Researcher says old maps show fleet mapped coast in 1522
A Portuguese fleet searching for Marco Polo's fabled islands of gold discovered Australia and New Zealand 250 years before Captain James Cook, new research claims.
The fleet of four ships left the Portuguese base of Malacca on a secret mission in 1522, sailing down the east coast of Australia, bumping along the bottom of the continent and returning home by way of New Zealand's North Island.
The thesis has been put forward in a book published this week by Australian historian and journalist Peter Trickett.
In the book, Beyond Capricorn, Trickett argues that the Portuguese kept their discoveries secret because of their intense rivalry with the Spanish.
It has long been known that Cook was beaten to Australia by Dutch navigators, who sailed along the western coast of Australia in the 1600s as they made their way to their colony of Batavia - present-day Jakarta.