It was sunny when I woke, but pouring by the time I got to the lake, with red roses & thermos. 

I left the canoe on top of the car,

guarded by a goose, & went to find my Valentine.

Goose followed me ~ wanted to know if the roses & coffee were for her. 

No, I said, They're for the One. The Special One.

The others were kind of curious too ...

... very curious ...

... & then I saw her :

My Valentine, Muddy Beak.

Happy day, lovely people. Quack from the other side of the pond. 

............................................♥...........................................................

In May 1787, eleven ships left England for a bay on the other side of the world. Between them they carried 348 freemen, 696 convicts, and supplies.

Their first port of call was Santa Cruz in Tenerife, then across the Atlantic to Rio. From there they sailed under the Westerlies back across the Atlantic to Cape Town where they took on board 2 bulls, 7 cows, 4 horses, 44 sheep, 32 pigs, 4 goats & a multitude of poultry, before heading East into the wilds of the Indian and Great Southern Oceans.

Remarkably, the ships arrived at their destination ~ Botany Bay, claimed and named seventeen years earlier by Captain James Cook ~ within two days of each other. They had been at sea for nine months. The bay turned out to be shallow, windswept, and the land around it of such poor quality, that they quickly began small forays further along the coast. About 5 miles up they entered a deep, sheltered harbour with flats of promising soil, and freshwater streams. On January 26 1788, presided over by Captain Arthur Phillip, the Union Jack was raised ~ this was to be Sydney, Australia's first European settlement.

Another expedition had been at sea the year before, a French party of two frigates, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, under the command of comte Laperouse. Its mission was partly scientific, partly trade, and partly to scout sites for future colonies. From France in 1785, the two ships had sailed to present-day Chile, Hawaii ( Laperouse was the first European to set foot on Hawaii ), Alaska, California, Macau, the Philippines, Japan, Russia, Samoa and Australia.

Astrolabe and Boussole anchored off Botany Bay on the 24th, days after Phillip's fleet had assembled. News was exchanged ; Laperouse gave the English some journals, specimens and messages to be returned to Europe, then set sail North. Neither he nor his ships were ever seen again.

( A footnote to that : a few years earlier, during the selection of his crew, Laperouse turned down a 16 year-old Corsican soldier, eager to join the French Navy. His name was Napoleon Bonaparte ... ) 

Back in Sydney Harbour, clearing of the land had begun, relations between the Europeans and the indigenous Eora deteriorated, smallpox was unleashed and the rest, as they say, is history.

It's a Public Holiday here today, and it's Thursday, so probably no-one will go back to work tomorrow. The sea is full of people of just about every nationalty and the air is full of the pungent smoke from a thousand barbeques. About six miles down the coast from where I sit writing, a corroboree is underway ~ ochre-painted dark-skinned people dancing to clap-sticks and a didgeridoo through the eucalyptus smoke on a point called La Perouse. 

The Euro, subspecies of Wallaby & Kangaroo. 

                                           pic : Unique Australian Animals website.

 bandicoots

wombat ... & (crikey) Steve Irwin.         fruitbat           edu.glogster.com

( Steve's wearing the watch. )

                                                           cricketbat 

Mundara Koorang ( artist ) Eora Hunting Ground. pic. Peter Hoffman ©

One of the more redundant signs around here.