Were There Dutch Castaways in Central Australia?

Was there a colony of up to 300 Dutch people living in Central Australia from about 1710 until they died out before 1860? If that were true, a mass of Australian history would have to be re-written. To even suggest it invites the same mockery anyone gets about UFOs or finding Lasseter’s lost gold reef. And yet there is strong documentary backing for this story of a Dutch settlement in central Australia long before Captain Cook and the landing at Botany Bay.

Finding and marshalling this evidence has been the life’s work of an Australian authority on survival in bush and desert – the “Bush Tucker Man” Les Hiddins AM, of Townsville. Everyone knows how Hiddins, 76, can find edible grub and drinkable water, rather than doing a perish. But few appreciate that Hiddins is also an amateur historian whose rigour, depth of archival inquiry and savvy about the terrain leave academic historians frothing over their skinny lattes back at University House. Hiddins’ track record is…