$39.95 AUD
Category: Australian Non-Fiction
"Phillip Parker King has been described as the greatest of Australia s early marine surveyors. But while the achievements of Cook and Flinders are widely known, this is the first telling of King s story.Unlike Cook and Flinders, King was Australian-born--the son of Philip Gidley King, governor of New So
"Phillip Parker King has been described as the greatest of Australia s early marine surveyors. But while the achievements of Cook and Flinders are widely known, this is the first telling of King s story.Unlike Cook and Flinders, King was Australian-born--the son of Philip Gidley King, governor of New South Wales. In a series of gruelling voyages between 1817 and 1822, King charted most of the north-west coast of Australia from the eastern tip of Arnhem Land all the way round to Cape Leeuwin and King George Sound. He surveyed Macquarie Harbour in Van Diemen s Land and the treacherous waters inside the Great Barrier Reef, filling gaps in the work of his famous predecessors.Marsden Hordern, a splendid storyteller, creates for the reader a sense of following, engrossed, in King s wake. The hazards of reefs, shoals and tides are ever-present, as is delight in unfamiliar wildlife and curiosity about the Aboriginal people.The question left hanging is whether King might be better known today had he been a less capable, good and faithful servant of the Crown, and more inclined to the excess and ineptitude of certain other early explorers.Winner of the New
...Show more