Recherche Bay

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Recherche Bay is located on the extreme south-eastern corner of Tasmania, Australia and was a landing place of the d’Entrecasteaux expedition to find missing explorer La Pérouse. It is named after one of the expedition's ships.

The explorers setup a camp, made a garden and scientific observatory at Recherche Bay in April 1792 for 26 days, and again in January 1793 for 24 days.^[1] Both landings were made to seek refuge and replenish supplies although as much time as possible was dedicated to scientific research. The botanists Jacques Labillardière, Claude Riche and Étienne Pierre Ventenat collected and catalogued almost 5000 specimens including the blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) which later became Tasmania's floral emblem. The expedition also made friendly contact with the Tasmanian Aboriginal people here in 1793.

The scientific observatory at Recherche Bay was the site of the first deliberate scientific experiment on Australian soil. At this observatory, geoscientist Elisabeth P.E. de Rosse conducted a series of measurements that proved geomagnetism varied with latitude.^[2]

Being isolated from the main areas of early settlement, exposed to easterly gales, and the terrain and soils of a nature that discouraged European agriculture, Recherche Bay saw only moderate activity following the British settlement of Van Diemens Land. During the 1830s and 1840s it was the site of a bay whaling station as as well as a base for pilots guiding ships up the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. Whaling ships occasionally sheltered there to try out whales, two (the Maria Orr in 1846 and Offley in 1880) being wrecked there in gales. The main commercial activities in the later 1800s and into the early 1900s were timber-gathering, mostly centred around the township of Leprena and coal mining, the latter mostly based around the township of Catamaran. The Catamaran Coal Company employed the former barque James Craig as a coal hulk there.

In 2003, the private landowners of the D'Entrentrecasteaux expedition site sought permission to selectively log the area resulting in a large-scale campaign to protect the site from destruction.

In January 2006, the Tasmanian Land Conservancy announced plans to raise a minimum of $1.3 million to purchase the site from its private owners.^[3] High profile businessman Dick Smith has pledged AU$100,000 to the cause.^[4]