unruffled by the come and go of the human traffic all around fitzroy gardens, somewhere within the premises sits a tiny, tiny cottage dating back all the way to 1755.

it was the home of the parents of captain james cook. you know, the guy who “discovered” australia? i’m enclosing that in quotation marks because he didn’t really discover australia per se, as far as wiki.answers.com contends. he was simply the first european  to chart australia’s eastern coastline, named it new south wales, and claimed it for great britain. apparently, australia was already discovered by previous dutch and portuguese explorers which they named terra australis incognita (gawd, portuguese words sound so sexy!) which basically translates to “unknown southern land.” probably where the name australia was derived from.

anyhow,  the house was originally from britain but was given as a centenary present to the people of victoria. brick by brick, the entire house was dismantled and placed in 253 packing cases to be shipped to melbourne. but that’s just the very short end of it. of course, there’s the long version which you can find here if you’re really interested but for now, that summary should do.

the inside of the cottage consisted of a kitchen, a dining room, what looked to me was a lounge room, as well as some really (and i mean really really!) small bedrooms — aptly called because all that could ever fit in there was a bed.

plus maybe a chamber pot as an accent piece.