Tuesday 7 July 2009

In search of Captain Cook


I hadn't thought about it before today, but much of this trip has parallelled the journeys of Captain Cook, who made the first detailed descriptions of NZ, Oz, and much of the Pacific in the 18th century. I've seen statues or museums commemorating his landfalls in the Queen Charlotte Sound in NZ and at Cooktown north of Cairns. He was also in Sydney long before it became Sydney, and today I toured the replica of his ship Endeavour at the Maritime Museum in Sydney. And tomorrow I'm off to Hawaii, where he came to a grisly end - hope this is where the parallels stop. The histories are a bit delicate on the subject, but it seems the British only got some of his body back from the Hawaians who killed him. Not sure what happened to the rest, but 'Long Pig' was definitely on the south seas menu in those days.

Finally, big shout to my pal Ronnie, who was going to come and meet me in Canada at the end of the trip, but has just broken his leg so sadly won't be going anywhere for a while. My brother Alan is still scheduled to come, can I ask his fellow footballers to treat him with kid gloves for the next few weeks please?!

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