What was life like in Sydney Cove for the First Fleet Europeans convicts and settlers?

Answer 1

Australia was very strange for the convicts and settlers of the First Fleet. When the first European settlers arrived in Australia, they found a hot, humid country. The bushland was thick and unlike anything they had at home - instead of green, grassy hills and green trees, they found rocky terrain and strange, grey-green trees that smelled strong and sweet. There was an eerieness to the bushland, because it seemed all the same to their inexperienced eyes, and stories of the Aborigines were exaggerated to make the convicts fear stepping outside the camps. Any who did escape quickly became lost, and many convict bones lie scattered in the bush where they became hopelessly lost, and unable to fend for themselves. There were strange hopping animals - the 'kangaroo' - and strange, noisy birds such as the kookaburra and cockatoos.

The heat and humidity made it difficult to motivate the convicts to work, and English tools and implements were unusable in the tough Australian soil. very few of the convicts had any skill in farming, and as a result, in the early years the colony nearly starved. It took some time for Sydney Cove to become self-sufficient, and for the first few years, the colony relied entirely on the supplies of the second and third fleets.