The result was that the Dutch skippers became exceedingly anxious to make the very utmost of the favourable winds, which carried them eastward in the direction of the western coasts of Australia.
Thus it happened that in 1616 the Eendragt stumbled on Australia opposite Shark's Bay.

Her captain, Dirk Hartog, landed on the long island which lies as a natural breakwater between the bay and the ocean, and erected a metal plate to record his visit; and Dirk Hartog Island is the name it bears to this day.

The plate remained till 1697, when another Dutchman, Vlaming, substituted a new one for it; and Vlaming's plate, in turn, remained till 1817, when the French navigator, Freycinet, took it and sent it to Paris.
After Hartog reported his discovery, the Dutch directors ordered their ships' captains to run east from the Cape till they sighted the land.
This would enable them to verify their whereabouts; for in those days the means of reckoning positions at sea were so imperfect that navigators groped about the oceans of the globe almost as if they were sailing in darkness.

But here was a means of verifying a ship's position after her long run across from the Cape, and if she found Dirk Hartog Island, she could safely thence make her way north to Java.
But ships did not always sight the Australian coast at the same point.
Hence it came about that in 1619 J.de Edel "accidentally fell in with" the coast at the back of the Abrolhos.

Pieter Nuyts, in 1627, "accidentally discovered" a long reach of the south coast.