Cape Leeuwin Photos
Cape Leeuwin is the most south-westerly mainland point of the Australian Continent, in the state of Western Australia.
A few small islands and rocks, the St Alouarn Islands, extend further to the south. The nearest settlement, north of the cape, is Augusta. South-east of Cape Leeuwin, the coast of Western Australia goes a lot further south. Located on headland of the cape is the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse and the buildings that were used by the lighthouse keepers. The lighthouse was totally manually operated until 1982 by a clockwork mechanism & kero burner, one of the last in the world.
In Australia, the Cape is considered the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean; however most other nations and bodies consider the Southern Ocean to only exist south of 60°.
🙂 did anyone tell you ‘leeuwin’ means female lion in dutch? I had to read it twice to make sure my eyes were not tricking me!
No one told me, but I found it out when I looked up information about it:
The first ship known to have visited the area is the Leeuwin (“Lioness”), a Dutch vessel that charted some of the nearby coastline in 1622. The log of the Leeuwin has been lost, so very little is known of the voyage. However, the land discovered by the Leeuwin is recorded in a 1627 map by Hessel Gerritsz: Caert van’t Landt van d’Eendracht (“Chart of the Land of Eendracht”), which appears to show the coast between present-day Hamelin Bay and Point D’Entrecasteaux. However Cape Leeuwin itself cannot be recognised.
There is a group of islands at the tip of Cape Leeuwin and it retains the name St Alouarn Islands. Flinders’ name was retained for the cape itself. While he did not give an explicit etymology for the name “Cape Leeuwin”, Flinders was clearly aware that the area was known to the Dutch as “Leeuwin’s Land”.