New Holland-Australia

• Amara Stainton-owen, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2014

Dear diary,

It was the year of 1623 when I boarded the Scorpion ship and set off on my journey. The boat was pretty old and scabby but that that really didn’t bother any of us at least we could go on an adventure. We all said good bye to our friends and family. Hoping to be safe and not pass away from an accident, we were all praying and crying our hearts out. My little girl was in tears and tried to board the ship.

Dark stormy nights passed and we came across many diseases and starved. We lost a few men who were part of the crew along the way, including the captain. All we could eat was meat and more meat. I really didn’t like eating meat every night but that was all we had or we would have to starve. I couldn’t wait to be back home and coming home with fresh veggies for dinner.

One foggy morning we all awoke after hearing a vast BANG!!!!!!!!! We all looked over the side of the ship and guess what we saw? Land, we’ve reached land. We all ran off the ship jumping with joy. It was such a success to find land instead of living on a boat for months and years. We had to sleep on the hard lumpy wood with NO blankets and we would stink so much that no one want to go near us.

We ran and searched for help. Finally after searching for days we found some aboriginal people. They didn’t respect us at all. Then one day someone from Holland came looking for us, lucky they never found us, we had found new Holland and we weren`t going back. We wanted to stay and own the land.
We had a big job to look after the land and we were all willing to give it a go.

Years passed by and I began to get really sick and eventually I passed away. I died from starvation and at least I knew I would be safe in heaven. From then my crew and I were known as the Dutch explorers and named the new land New Holland now known as Australia.