Australia Philately: 1770 Cook’s First Voyage – Arrival at Gangaar

On 17 June 1770, the Endeavour limped up the east coast seeking a safe harbour after sustaining serious damage to its wooden hull on the reef to the south. The Endeavour beached in the calm waters near the Gangaar at the mouth of the Wahalumbaal river in Yalanji. The British crew spent seven weeks on the site repairing their ship, replenishing food and water supplies, and caring for their sick.

Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander took advantage of the seven week stay to collect, preserve and document over 200 new species of plants, which formed the vast majority of the collection brought back to England from Australia. The young artist Sydney Parkinson illustrated the specimens and he was the first British artist to portray Aboriginal people from direct observation. The illustrations were later published as the famous Banks’ Florilegium.

After some weeks, Banks met and spoke with the local people, recording about fifty words of the Guugu Yimithirr language, including the name of the intriguing animal the natives called gangurru (which he transcribed as “Kangaru”). Cook recorded the local name as “Kangooroo, or Kanguru”.

On 19 July 1770 a skirmish erupted after Cook refused to share turtles he kept on the Endeavour with the local people. They set fire to the grass around Cook’s camp twice, burning the area and killing a suckling pig. After Cook wounded one of the men with a musket, they ran away. Cook, Banks and some others followed them and caught up with them on a rocky bar. A “little old man” appeared from the group and the skirmish were reconciled. It is believed that this is the first recorded reconciliation between Europeans and Indigenous Australians ever”.

Cook re-named the Wahalumbaal river the Endeavour after his ship, and, as he sailed north, claimed possession of the whole eastern coast of Australia for Britain. He named Cape York Peninsula after the then-Duke of York and Albany “The Grand Old Duke of York.”