Australia Day

When we realized that Australia Day, January 26, this year fell on a Thursday, and many people turn it into a 4 day weekend by taking Friday off, we set about changing my plane ticket home so that we could have a 4 day weekend together before I trundled off home into the Californian winter. And because Woodside had purchased a flexible ticket for my ride back, it worked out beautifully.

So what's Australia Day? Chris asked around at work to find out. Everyone knew it was Australia's national holiday, but no one remembered exactly what it was commemorating and why it was on January 26.

So to you all you have forgotten, or never knew (thank you Wikipedia): "Australia Day commemorates the arrival of the English Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland." The arrival and founding of Australia, however, was just as messy and full of fits and starts as today. So the choice of January 26, 1787 as the "real date of arrival" is not a trivial decision. I really enjoyed the detailed account of arrival dates in Wikipedia which I've recapped here:    

1. Between January 18 and 20, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip commanded a fleet of 11 ships to establish a penal colony at Botany Bay (reported to be a suitable site 18 years earlier by James Cook). But it wasn't suitable, so the arrival day at Botany Bay was not so good for "the arrival date."
2. Between January 21 and 23, Captain Phillip scouted out a site 12 km to the north that was suitable and named it Sydney Cove. But since the fleet was not with him, that could hardly be called the arrival date.
3. On January 23rd, Capt Phillip goes back to Botany Bay and gives orders to move to Sydney Cove on the 24th, which would have been the arrival day, except that there was a huge gale. So he said, OK lets try for the 25th. (You can see what this is leading up to.....)
4. On the 25th it was still blowing. Only the HMS Supply, with Capt Phillip and hi sload of marines and convicts was able to make it out and they anchored in Sydney Cove, but did not go ashore. So not the 25th....
5. And then on the 26th, Capt Phillips went ashore AND the remaining ships joined him in Sydney Cove. It's not clear if this would have been "the arrival date," if the remaining ships had not been able to join him, and they almost didn't. For you see, all hell had broken loose back in Botany Bay with remaining ships trying the get out of the Bay under gale force winds, apparently all at the same time. Here are some of my favorite lines from the Wikipedia version:

 "The Sirius successfully cleared Botany Bay....the Charlotte was blown dangerously close to rocks; the Friendship and the Prince of Wales became entangled....; the Charlotte and the Friendship actually collided; and the Lady Penrhyn nearly ran aground."

Poor Lady Penrhyn. It was a mad house! But the last ship anchored in Sydney Cove about 3 pm. And THAT was the founding of a New South Whales.

  

"Although taken years later, this early photograph

of Botany Bay (c.1869) gives a flavour of what

the first fleeters first set eyes on. (PRONI

Ref: D24/12/D/1)." From http://www.proni.gov.uk/

 

That's Sydney at the top and Botany Bay in the middle
From http://tides.mobilegeographics.com/locations/682.html



And of course, none of this would have happened if it hadn't been for those damn rebellious colonies in the Americas. The settlement in New South Wales was only seen as necessary because England had just lost 13 colonies in North America. So all those convicts probably would have ended up over here.

And if Botany Bay HAD been suitable, or the gale force winds had decided NOT to kick up on the 24th and 25th, then 234 years later, Claudia Luke would not have changed her plane ticket and would not have had a lovely four more days of vacation with her husband Chris Halle in Cottesloe.