Botany Bay
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Coordinates: 33 ° 59 ′ 0 ″ S , 151 ° 11 ′ 0 ″ E
The Botany Bay (German Botanikbucht ) is a large bay in the city of Sydney , about seven kilometers south of the Central Business District (city center). On April 29, 1770, it was the site of the first landing by the British on the east coast of Australia by James Cook .
The Portuguese had already visited the continent several times in the 16th century, the Dutch landed for the first time in 1606. When Cook arrived in Botany Bay, he was on his first circumnavigation with the Endeavor . He made the first accurate surveys of the bay and the Australian east coast, some of which were used until the middle of the 20th century.
Initially the bay was named Stingray Bay because large numbers of stingrays were caught here to replenish supplies. The bay owes its current name, in German roughly: Botany Bay , to the fact that the expedition financier and botanist Sir Joseph Banks and his draftsman Daniel Solander , the natural scientists of the expedition, were euphoric about the biodiversity of the plants. Cook therefore named the boundaries of the bay Cape Banks (N) and Point Solander (S). The two headlands and the adjacent land form the small Botany Bay National Park , the south side of which is home to memorials of the landing and discovery in 1770.
Despite Cook's recommendation to the government in London , deported British prisoners were not landed in Botany Bay from 1788, but in the bay to the north and later named Port Jackson .
Shortly after the arrival of the First Fleet , a French expedition led by Jean-François de La Pérouse arrived in Botany Bay. In his honor, a district of Sydney on the north side of the bay bears his name.
Today in the bay is the heaped container port of Port Botany , an oil refinery and the largest airport in Australia, Kingsford Smith International Airport . The film Mad Max 3 was shot in the dunes on the south side .
The urban area north of the bay is called Botany Bay City .
Trivia
In the SciFi series Star Trek , the name Botany Bay is used for the spaceship Khan ( Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Spaceship Enterprise , Season 1, Episode 22: The Sleeping Tiger ).
The text of the Irish folk song “ Fields of Athenry ” reads: “As that prison ship sailed out against the sky; sure she'll wait and hope and pray, for her love in Botany Bay ". These lines refer to a woman whose husband was sentenced to deport to Australia for stealing grain during the Irish famine in the mid-19th century.
