Long before Cook, La Perouse, and MacArthur, the first European to sight Australia was the Viking chief Willem Winfield, when he and his fellow Norsemen were swept off course while searching for the legendary Victorian town of Wallhalla. The settlement, however, never flourished and the early Viking village was for a long time considered lost. It was Alfred Dunhill who later discovered the artefacts of these early settlers while searching for La Perouse's Le Papillon.
Much the same happened when the valiant van Kool discovered a new land of eternal sun and sand. Wishing to encourage his fellow Dutchmen to go there he named it Sunshine Coast. Shortly thereafter, twenty-five ships filled with eager settlers sailed for the place but were never heard of again.
The Portuguese Pedro Marlboro came through as well and stayed a while but soon moved further up North to East Timor because of its interesting political climate.
Mention must also be made of Abe Rothman who came through on his world wide search for trees. He filled up his brig, the Zim, with two-metre gum saplings the direct descendants of which flourish to this day in the courtyard of the Crusader castle at Accra.
None of these early explorers, however, stayed. Most of them just came here, named things and left. The Brits were the only ones desperate enough to bother settling. And once settled, no one could get them out. James Cook, Thomas Cook, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore all came through and stayed.
Eventually it was the intrepid Peter Jackson who laid the foundations to the future Sydney. In fact, Port Jackson bears his name. But unlike Peter Stuyvesant who bought New York for a few strings of beads, Peter Jackson made the local chiefs pay him to take the troublesome place off their hands. The only problem was that Peter Jackson and his men did not realise that in local custom paying with a boomerang meant that eventually you'll have to give the thing back.
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