CHAPTER 7.

THE LADY NELSON AND THE INVESTIGATOR EXAMINE THE NORTH-EASTERN SHORES OF
AUSTRALIA.

In the previous chapter it has been told how Captain Flinders arrived at
Port Jackson on May 9th, 1802, ten days before the departure of the
Naturaliste and how he had brought news to Hamelin of his meeting with
the Geographe in Encounter Bay. On his way to Sydney, Flinders had
charted nearly the whole of the South Coast of Australia from Cape Lewin
to Wilson's Promontory--a small portion only escaping his notice--and had
entered and surveyed Port Phillip.

Immediately on his arrival he consulted with Governor King as to the
future explorations of the Investigator. They came to the conclusion that
it would be injurious both for the ship and for her crew to attempt
another survey of the South Coast at that season of the year, and decided
that the Investigator, in company with the Lady Nelson, should proceed to
the northward along the Australian coast and then to the westward, if it
were possible, to examine the Gulf of Carpentaria before the November
following when the north-west monsoon might be expected.

There was at this time a very great need of a proper survey of these
shores, particularly of the portion which now forms the Queensland coast
and of the reefs that skirt it. Since the days when Cook in the Endeavour
had discovered these reefs, except when Flinders sailed to Hervey Bay in
1799, little had been done to make this part of Australia better known,
although in the vicinity of the Great Barrier Reef both land and sea were
alike dangerous to seamen and disasters were of frequent occurrence. Cook