What if they just missed it???

2005-07-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time no one knew what was on the other side of the planet. As time went on though enough minds became curious and theories began to develop about what the world actually looked like. Greek philospher Aristotle postulated that the world was round and nature was symetrical. So if a large cold landmass existed at the top of the planet then one correspondingly existed at the bottom - thus balancing the planet. Aristotle was a smart guy but the "theory" later evolved and I much prefer geographer and map maker Claudius Ptolemy's (+100 BC) thinking. Claud drew his maps showing a great land mass that boardered the Indian Ocean to the south. He called this land Terra Incognita or "unknown land". Ptolemy speculated this was a warm land that was home to many "rich and wealthy people", certainly a place I could get used to:-) But as so many things go there was one sizable caveat - you had to pass through a belt of fire separating the northern and southern hemispheres (which I suppose existed to keep folks like me out). After Ptolemy a lot of time went by and in the middle ages these theories were abandoned for the world is "flat" thinking and it was blasphemy to consider otherwise.

By the end of the 1400's things again changed and more sailors began traveling south and disproving the world was flat. In doing so they used Ptolemy's age old maps for guidance and that huge speculated southern landmass again became a source of fascination. While there were many fine explorers back then, two stand above the rest and oddly enough they are the two most relevant to my trip. The first was Dutchman Able Tasman. Tasman worked for the Dutch East India Company (the infamous "tea" people) and was charged with sailing south in order to find this great and prosperous new land for trade purposes. Overall the Tas didn't have the greatest trip considering he managed to sail across the entire Australian south coast just far enough out to never see it. His course while not landing him on Australia did lead him to discover Tasmania, which he unfortunately named VanDiemen land after his superior (luckily someone had the good sense to change it later). Then he was the first Euro to discover New Zealand, but upon arrival four of his crew were killed and eaten by the local Maori (think of it as a New Zealand tea party with his crew as crumpets). The incident rather depressed the good captain so he left and couldn't get back home quick enough.

The second bloke was Captain Cook whose initial charge was to sail to Tahiti in order to measure the time it took for Venus to cross the sun during an eclipse. Upon finishing that abismally dull task he was free to wander the ocean in order find out exactly what was out there (and where possible plant an English flag on it and name after some toad back in the homeland). Like Tasman who sailed a hundred years earlier, Cook had also been to New Zealand, but unlike Tasman found the locals to be friendly - though less amorous than the Tahitians where most of his crew got syphilis. Tasman speculated that New Zealand was part of the great and fabled Terra Australis Incognita. Cook circumnavigated the country putting that theory to rest. Next he ran into what is now Australia. Oddly though he showed up in south Australia during an abnormally wet period that gave the country a lusher look than was typical. Cook charted the eastern coast of Australia until he discovered the Great Barrier Reef, by accident, when they barreled right in to one of its coral shoals. The event could have been disastrous, but one of the coral heads broke off, thus plugging the gapping hole it created and leading to new laws prohibiting the removal of coral. At this point they had been at sea several years so they headed home where Cook promptly got his wife pregnant and started planning his next adventure.

At this point in history there was still a strong belief that a huge southern landmass must exist if for no other reason than to balance the planet. While no one had found it yet, everyone was still exicited about this huge fabaled land that was soon to be discovered.

On his second voyage to the area Cook sailed as far south as any sailors ever had with full expectations of proving or disproving the TAI theory. Unfortunately, he chose a part of Anarctica that was of low latitude so all he got to do was freeze his butt off while looking at ice bergs and eating Penguin, which according to his journals tasted pretty bad (he did however like the Walrus of the northern seas, but he had gone a bit "loco" by this time). After this multi-year adventure he returned home and (drum roll please) promptly got his wife pregnant again before leaving on his third and final trip where after freezing his keester off in the Arctic (please not the spelling - he was sent north this time) he managed to get himself killed, boiled, deboned and partially eaten in Hawaii by the very people who treated him as royalty just days earlier.

With all his travels Cook had essentially disproved the TAI theory (which more or less came to mean a huge land on the bottom of the planet that extended up to about New Zealand) and confirmed the existence of Australia, whose "lush" lands became the new home of England's riff raff and criminals unwantingly removed from their homeland.

That said, since we’ll be retracing some of Captain Cook's route I will no doubt keep an eye open for this fabled land of warmth and wealth just in case they they somehow missed it!!

Disclaimer: The above historical recount is more or less true, though I have embelleshed a few details.

In search of Terra Australis Incognita

What if they just missed it???