Today marks 250 years since Lt (later Capt) James Cook sailed HM Bark
Endeavour into Queensland waters here in Australia. He named the rocky outcrop at the now border between New South Wales and Queensland as Point Danger and the peaked mountain behind it as Mt Warning. I know a number of you have visited this area as it is at the southern end of the famous Gold Coast.
James Cook was the son of a Yorkshire labourer who started his working life as a grocer's apprentice. The
Endeavour was formally a North Sea collier which was purchased by the Admiralty for Cook to lead a group of scientists to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus across the sun. Having completed this task, he opened his sealed orders which directed him to search the south Pacific for that rich southern continent,
Terra Australis.
Having sailed around New Zealand waters he then sailed westward reaching Pt Hicks on the southeastern coast of Australia on 19th April 1770.Ten days later, on 29th April the sailed into Botany Bay, just south of Sydney Harbour.
The
Endeavour continued north with several stops along the way until that fateful moonlit night of 11th June when she hit Endeavour Reef (part of the Great Barrier Reef). After successfully refloating her, Cook made landfall at what is now the Endeavour River and Cooktown where the
Endeavour is hauled ashore and repairs are effected over a 6 week period. Whilst here, Cook's crew sight for the very first time, on 23rd June, a kangaroo.
Continuing north, Cook, on 22nd August 1770 on Possession Island in the Torres Strait, Cook claims the east coast, on behalf of King George 111, as British and names it New South Wales.
Now, 250 years later, I have the privilege of living in this great country, Australia.
For some further reading, try
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook