About 80 km off the coast at Geraldton lie the Houtman Abrolhos Islands. These are genuine desert islands – not your romantic blob of sand with a few sprouting palm trees, but over 50 km of forbidding reefs and barren rocks. And they have a history to match.

In 1629, the Dutch East Indiaman Batavia was heading up the coast en route from the Cape of Good Hope to Java. (No, they weren’t off course: the expert navigators took the scenic route in those days.) Then the Batavia ran aground. The survivors set up camp on what was (and still is) one of the bleakest spots on earth, and dispatched a small rescue cutter for Java (over 3,000 km distant). Miraculously, the cutter reached Java, and arrived back three months later with a rescue ship. But by this time the survivors had behaved as survivors often do under such circumstances. They’d mutinied and murdered more than a hundred of their fellow survivors. Civilization was soon restored by the rescuers. The leading mutineers were hanged, and a couple were lucky enough to be left behind on the deserted coast – where they doubtless pondered the error of their ways. Yet these two losers succeeded where many a gifted megalomaniac has failed. They entered the history books: these were the first two permanent European residents in Australia.

Nowadays, the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, of which there are more than 100, provide some of the finest diving on the west coast, with superb tropical fish and exotic reef plants. The islands are also home to many rare species of birds.

Weekend expeditions run from Geraldton, for details enquire at the Geraldton Tourist Office (www.visitgeraldton.com.au), which is in the Bill Sewell Complex on Chapman Road.