Australia Day 2004
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Contrary to popular belief, Captain Cook was not the first
European or English sailor to 'discover' Australia -
the driest, oldest and perhaps the weirdest
continent on Earth.
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On behalf of royal and commerical patrons back in Europe,
Dutch, Portugese and other European and English sailors had
'discovered' Australia's arid northern and western coasts
long before Captain Cook set sail on his three
epic circumnavigations of the globe.
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What sets Captain Cook apart is he was the first Englishman to
approach 'Terra Australis Incognita' (the 'Unkown South Land')
from the fertile east - and he liked what he saw
and we've been terribly grateful ever since.
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Earlier European adventurers had approached
it from the west or north and they were
horrified by what they saw:
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Thus the colonisation of what later became known as 'Australia' was put in
Europe's Too Hard basket until England needed somewhere horrible
to dump its unwanted convicts - when Captain Cook's
east-coast encounter sprang to mind.
....
Much to the consternation of watching Aboriginals,
on 26 January 1788 several boat-loads of English
and Irish men and women convicts
were dumped on Australian soil
at a place now called Sydney.
Whereupon the first thing they
did
was to have a drunken orgy.
Ever since then, Sydney has been
known as a sailor's town.
..
Sydney's Convict Dumping Day
(Invasion Day to Aboriginal
people)
is now celebrated nation-wide as
Australia Day..
On the more fertile east coast of the continent,
this is how Australia Day 2004 was celebrated
in the national capital city of Canberra:
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..
Located in the middle of man-made Lake Burley Griffin
(named after the Chicago chap who designed Canberra)
and just to the right of Commonwealth Bridge
(in the centre-left of the picture)
is Captain Cook's Fountain.
..
Behind Captain Cook's Fountain is
leafy, spacious Commonwealth Park
where Oz Day 2004 was celebrated.
Australians are created in two ways.
There's the labour-intensive
traditional method:
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Or you can hold a 'naturalisation' ceremony as happens in towns
and cities every Oz Day when, with pomp and ceremony, folk
born overseas are re-badged as 'True Blue' Aussies
in places like Canberra's Commonwealth Park:
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Apart from some boring speeches, 'naturalisation' is not particularly painful.
En masse, you simply stand and affirm your allegiance to your new homeland.
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One by one, you're then presented
with a citizenship certificate,
a tiny gum tree and
a brand-new flag.
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