of South Australia, wrote:— 'Early in December we landed at Portland Rocks (Vic.), in Portland Bay, where we were joined by a boat's crew left there a year before, they having, in the meantime, procured 400 seal skins. Proceeding towards Kan garoo Island, we anchored in Guichen

Bay. Landing at Baudin's Rocks on December 16, 1831, we killed 30 seals, leaving one man there with a supply of provisions and water until our return. We anchored in Nepean Bay on the 20th. We procured from the salt la goons five tons of salt. We bought 150 seal skins and 12,000 wallaby skins from the islanders.' They subsequently returned to Bau din's Rocks and picked up the man they had left there.— Tanta Tyga.