Skip to main content

Canberra’s Captain Cook Memorial Globe




Canberra’s Captain Cook Memorial Globe sits on Regatta Point at Commonwealth Park on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin. It was built to commemorate the Bicentenary of British Captain James Cook’s first sighting of the east coast of Australia – where Sydney is now located, which he called Botany Bay. Queen Elizabeth II officially inaugurated the memorial on April 25, 1970. The other part of the memorial is the Captain Cook Memorial Jet – a fountain in the lake which operated from 2:00-4:00pm daily.
Designed by Walter Ralston Bunning, the bronze, copper, and enamel globe of the world depicts Cook’s three expeditions to the southern hemisphere with the history explained on the handrail. James Cook (1728-1779) was a British explorer, navigator, and cartographer. Essentially, he took the voyage to create a map of the uncharted region and to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun, visible in the south. It was on his first voyage (1768-71) that he sighted Australia in his ship, Endeavour.


He was 39 years old when he sailed from England in 1768 across the Pacific to Tahiti where the transit of Venus was observed. Searching for Terra Australis (the southern land), he circumnavigated the islands now known as New Zealand, and sighted Terra Australis on April 19, 1770. He landed ten days later. He originally called it Stingray Bay, but changed it to Botany Bay after the unique plants found there. He met the original owners of the land, the Gweagal. He only stayed two months, and set sail for a northern journey along the eastern coast on June 11, 1770. He ran aground a week later on the Great Barrier Reef, so he stayed for seven weeks near where Cooktown is located, until repairs were completed. He then continued home to England. In his second and third voyages to the southern hemisphere, he did not land in Australia. Hence he only ever spent less than four months in Australia.  






 

 

MARTINA NICOLLS

MartinaNicollsWebsite

 

Martinasblogs

Publications

Facebook

Paris Website

Animal Website

Flower Website

SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES 


MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing...
1 comment
Read more