My favourite place: Western Australia

Among Fremantle’s most impressive structures are the two commissariat buildings close to the dockside, built with convict labour from 1852. Today the complex houses the Western Australian Shipwrecks Museum, which covers another two centuries of history, reaching back to 1629. The museum is filled with artefacts recovered from Dutch East Indiamen shipwrecks of the 17th and 18th centuries. It’s extraordinary to see European silver vessels, pottery, cannon and coins recovered from the wreck sites scattered along the lethal WA coastline.

The most striking exhibit is the stern of the Batavia. In June 1629, exactly 200 years before Charles Fremantle arrived on these shores, the Dutch ship Batavia, en route from Amsterdam to the East Indies to buy spices for the European market, rammed into a coral island in the Houtman Abrolhos, an archipelago about 250 miles north-west of Perth. Her captain had miscalculated when to turn north – with disastrous consequences.

Dozens drowned before the surviving passengers and crew escaped the wreck to one of the islands – the first Europeans known to have landed on territory that is now Australia. What came next made the episode one of the most notorious maritime disasters in history. While the senior officers sailed to the East Indies in the longboat to get help, a mutiny broke out on the islands, led by a psychopathic Dutch East India Company official, Jeronimus Cornelisz. He orchestrated the killing of more than 100 men, women and children, while awaiting the arrival of a rescue vessel that he and his henchmen could seize.

The mutiny was eventually thwarted by some marines loyal to the ship’s commander, and the timely arrival of a rescue ship; Cornelisz and his accomplices were captured and hanged. Excavations in the 1970s recovered what was left of the Batavia and huge numbers of artefacts, as well as the remains of victims who had been bludgeoned and stabbed to death. It’s an extraordinary story – a horrific start to Australia’s modern history. The museum is superbly presented, with the huge timbers of the Batavia being especially imposing.

Other buildings in Fremantle recall the port’s Victorian history. Like almost every other official structure built here in the 19th century, Old Fremantle Prison, a Unesco World Heritage site, was constructed by convicts. The prison was in use from the mid-1850s to the 1990s, having superseded the Round House, Fremantle’s first prison.

The Round House, which still stands close to the Shipwrecks Museum, was the first official building in WA. Constructed in 1831, it was used to house prisoners and for hangings. From 1838, many of the region’s Indigenous Noongar people were locked up here before being shipped to nearby Rottnest Island, which was designated a penal settlement for Aboriginal people. Today Rottnest is a nature reserve, home to quokkas – cute marsupials after which the island was named (from the Dutch for ‘rat’s nest’) – and a popular holiday destination. But a museum and convict buildings recall its bleak past.

Perth is, of course, the biggest city in WA and there’s plenty to see here, too. The Western Australian Museum puts modern European settlement in its place, with displays explaining the history and culture of indigenous peoples in this part of Australia.

Gold-mining is still a big story in WA. At the end of the 19th century a mint was established in Perth to coin gold sovereigns marked with a little ‘P’, many of which survive. The mint offers a wonderful demonstration of gold pouring, and displays of gold and old mint equipment.

When did you last travel to Western Australia and why were you there?

February 2018. To see some of the many friends we've made here, enjoy the fabulous coast, visit the Shipwrecks Museum (again!) and to lecture in various places like Esperance and Perth on topics like Roman Britain (another period when an imperial power impacted on an indigenous culture so it has a real resonance in Australia), and the amazing fact that the Batavia was carrying a late Roman cameo of Constantine which had been the property of Peter Paul Rubens. It's survived and is on display in Holland.

Why do you love the location?

The coastal scenery is magnificent but also in many areas terrifying. I am totally captivated by the thought of the Dutch ships being wrecked here. The Zuytdorp ran into the cliffs several hundred miles north of Perth in 1712. None of the crew was ever seen again and the ship wasn't even found till the 1960s. But I am also fascinated by the people who settled here in the 1800s and carved out a life so far from home. And I'm afraid I can never get bored of the sight of kangaroos and emus in the wild. They sum up the weirdness of this place.

What top 3 sights would you recommend people visit there, and why?

The Fremantle Shipwrecks Museum is an absolute must because it has so many dramatic and unexpected stories to tell about Australia's earliest Europeans. I greatly enjoy the Perth Mint just because it's quite remarkable to see so much gold. And then there's Sugarloaf Rock, close to Cape Naturaliste near Margaret River south of Perth. It's truly dramatic rocky outcrop just off the coast and nearby are beaches beyond belief.

During what period of its history would you most wanted to have visited Western Australia and why?

That's really difficult. On one hand I'd have loved to be aboard William Dampier's ship in the 1690s when he landed in northwest Western Australia and recorded what he saw only to sail away ad leave us with his tantalising descriptions of a voyage to 'New Holland' as Australia was known then. On the other I'd love to visit the Perth and Fremantle area in the late nineteenth century when they were both gradually turning into thriving and durable settlements and meet the people working to do that. Many members of my mother's family emigrated to Australia so it's always been in the background for me.

Where else in the world would you most like to visit?

I'm really looking forward to travelling around New Zealand. I've heard so much about it, but I have always also been fascinated by Captain Jame Cook's achievements as a mariner and cartographer. His maps of New Zealand lasted for generations. I expect that New Zealand looks much now as it did when he came here three times between 1769 and 1777. I can't wait.

Guy de la Bédoyère is a historian and writer. His new book, Domina, on the empresses of Rome, is published by Yale University Press in September

Guy de la Bédoyère is a historian and writer. His new book, Domina, on the empresses of Rome, is published by Yale University Press in September. Read more of Guy’s experiences at historyextra.com/westernaustralia

This article was first published in the May 2018 edition of BBC History Magazine