Paulette Welch

Clocks back 1 hour - Sunrise: 6:34 AM | Sunset: 8:26 PM
Pacific Islands: In Search of Terra Australis
One could say that the discovery of the South Pacific Islands was based in folly, an attempt to prove a theory that had been proposed as far back as Aristotle's day. That ancient (4th century BC) philosopher, and many great thinkers afterward, believed there must have been a land mass in the far southern reaches of the world.
They called this hypothetical continent "Terra Australis," or "Land of the South." Come the 16th century, it appeared on maps; all that remained was for explorers to discover it.
Instead, Dutch and English explorers happened upon the paradisiacal South Pacific islands of soaring emerald mountains and crescent beaches in crystalline turquoise seas. Abel Janszoon Tasman (c.1603-c.1659), seeking to further establish trade routes for the Dutch East India Company on Terra Australis, landed on Fiji in 1643, though Europeans did not settle here for another 200 years. He discovered Tongatapu (on the main island of Tonga) that same year, naming it Amsterdam Island. It was not until 1767 that English Captain Samuel Wallis made landfall on Tahiti during his circumnavigation of the globe on
HMS Dolphin. Just three years later, famed English explorer James Cook set foot on Bora Bora, setting the stage for the London Missionary Society to settle here in 1820. While transporting the Society's Reverend John Williams in 1823, Captain John Dibbs arrived on the shores of Rarotonga, on the Cook Islands.
By then, the idea of Terra Australis had fallen into obscurity; what was discovered in its place, however, was quite magnificent indeed.
Nautical term - as the crow flies. Ships would keep caged crows in the crow nest, and when released they would fly straight to the nearest land. We docked at Melbourne in Phillips Bay by 9:45 pm.En savoir plus