International visitor: Alec Coles (AUS)

Mr Alec Coles has been delegated by the Western Australian Government to investigate and develop cultural and commercial connections between Western Australian and the Netherlands. This will be done to support the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of first European contact with the State, when Dirk Hartog arrived at Cape Inscription in the vessel the Eendracht in 1616.

Mr Coles will be accompagnied by Mr Arnold Stroobach, the Honorary Consul of the Netherlands to Western Australia.

The Maritime Museum is one of the six public sites of the Western Australian Museum, which also comprises a collection and research centre and houses more than 4.5 million objects from rare fossils to the iconic racing yacht Australia II. The Museum also manages 200 shipwreck sites of the 1500 known to be located off the Western Australian coast and manages eight Aboriginal land reserves.

Dirk Hartog was a 17th-century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land on Australian soil, He was the first to leave behind an artifact to record his visit, the Hartog plate.

For more information about this visit, please contact Sophie Logothetis at DutchCulture.

Western Australian Maritime Museum - website