“At nightfall rocks and shoals were seen ahead… at supper she (HMB Endeavour) went over a bank of 7 or 8 fathom water which she came upon very suddenly: this we concluded to be the tail of the Shoals we had seen at sunset and therefore went to bed in perfect security, but scarce were we warm in our beds when we were called up with the alarming news of the ship being fast ashore upon a rock, which she in a few moments convinced us of by beating very violently against the rocks.” Joseph Banks, HMB Endeavour, 11 June, 1770.

Imagine standing on the deck of His Majesty’s Barque, Endeavour, listening to the sounds of a hidden reef tearing wooden chunks from the underside of your ship. HMS Endeavour had been on an expedition to explore parts of the South Pacific, leaving Plymouth, England in August, 1768. Her mission, to search the southern seas for ‘Terra Australis Incognita’-the unknown southern land. On board HMBEndeavour, under the command of Lt. James Cook, was a crew of 72 men, 12 marines and 11 civilians. The civilians were a team of scientists put together by Joseph Banks. It was this team which introduced the world to Australia’s amazing flora and fauna.

Bad weather had forced the Endeavour northward along the east coast of Australia. Cook surveyed the coastline as they proceeded north, naming many of the landmarks still in use today. Due to the dangerous hidden shoals and reefs within the Great Barrier Reef, the Endeavour seldom landed. However, in June, 1770, the crew struck the reef mentioned in Banks’ quote and were forced to beach the ship for repairs in the sheltered harbor at the mouth of what Cook named the Endeavour River. “The Captn and myself went ashore to view the Harbour and found it indeed beyond our most sanguine (optimistic) wishes…it was the mouth of a river…” Joseph Banks.

For the next seven weeks, while repairs were completed, the men explored the local environment. They encountered Aborigines, which Banks describes as “very small people, about 5 feet 6 in height…very slender…their hair strait in some and curled in others…They painted themselves with white and red,in lines on different parts of their bodies…Their ornaments were few: necklaces…of shells, bracelets…”

The crew also collected plant and animal samples. They saw their first kangaroo, possum and other animals unknown to Europeans. Banks writes, “In gathering plants today I myself had the good fortune to see the beast so much talked of; he was not only like a grey hound in size and running but had a long tail, as long as any grey hounds; what to liken him to I could not tell, nothing certainly that I have seen at all resembles him.”

After seven weeks, the repairs completed, Endeavour safely navigated the Great Barrier Reef and continued her journey northward.