Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia 9/07/09 11:33 AM

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Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

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Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Time Event
6:20aRottnest Island - A Phillip Rock roundup

This small streak of tamala limestone is located at the southeast end of Thomson Bay, near the Natural Jetty at Phillip
Point. It’s far enough from shore to deter the average swimmer. There's a strong current and boats pass on either side of it
on their way in and out of Thomson Bay. It’s a place people tend to pass on the way to somewhere else.

For passengers suffering from mal de mer on the ferries coming from Fremantle the rock is a very welcome sight because
it means they’ll be back on dry land within about five minutes.

Views of Phillip Rock from the west and from the northeast

The rock was observed by many early navigators because it appears on their charts and drawings. Willem de Vlamingh’s
Dutch axe swinging, quokka killing expeditioners in 1697 were late comers compared to that of Samuel Volkerson who
visited Rottnest on Waeckende Boey on March 19th 1658 during a search for another Dutch Ship, Vergulde Draeck which
was lost in the region two years previously.

When Volkerson anchored his ship for careening, the first mate, an Englishman by the name of Abraham Leeman explored
and charted the island. Yes that’s correct, an Englishman (from Sandwich) charted it first, but the Dutch have been happy
to accept the credit ever since.

Phillip Rock is not named for another English navigator Phillip Parker King who visited the island on 14 January 1822. It’s
named for Governor Arthur Phillip, who rocked up at Botany Bay in New South Wales in 1788 with the First Fleet to
oversee the commencement of British colonisation of the continent. There’s lots of places named after him because it was a
subtle way to do some sucking up. (Addendum: Kirwin Ward in Rottnest Island Sketchbook (1969:8) attributes the naming
to the gravestone of a soldier Henry Phillips who drowned on 1 November 1862.)

Before World War 2 Phillip Rock looked quite different. It was higher. Artillery gunners on Rottnest figured it could
obscure their view in certain situations, so it was given a quick makeover.

Phillip Rock prior to a WW2 trim

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Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia 9/07/09 11:33 AM

The monochrome pic from the early 1900s is from the online WA State Archives Abraham ‘Izzy’ Orloff collection;
BA1059/594. Izzy was an Aussie (Russian Jewish immigrant) photographer at Fremantle. He died in 1983.

So that’s two notable Abrahams who’ve observed and recorded the Rottnest rock. Remember the first was Englishman
Abraham Leeman in 1658. Maybe he was also Jewish?

© MMIX Paul R. Weaver.

Click the Sribd logo for downloadable PDF versions of my Rottnest essays:

Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website.

Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio website or my Picasa site. Most of them
have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay. Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times
by clicking them.

About the writer

Click here to see our backyard or try the HD version at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6628212

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st
century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to
write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!

Current Music: AC\DC: Black Ice - 'Rocking All The Way'

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