 On 11 May 1626 the VOC ship ' t Gulden <unk> ( The Golden Seahorse ) departed from Amsterdam with Nuyts and his eldest son Laurens aboard . Deviating from the standard route to the VOC 's East Asian Batavia headquarters , the ship continued east and mapped around 1 @,@ 500 km of the southern coast of Australia from Albany , Western Australia to Ceduna , South Australia . The captain of the ship , François Thijssen , named the region ′ t Landt van Pieter Nuyts ( Pieter Nuyts ' Land ) after Nuyts , who was the highest @-@ ranking official on the ship . Today several areas in the state of South Australia still bear his name , such as Nuyts 's Reef , Cape Nuyts and the Nuyts Archipelago ; names given by the British navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders . Later Nuytsia floribunda , the Western Australian Christmas Tree , was also named for him . 
