Constituted mostly of Port Essington and Gurig National Parks, the peninsula is known for its pristine wilderness. It is home to a large variety of sea life and the world's largest herd of pure-strain banteng. It is also renowned for its Aboriginal culture. While the peninsula is only sparsely inhabited, Port Essington is the site of an unsuccessful attempt to settle the northern coastline of Australia. The ruins of the port of Victoria at Port Essington are still accessible today.
Location: Cobourg Peninsula National Park is 350 kilometres north-east of Darwin; 570 km by road via Kakadu National Park
Places of Interest: Garig Gunak Barlu National Park; Cobourg Marine Park; Croker Island; Port Essington; Vashon Head; Victoria settlement (1838) ruins; Cape Don Lighthouse Complex (1915-20)
Brief history
Records of the Dutch East India Company indicate that their exploratory ship, the Arnhem, appears to have encountered the Cobourg Peninsula in 1623. Thirteen years later, Dutch navigator Gerritt Pool is believed to have sailed these waters also. That expedition was abandoned when Pool was killed in the area. Pool was followed by Abel Tasman in 1644 and Matthew Flinders in 1803.
Port Essington
A belief that the French were ready to occupy the northern shores of Australia at the beginning of the 19th century led the British Government to make three unsuccessful attempts to establish colonies on the north coast. Port Essington on the peninsula was one of them. All were thwarted by monsoonal weather, voracious wildlife, unfriendly local Aborigines, and the difficulty Europeans encounter when trying to live in the tropics.
Capt. Gordon Bremer led a party of colonists to Port Essington in 1824, but when he found no fresh water there, he moved to Melville Island where the settlement at Fort Dundas was established. The settlement lasted for four years. A new settlement on the mainland at Raffles Bay came into being when Capt. James Stirling established another outpost on Cobourg Peninsula, after having rejected Croker Island. It was named Fort Wellington as it was established on 18th June 1827, the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The Raffles Bay colony lasted two years. Capt. Collett Barker, who had confidence that the settlement could work, was in charge when the command came from England to abandon the settlement.
In 1838, the British government again sent Bremer to Port Essington to re-establish a settlement there, to be officially known as Victoria. This military outpost lasted eleven years and was manned almost exclusively by Royal Marines. After Bremer left in June 1839, the little settlement began slowly to deteriorate. It was to this colony that a haggard Freidrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt arrived on 17th December 1845 having travelled over 4800 kilometres from Moreton Bay (Brisbane). After a migration scheme intended to attract both white and coloured migrants failed, the settlement was abandoned in December 1849. It wasn't until twenty years later that success was finally achieved when Palmerston (on the site of modern day Darwin) was established.
Below: Prince Leopold of Belgium, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Origin of name
The peninsula was named by the explorer Phillip Parker King after Queen Victoria's uncle, Prince Leopold of Belgium, later of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. King named the bay Port Essington after his friend Vice Admiral Sir William Essington (?-1816). Sir William commanded HMS Sceptre, which accompanied the Discovery north from St. Helena near the end of the voyage. He was in command of Triumph at the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797.
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