Many indigenous Australians prefer the term 'Koori' (sometimes 'Koorie') to denote an Aborigine or young Aboriginal woman.  So I use it here.

The Koori who lived here (long before White settlement named  our Shire the 'Eurobodalla') were the Djuwin of the Walbanga, Brinja-Yuin and Djirringanj. These people speak the Dhurga and Djirringanj languages.  Umbarra, the 'Black Duck', is the totem of the Yuin People of Wallaga.

The Shire of Eurobodalla, (‘Land of Many Waters’) is a place of spectacular natural beauty encompassing from the eastern side of the Great Divide to the coast including Montague Island, and the magnificent eucalypt forests, patches of rainforest, and rivers in between. It shares the larger area known as the ‘Far South Coast’ with the Sapphire Coast (also known as the 'Bega Valley Shire').
 
This Land is rich in European cultural heritage and, for the Koori people who have a mysterious spiritual bond with the Land (understood by the mythological language of Dreamtime or Dreaming), it is particularly significant going back millennia before any White settlement. ‘Eurobodalla’ is derived from a Koori word meaning ‘Land of Many Waters’ and one quickly appreciates why it was so called.
 
Blessed with beautiful beaches and bays, estuaries, lakes and rivers – such as the Clyde, Moruya, and Tuross; and, with a temperate climate and varied landforms, the Eurobodalla supports a wide biodiversity in fauna and flora.

To the hinterland and further west, are the rugged wilderness areas of the Deua, Gulaga and Wadbilliga national parks, with the geology largely determining the varied vegetation patterns.

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*  HMS Endeavour sailed from Plymouth, England on 26 August 1768 under the command of the recently commissioned Lt James Cook RN (then almost 40 years of age - dob 27 October 1728).

At Admiralty insistence, Lt Cook was chosen by the Royal Society of London (over Alexander Dalrymple the Scottish geographer and the first Hydrographer of the British Admiralty) to undertake a scientific journey to Tahiti (17° 52S 149º 56W) to observe and document the planet Venus as it passed between the earth and the sun. Cook's observations were to help scientists calculate the distance of the earth from the sun.

Following those observations, additional Admiralty orders instructed Lt Cook 'to proceed to the southward in order to make discovery of the Continent...there is reason to imagine that a Continent or Land of great extent (Terra Australis)... until you arrive in the Latitude of 40°, unless you sooner fall in with it. But not having discover'd it or any Evident signs of it in that Run, you are to proceed in search of it to the Westward between the Latitude before mentioned and the Latitude of 35° until you discover it, or fall in with the Eastern side of the Land discover'd by Tasman and now called New Zealand.'

Point Hicks (37°48′S 149°16′E) - named after Lt Zachary Hicks, Cook's First Lieutenant - was the first Australian landmass sighted from the Endeavour on 19 April 1770; a coastal headland on the eastern coast of Victoria and located within the now Croajingolong National Park...."The Southernmost point of land we had in sight, which bore from us West quarter South, I judged to lay in the Latitude of 38 degrees South and in the Long of 211 degrees 7 minutes West from the Meridian of Greenwich. I have named it Point Hicks, because Lieutenant Hicks was the first who discovered this Land". 
From the journal of Lt James Cook 
Ship's log date: Thursday 19th April, 1770 
Calendar date: Friday 20th April, 1770

Lt Cook claimed eastern Australia for the Crown of Great Britain in 1770. Cook later rose to the rank of Captain RN but was killed in Hawaii in 1779.  Australia was officially settled as a British colony on 26 January 1788, some nine years after Captain Cook's death.