They had all come before Captain cook,
Hartog, Dampier, Vlamingh and Nuyts,
To the north, west and parts of the south,
But no one dared set their roots.

Too barren and too desolate they wrote,
And the vegetation is stunted,
Not quite the land for a utopia,
Upon which their motherlands had punted.

The inhabitants are wild and primitve,
Communication way too hard,
So no explorer settled the land then,
And the aborigines stole a yard.

Cook set east where the land was fertile,
And pure liquid gold was water,
He took possession of New South Wales,
Now mother England had daughter.

A convict settlement was first built,
At a place they called Port Jackson,
Where this nation would begin it’s roots,
And the prisoners sought salvation.

Paolo copyright 1980