Caught in a huge breath of fresh air and cool, sweet dawn, I cycled hard past the golf course and through Bicentennial Park, revelling in this long-awaited relief from North Queensland heat. A couple of weeks ago, when Vilis and I attended a Uniting Church service, an older woman told us, “I don’t enjoy our summers. I endure them. But our winters are beautiful.” So I rode the autumnal edge, straining toward that beauty.

A rippled strip of pink bespoke the sun’s rising beyond a blanket of grey cloud hovering over Townsville. The trumpet calls of red-tailed black-cockatoos rang out over the park – the brass section of the Townsville Avian Choral Society. Other choristers trilled, chirped, and warbled, adding their notes to another world premiere of the Australian Dawn Chorus.

It seemed a morning for dogs, too. A pair of floppy-eared, trotting carpets on leashes wagged their tails cheerfully. A husky-type romped along beside me, sniffing at my feet and the bike’s wheels. A toy dog that had been racing along next to a bicycle was gently scooped into a quilted cloth bag by its owner and set in the bike carrier for a front-row seat on the world. Always, I share the Ross River Parkway with dog-walkers, but this morning, the proportion of canine exercisers was far greater than that of other Ross River Knights, and delightfully so.

As I mentioned in my blog burnout post last Friday, I’ve been thinking about two great explorers – Abel Tasman and James Cook. Both had a significant impact on Australia, and the names of both have been bestowed upon an impressive variety of geographical features in the South Pacific: Tasmania, the Cook Islands, the Tasman Sea separating Australia and New Zealand, Cook Strait separating New Zealand’s North Island and South Island, Abel Tasman National Park in the northwest of New Zealand’s South Island, Cooktown and Mount Cook in Queensland, and the much loftier Mount Cook, along with Mount Tasman, the two highest peaks in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. So, who were Tasman and Cook, and what did they accomplish?

Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch sailor – the most famous Dutch mariner ever¹ – and was employed by the Dutch East India Company during the 17th century.¹ He commanded two exploratory voyages of the South Pacific, the first in 1642-43, and the second in 1644.¹ In 1642, his mission was “for the discovery and exploration of the supposed rich southern and eastern land” which geographers of the day believed must exist to balance the landmasses of the Northern Hemisphere.² His orders were to attempt to make contact with the residents of that land and “to find out what commodities their country yields, likewise inquiring after gold and silver, whether the latter are by them held in high esteem; making them believe you are by no means eager for precious metals, so as to leave them ignorant of the value of the same.”² In other words, Tasman was looking for a new land of riches the Dutch could exploit.

Tasman never found that vast, non-existent southern continent, but his charting of Van Dieman’s Land (now called Tasmania) proved that Australia wasn’t part of the mystery continent.¹ He went on to sight the west coast of New Zealand, and then sailed on to chart Tonga and Fiji.¹ In 1644, he sailed along Australia’s north coast, charting it from Cape York to Shark Bay.¹ It was as a result of Tasman’s work that the Dutch no longer referred to Australia as South Land or Terra Australis, but called it New Holland.¹

More than a hundred years after Tasman’s exploratory voyages, James Cook, the greatest navigator and mariner of his era, embarked in 1768 on a scientific and exploratory mission sanctioned by England’s Royal Society and Admiralty.³ He sailed first to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the sun, and then sailed onward into the far South Pacific to determine whether Tasman’s sighting of coastal New Zealand a century earlier had any relevance to the still-speculated, vast southern continent.³

Cook completed both missions successfully, with his circumnavigation of New Zealand proving it also was definitely not the imagined southern continent.³ Cook then sailed northwest across the Tasman Sea to sight the east coast of Australia on April 20, 1770.⁴ He gave it the name New South Wales⁵ and charted his way up the eastern coast of the continent, navigating through the Great Barrier Reef, but grounding the Endeavour at Cape Tribulation, causing damage that took two months to repair.⁶ It was Cook’s report of lush meadows – “here are Provender for more cattle at all seasons  of the year than ever can be brought into this Country” – that provided the stimulus for sending the First Fleet of transported convicts to New South Wales.⁷

After his return to England in 1771, Cook set out again in 1772, this time sailing deep into Antarctic waters and proving once and for all that no vast southern continent existed, before going on to chart numerous South Pacific islands.⁸ His legacy also includes the mapping of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the Saint Lawrence River, plus an unsuccessful attempt to find the Northwest Passage to the north of North America.⁸ It is a charming coincidence that a university named for this illustrious explorer has welcomed Vilis as a visiting scholar.

References:

1. National Library of Australia: Southland to New Holland, Dutch Charting of Australia 1606-1756, Abel Tasman. Accessed 1-May-2010. http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibition/southland/Char-Abel_Tasman.html

2. Quoted in: Keith Sinclair. 2000. A History of New Zealand. Penguin Books, Auckland. p. 30.

3. Sinclair, p.31.

4. Wikipedia. First Voyage of James Cook. Updated 7-Jun-2010. Accessed 10-Jun-2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_voyage_of_James_Cook

5. Australian Government Culture Portal. European discovery and the colonisation of Australia. Updated 11-Jan-2008. Accessed 1-May-2010. http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/australianhistory/

6. Emma Greg. 2008. The Rough Guide to East Coast Australia. Rough Guides, New York. p. 615.

7. Quoted in: Geoffrey Blainey. A Shorter History of Australia, revised edition. 2009. Vintage Books, North Sydney. p. 27.

8. Australianexplorer.com. Captain Cook (1728-79). Accessed 1-May-2010. http://www.australianexplorer.com/australian_explorers.htm