Botany Bay

Jordi heeft vandaag een excursie naar Botany Bay.  Deze term heeft Y3 het over "ontdekking van Australie door de westerse wereld". In Botany Bay zette (de vrouw van) Captain Cook de eerste voet aan wal in Sydney. Natuurlijk is ook Albert Tasman (als eerste Tasmanie ontdekt) aan bod geweest. 

Een stuk geschiedenis....
VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY ! In 1768, Captain Cook and his ship the Endeavour, had been dispatched to Tahiti and then New Zealand at the request of the Royal Society. He had onboard with him Daniel Carl Solander and Joseph Banks – two of the great botanists of the age. Having completed those duties, he was free to return to England by either the Cape or the Horn routes. Instead, he called a meeting with his crew and they decided upon a route which would lead to the unknown east coast of the then-fabled South Land. He had resolved to turn his ship “westward till we fall in with the East Coast of New Holland and then follow that direction of the coast to the northward”.

DISCOVERY OF THE EAST COAST OF AUSTRALIA.The “East Coast of New Holland” which was later to be Cape Everard, was sighted on 19 April 1770. Sailing northwards along the coast, Cook found a convenient harbour on 28 April 1770 where the ship could drop anchor and he and his men could investigate local conditions. [see location of Captain Cooks Landing Point] The crew feasted on fresh fish, and the delighted botanists Solander and Banks discovered an extraordinary array of plants, birds and animals previously unknown to science. No naturalists before or since Solander and Banks have ever collected in such a short time so many new specimens of plant, bird and animal life. Initially, Captain Cook named the anchorage place “Stingray Harbour Bay” because his men ate their fill of seafoods, but upon the many botanical discovery by Solander and Banks, he renamed it “Botany Bay”.