Botany Bay National Park, Sydney
That was a beautiful weekend and we decided to go to Botany Bay National Park opposite side Botany Bay, Sydney for a picnic. We’ve never been in that part of the park before and we were happy to see that gorgeous place.
We spent some time there… cooked fish and sausages… there were different beautiful birds around us: kookaburras, parrots and some other birds with funny pappuses on their heads.
The picnic area is close to the Bay and it has a pretty view. I wouldn’t say it is so beautiful because there you can see lost of industrial things which are (as I know) mostly about oil.
But despite all this Botany Bay will always be famous and popular place to visit, because this is exactly that point where Cook first time landed in Austrlaia.
At this place we saw a Discovery Center, where we could find lots of interesting information about Botany Bay and its history. We were lucky to be there at this day as there were free discovery tours. We took a historical tour and found out lots of details and history of Cook’s arrival in Australia.
We were surprised to learn that he had troubles with communicating with local people and simply shot them instead of finding the way to talk. There is a picture of the words on the monument which say about this historical moment the following:
"The natives resolutely disputed the lading "although they were but two, and we thirty or forty at least".
Parleying these two continued for about a quarter of an hour. "They remained resolute, so a musket was fired over them, the effect of which was that the youngest of the two dropped bundle of lances on the rock… He, however, snatched them up again and both renewed their threats and opposition. A musket loaded with small shot was now fired at the eldest of the two who was about 40 yards from the boat, it struck him on the legs but he minded it very little, so another was immediately fired at him, on this he ran up to the hours about 100 yards distant and soon returned with a shield. In the meantime we had landed on the rock".
Several "lances" were immediately thrown and fell among the party. This caused two further discharges of small shot, when, after throwing another lance, the natives fled".
There was also a monument showing where "they digged holes in the sand, by which means and a small stream they found fresh water sufficient to water the ship".
Then we made a short walk along the shore and after drove to the lookout not far from there, where, if you are lucky, you can see the migrating whales. We were not so lucky that day but at least we enjoyed beautiful sunset and the view of the ocean.
Date: 15/05/2007
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Roman
a nice weekend )
Sergo
Cool nature photos!
Juergen
Really nice place. Liked it there, too!
Chester Cool
4 of 5
When I were younger we used to go there a lot of times with my family, the place is really great specially when I sleep under a shade of tree.