'At dawn on Sunday 13 May 1787 an unusual convoy of 11 ships departed from Portsmouth. Within a few hours they had sailed into the Channel, intending to run down the western coasts of France and Spain, and to then head out into the Atlantic. The convoy’s final destination had long been a mirage in the European imagination, a land so odd that the ancient Greeks (only half-jokingly) believed its inhabitants walked on their hands.1 The First Fleet, as it became known, reached Tenerife on 3 June 1787, then sailed on to Rio de Janeiro. It arrived there in early August and remained for a month to take on supplies, reaching the Cape of Good Hope on 13 October 1787, five months to the day after leaving England.' (Introduction)
