In search of nutmeg; How the Derwent got its name

Apr 14

Before White Fellas sailed into Storm Bay and then further up river with each subsequent exploration, Indigenous Palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal People) lived and roamed the Valley from the Central Highlands to the South and along the River. From being cut off from the mainland to the arrival of the French and British in 1793 is believed to span 6,000 to 8,000 years. Well before the Pyramids and Stonehenge small tribes lived in a raw and delicate balance with the land and its abundance, the weather and climate and its extremes.

Then one day in April 1793, the millenia of separation came to an end as Lt John Hayes sailed right up the river to present day New Norfolk, much further than Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteux had ventured only a couple of months earlier unbeknownst to Lt Hayes. As the story goes, Lt Hayes who was contracted to the British East India Company, was on a Nutmeg mission to New Guinea. However, just passed Timor he hit some rough weather and decided to head south and navigate his way around the south of Australia to Adventure Bay on the eastern side of Bruny Island for resupply of water and timber.

Adventure Bay had become a well known safe harbour with many visits from Explorers starting with Abel Tasman in 1642, and then also Captain James Cook and William Bligh on the Bounty. Lt John Hayes though - only 25 years old but already at sea since 13, and in command of two vessels decided to explore a little further up the estuary where he named Risdon Cove after his Second Office William Risdon. This would become the site of the first British settlement in 1804.

They sailed further upriver, past present day Bridgewater and as far as New Norfolk, almost at the end of the tidal reach. Legend has it that they rowed their yawls even further upriver.and explored on foot the lush valley. The lower parts of the valley were clad in thick she-oak forests, remnants of which remain in various parts of the lower foreshore. Lt Hayes was born in Cumberland, England, where the River Derwent ran through, Celtic for “valley thick with oaks.”

A small hamlet called Hayes lies just a few miles west of New Norfolk along the river.

The final piece of the historical mist is that Hayes named the upper river “River Derwent” and in 1798, Matthew Flinders aboard the Norfolk and exploring, mapping, and naming on behalf of the Crown named the whole river in its entireity as the Derwent River.

The spirit of exploration is certainly an element that The Derwent Experience wants to foster and share with all in this peaceful and beautiful part of Tasmania.