Ladies and Gentlemen. May I introduce, to those who may not have met him in the threads, my friend and compatriot, Old Bob.
Bob hails from
Gympie, Queensland and he has many stories to tell. I promise you that every one of them will end up going somewhere interesting. Now we're really on a roll.
Please forgive Bob's style of posting, should you feel it worthy of any criticism. We all have our little ways about us. My responses will tidy up a little.
Bob is the inspiration for this thread.
Welcome Bob.
The game is afoot!
I meant no offence with regard to your posting style. I can read it just fine.
Shrike mentioned the
Duyfken. It so happens that we met a tradesman who made parts of the
replica. He was making the stern light in
Winton and trying to flatten cow horns for the lens of the light (flattened horns polished are transparent and tough). I had the right gear with me so over a few drinks we did the job. That little ship started the
modern day exploriation of Australia.
Please follow the links in the Bobquotes™ which lead to external sources of information. A number of posters will let me know if this is not the case.
The story of the replica Duyfken was unknown to me before now. Thank you.
I notice too, that the Winton link above contains this reference to the famous dinosaurs.
Winton Dinosaurs
It was ascertained that these Trackways dated back to the Cretaceous Period, 95 million years ago.
Strewth, that's older than both of us laid end-to-end, or something.
Captan Cook came here with
maps to est. a military outpost and got rid of the Spanish huts that were there (about 400). Don't know if anybody was home at the time.
Although I haven't found a reference, I wonder if Cook and his men might have noticed the native
gunyahs of the
Eora people and mistook them for Spanish huts. 400 dwellings seems a credible number.
The first aboriginals that Cook observed were very cautious of the men from the big ships, and would often melt into the bush when the sailors approached them.
Just more stuff that they don't teach in our schools.
I think they do what they can with the limited time and resources available. Life itself teaches us the best lessons anyway.
Why sail all the way down the coast to
land? My reasoning would be is Cook was a
Mason and tried to get as close to 33° lat. as possible.
Additional information: The starting location pin is at Pi-Broadford (wdne). It's sticking out of the ground in the Palace garden, near the shrubbery. Gympie is a bit to the north of the map area.
No doubt England had it all planned to open up Australia by jailing a huge work(slave) force.
England had huge problems with the squalor and overcrowding of both her domestic prisons and her existing penal colonies.
England had ships.
England claimed sovereignty over a continent that turned out to have an area of
7 692 024 square kilometres
WWJD? England loaded a number of prisoners onto ships and sent the
First Fleet to Australia.
Instructions from the Home Secretary, Lord Sydney to Captain Arthur Phillip.
. . . We, reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage and experience in military affairs, do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be Governor of our territory called New South Wales, extending from the northern cape or extremity of the coast called Cape York, in the latitude of 10° 37' south, to the southern extremity of the said territory of New South Wales or South Cape, in the latitude 43° 39' south, and all the country inland and westward as far as the one hundred and thirty-fifth degree of longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Greenwich, including all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean, within the latitude aforesaid of 10° 37' south and 43° 39' south, and of all towns, garrisons, castles, forts and all other fortifications or other military works, which now are or may be hereafter erected upon this said territory. You are therefore carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of Governor in and over our said territory by doing and performing all and all manner of things thereunto belonging, and we do hereby strictly charge and command all our officers and soldiers who shall be employed within our said territory, and all others whom it may concern, to obey you as our Governor thereof; and you are to observe and follow such orders and directions from time to time as you shall receive from us, or any other your superior officer according to the rules and discipline of war, and likewise such orders and directions as we shall send you under our signet or sign manual, or by our High Treasurer or Commissioners of our Treasury, for the time being, or one of our Principal Secretaries of State, in pursuance of the trust we hereby repose in you.
Given at our Court at St, James's, the twelfth day of October 1786, in the twenty-sixth year of our reign.
Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Britain decided to use its new outpost as a penal colony. The First Fleet of 11 ships carried about 1500 people – half of them convicts. About 160 000 men and women were brought to Australia as convicts from 1788 until penal transportation ended in 1868. The convicts were joined by free immigrants beginning in the early 1790s.
Wikipedia
Phillip had a very difficult time assembling the fleet which was to make the eight-month sea voyage to Australia. Everything a new colony might need had to be taken, since Phillip had no real idea of what he might find when he got there. There were few funds available for equipping the expedition. His suggestion that people with experience in farming, building and crafts be included was rejected. Most of the 772 convicts (of whom 732 survived the voyage) were petty thieves from the London slums. Phillip was accompanied by a contingent of marines and a handful of other officers who were to administer the colony.
There's no denying that those poor bloody
Poms* did it tough. In many ways they were worse off than slaves, whose owners had a vested interest in the well-being of their workforce. Governor Phillip had no choice in the matter, however, since the entire colony found itself in dire straits, and almost starved.
* My reference defines this as a derogatory term. I dispute that this is always true. We Aussies play fast and loose with our epithets and such, and Bob and I are notorious for it. We mean no offence. It's a matter of context really, and we'll show you how it works if you stick with us.
The fact is, that whole crew were slaves to the environment, descibed in her usual manner of highlighting the extremes of our country, by
Dorothea Mackellar:
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
In the strange and dangerous place they had found themselves, it was all uphill, and I suggest that the Marines, the free settlers and the Governor himself, did little better than their charges.
Conditions improved dramatically after the first two hard years, and as the convicts served out their time and joined the free men and women at work on their new home, our nation was founded.
They made it Bob, and here we are. Crikey.
Here is Governor Phillip's legacy
Phillip established the convict colony in NSW, which he governed in a sensible and humane way, despite adverse conditions which included poor quality food, largely infertile land and a lack of experienced farm labour which led to near-famine. He requested to be allowed to return to England in 1790, pleading ill-health, and eventually sailed for England in 1792, leaving a colony with more than 1,700 acres of land under cultivation or cleared and ready for sowing and which, within another year, was almost able to support itself.
The USA has a large stock of prisoners now; have they a plan?
I'll bet they do, but I doubt if it's colonising Australia. They don't even speak the
lingo.
As for Australia being the crime country?? We don't lock most up and have little trouble. Some city areas can be a bit rough but on the whole not too bad. Usually a good reason for murder especially tribal.
Yeah, we're doing alright, I think. Gangs are a worry in many parts of the world, and at least it's good to see the authorities doing something about the outlaw motorcycle groups.
Here are some examples of this:
New South Wales
Queensland
Northern Territory
Western Australia
Frankly, I like bickies, especially
Tim Tams
Not a bad little post, Bob, and thanks again for your help.
Cheers Mate,
Dave
