I’m afraid I won’t be able to write the article I intended to write tonight; I have had a lot of work given to me today, and, although it’s not due till march, its rather long and I’m eager to get it started. It is, however, a story, and for that I have plenty to write about.

Nothing provides one with more inspiration than travel. For my story I’m writing about one of the things I saw on holiday – the Endeavour. The replica of Cook’s ship is currently moored in darling harbour, Sydney; we got to that city on new year’s eve, and were planning to celebrate with dinner in our hotel, we’d flown in from Alice that afternoon, and were looking forward to a nice meal. My parent’s room looked out over the harbour, and, looking through their window I could see the National maritime museum, with three or four vessels ‘parked’ along side it.

There were two vessels clearly on the dock, and one sailing vessel to one side. I immediately expected this to be the endeavour, and asked someone if the sailing ship over the water was cook’s. he replied that it was, and I was happy.

A day or two after tat, we visited the museum. Oddly, the ship I had seen was not the endeavour; cooks ship actually lay with the rest of the ships in the museum, right by a destroyer and a sub. With my brother’s help (18th century barks are not accessible to us wobblies) I explored the ship. It was as if the crew had just left it. The captain’s uniform even hung in his quarters. Cook has been a hero of mine for quite some time, and it was amazing just to be in that ship/

However this left a mystery – what was the second sailing vessel? Secretly, I’d hoped it was called Enterprise, but it turned out much more spooky. On our second to last night in Australia, I went with Luke for a walk around the harbour; I asked him for a closer look at the mystery ship, and he obliged. At first, the ship appeared nameless, and we were about to walk past the ship when I finally saw her name, painted on her aft. I shivered. It was the most famous pirate ship ever to sail; Blackbeard’s ship.

The bounty.