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177029 April 1770 · Kurnell, Botany Bay

James Cook lands at Kamay (Botany Bay)

Emanuel Phillips Fox's painting of Captain Cook landing at Botany Bay in 1770
Archival image: E. Phillips Fox. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On his first Pacific voyage, James Cook's ship Endeavour anchored at Kamay, which he named Botany Bay, and a landing party exchanged shots with Gweagal men on the shore. Cook then charted the east coast and claimed it for Britain. The encounter is marked both as the start of British Australia and, by many Aboriginal people, as the beginning of invasion.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Kamay Botany Bay National Park, KurnellLanding place, monuments and a meeting-place walking track.Map ↗
  2. Site 2: La Perouse headlandWhere the French explorer La Pérouse camped in 1788.Map ↗

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