It was inevitable that he would rediscover a land whose borders and shores with which no living man was familiar. He had found the east coast of modern day Australia. Named New Holland at the time, an excerpt of Cook's journals follows:
Sunday, May 6th, In the evening the yawl return'd from fishing, having caught two Sting rays weighing near 600 pounds. The great quantity of New Plants &c M Banks and D Solander collected in this place occasioned my giveing it the name of Botany Bay.
Cook would go one to chart the east coast of Australia, get caught in the maze that is the Great Barrier Reef, and sail home a year later. He would return to the South Pacific twice more, charting and exploring new lands until finally meeting his demise in Kealakakua Bay in Hawaii.
Truly one of the greatest explorers in history, James Cook would go on to inspire a short lived science fiction television show and a long lived series of movies about exploration. James Kirk would borrow a quote from Cook, and though the words were slightly different, the meaning stayed the same.
James Cook wrote in his journal that he:
"...had ambition not only to go farther than any one had been before, but as far as it was possible for man to go."
His determination, intelligence and fortune held him in good stead until that bad day in Hawaii. During his three voyages he sailed more than 70,000 miles in a wooden vessel which, for the bulk of their time at sea, would move no faster than a man could walk.
Patience. A virtue, indeed.
Cook would go one to chart the east coast of Australia, get caught in the maze that is the Great Barrier Reef, and sail home a year later. He would return to the South Pacific twice more, charting and exploring new lands until finally meeting his demise in Kealakakua Bay in Hawaii.
Truly one of the greatest explorers in history, James Cook would go on to inspire a short lived science fiction television show and a long lived series of movies about exploration. James Kirk would borrow a quote from Cook, and though the words were slightly different, the meaning stayed the same.
James Cook wrote in his journal that he:
"...had ambition not only to go farther than any one had been before, but as far as it was possible for man to go."
His determination, intelligence and fortune held him in good stead until that bad day in Hawaii. During his three voyages he sailed more than 70,000 miles in a wooden vessel which, for the bulk of their time at sea, would move no faster than a man could walk.
Patience. A virtue, indeed.
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