On 20 August 1770, the flag of Great Britain was hoisted over the silver sands to flutter in the breeze. Three volleys were fired by the landing party, and then answered by the Bark Endeavour, moored in the bay.
James Cook and his crew had been at sea for 724 days and it had been 141 days since they had left New Zealand behind. Less than 100-strong, a tiny ship in a vast ocean, they had mapped the coastline, before tacking west to Van Diemen’s Land, then north in search of the eastern coast of Terra Australis Incognita – the unknown land of the south – promised in his sealed orders.
Ostensibly in the Pacific to witness the rare transit of Venus across the sun, their’s was a swashbuckling secret mission in the name of discovery, with a royal warrant to claim unsettled lands for the crown, and record alien sights and skies for science. When explorer, astronomer and enlightenment hero Lieutenant James Cook stepped ashore and claimed the great southern land for Britain – naming the whole eastern chunk of this vast continent New South Wales in the process – he wasn’t discovering a new world so much as he was meeting an old friend.
The dream of Australia had dominated the European exploration of Asia for 400 years, and had been a myth of Atlantean proportions for much longer. Cook wasn’t the first to arrive, flag in hand, and stretched out before him was a road paved with shipwreck, war, spice and piracy, but first, there had to be the idea itself. That idea was already well established.
Western Australia
Captain: William Dampier
Ship: HMS Roebuck
Nationality: English
Date Of Discovery: 26 July 1699
