The Navigators

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In 1800 it is widely rumoured that a strait separates the two halves of Australia. Napoleon Bonaparte, disturbed by the successful British colony at Sydney, sends famed explorer Nicolas Baudin and two ships to chart the strait, with a view to claiming the western part of the continent for France. In response, the British send the young and ambitious Matthew Flinders in pursuit in a leaky ship.This is the exciting story of the race between the two men to discover the fabled strait, in the process completing the charting of the entire Australian coastline. It is a tale of exploration, super-powers at war, and of the huge collection of plants and animals brought back by Baudin's expedition, which enabled Josephine Bonaparte to create her Australian garden, Malmaison, near Paris. It is a story of lies and betrayal ending with the imprisonment of one captain and the death of the other.