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Kamchatka to Krakatoa!
2017 Exhibition - The Cook Voyages in Asia
Our 2017 exhibition explored the little known Asian parts of the Cook voyages. His ships visited Indonesia, and sailed the length of the coast from Kamchatka in Siberia to the volcanic island of Krakatoa.
Stops included Batavia (modern Jakarta) where the voyagers marvelled at the Dutch-ruled city of fine buildings and canals. It proved lethally unhealthy as the crew sickened from malaria and dysentery.
They had traded sea-otter skins with the Chinese in Macao, where they received their first news from Europe in over three years.
The voyage artist John Webber made the earliest record by a European artist of life in these regions, including the volcanic Krakatoa before it exploded in 1883.
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