Botany Bay exploration

Today was a much nicer day than yesterday, so I decided to go back to Botany Bay. Here some kids are playing on the rocks forming one of the breakwaters along Lady Robinson Beach.

Botany Bay was where Captain James Cook sailed in to "discover" the continent, in May 1770. Well, perhaps to discover the original inhabitants! The British penal colony didn't begin until Captain Arthur Phillip's arrival with the First Fleet eighteen years later, in January 1778.

Cook originally named it Stingray Bay, but he later changed this to Botany Bay, recording: "The great quantity of plants Mr Banks and Dr Solander found in this place occasioned my giving it the Name of Botany Bay".

In the photo you can see The Heads, the opening to the Pacific, through which Cook and Phillip sailed. I often imagine I am an Aborigine living along the shores here - very rich in plant and sea food - watching those sailing ships come in and trying to imagine what I would have thought was going on.

I'll show some more pics of Botany Bay, one of Sydney's lesser visited waterways - that is, by tourists and people from other parts of Sydney, but very popular with locals.