Part 5: Voyage to Terra Australis

Cast (in order of appearance)

Paul Bateman as State Library of Victoria Journalist
Michael Jeffery as François Péron
Mick Cahill as Nicolas Baudin

[The signature theme melody is played in an adventure style with a bit of didgeridoo.]

On the deck of the ship in 1801.

Journalist

[Shouting above the storm.] Not feeling very well here aboard the Geographe. We are sailing to Australia with two ships in what will surely be the greatest scientific expedition ever mounted. The French Emperor Napoleon has spared no expense to outfit these ships with the finest scientific talent available. Let's go below.

[Music sweeps us from on deck to below deck to the Captain's quarters, the door creeks open and we interrupt an argument in progress.]

Baudin

The Dutch captain told me there was a river.

Peron

Why don’t you just use the maps, Baudin? That’s what we brought them for.

Baudin

[Maps being rolled out.] There Citizen Peron, look. Nouvelle Hollande. Twenty copies they sent us with. Twenty copies of the same useless piece of paper. Look at this the coast line simply stops.

Peron

Perhaps the entrance to the great inland sea.  

Journalist

I'm afraid there is no inland sea.

Baudin

What do you know.

Peron

What does that say, 'Sharks Bay'?

Baudin

Little frightened pigeon. Tell him to stick to science and I will stick to sailing. [Great sliding as the ship tilts, Peron and journalist tumble to and fro.] Ask him, are the botanists and zoologists prepared to go ashore and collect samples?

Peron

Why doesn't he ask young Bougianville?

Baudin

Casse-toi.

Journalist

Who is Monsieur Bougianville?

Peron

It does not matter, he left with the other 50 men who had the good sense to jump ship at Isle de France. 

Journalist

Things seem a little tense.

Baudin

Matthew Flinders might already be there way ahead of us. The English kept the good maps for themselves.

Peron

General Bonaparte has demanded too much of this expedition.

Baudin

Have you seen what waits to greet us when we land? [Book dropped on table.]

Peron

What is this? I have not seen this book before. [Reading]  Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales. 1790.

[Music underscores the scene with a sense of foreboding.]

Journalist

That would be John White's book. He was a surgeon on the First Fleet.

Baudin

[Flipping pages] This bird stands seven feet high and has a saw blade down the back of each leg. 

Peron

Mon dieu! Look at that, it is a giant murderous goose. How many books do you have here? Why have you not shared these with the scientists?

Baudin

How about this one? [Another book]

This animal stands between five and eight feet on its hind legs. Legs so powerful as to propel it through the air more than ten feet and faster by far than a horse.

Peron

That one?

Baudin

Oui.

Peron

It is a giant mouse?

Baudin

The Englishman Banks writes here that it is called a kangaroo.

Peron

Giant geese and giant mice. What other monsters wait for us in this hell?

Journalist

If you will excuse me gentlemen I think I'd best retire to my quarters.

Baudin

You don't look so well.

[The signature theme music signals the end of the scene.]

Credits

Conceived and Directed by John Paul Fischbach
Script by Robert Reid
Engineered and mixed by Carl Priestly at Itchyacoustic Design
Orchestrations by David James Nielsen

Recorded December 2007