Cook's Landing Place

[khiemtran]

Also at Kurnell, you can see the site where James Cook and his men first set foot on the continent of Australia.

Cook and his men had sailed the Endeavour into Botany Bay (which Cook at first named Stingray Harbour), looking for fresh water. They soon encountered some men of the Gweagal clan, who they thought were calling out a welcome.



As it turned out, the first words spoken by the Gweagal to the British explorers were Warra warra wai!, meaning "Go away now!"



A standoff soon developed as the sailors tried to land on a flat rock and two of the Gweagal held them off by threatening them with spares. Eventually, the British resorted to firing muskets over their heads, to no avail.



Next, they tried loading a musket with "small shot" and fired at one of the men's legs. The famous botanist, Joseph Banks, records...

... but he minded it very little, so another was immediately fired at him, on this he ran up to the house about 100 yards distant and soon returned with a shield. In the meantime we had landed on the rock.

You can still walk on the rock today. This is it right here.



After Cook and his men had landed, several spears were thrown at them without effect and they responded with more shots and the Gweagal withdrew. And so, for modern Australia at least, it all began...

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The rock has a suitable ominous surface.

I heard that when the very first Europeans came, the Aborigines' weapons were actually more accurate and dangerous than the European musket shot, but that quickly the European guns became the more dangerous weapon. Do you know if that's true?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Hmm. It might have been true of the Dutch (who discovered the coastline in 1606, before the flintlock had been invented). I don't think it was true by 1770, by the time the British arrived.