Captain Cooks Landing Place

"In his log entry for May 6, 1770, the English explorer Captain James Cook wrote: "The great quantity of these sort of fish found in this place occasioned my giving it the name of Stingrays Harbour." When later writing his journal based on the log, he changed his mind. "The great quantity of plants .. found in this place occasioned my giving it the name of Botany Bay" it is by this name that we know the bay where Captain Cook first made landfall in Australia, and where, eighteen years later, Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet to found a penal colony. However, Phillip found the sandy, infertile shores of the bay unsuitable for his purposes and within days sailed north to Port Jackson and Sydney Cove. Despite this move, the first penal colony would for many years be known as Botany Bay. The historic bay itself lies in the southern suburbs of Sydney. Today it is somewhat dominated by the industry of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport. the high security prison of Long Bay, the container terminal of Port Botany, an oil refinery, and a sewage outlet. But the remaining quiet sandy beaches, surrounding marshlands, and clear waters give us some idea of what Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour first saw of Australia, and what later greeted the 732 convicts, their 22 children, and 619 soldiers and ships' crew an board the 11-strong First Fleet. A red buoy in the southeast of Botany Bay near the Kurnell Peninsula marks the spot where Cook first anchored on April 29, 1770. His landing place is marked by a monument at the southern end of Botany Bay National Park, which covers either side of the narrow entrance to the bay from the Pacific Ocean. On the north shore is La Perouse, which is Sydney's oldest Aboriginal settlement and now part of the national park. More than thirty other Aboriginal sites exist in the park."