….You know, the more I hear about Australia, the more I can see why the British Empire used to exile prisoners to it. And the more baffled I am that they even bothered colonizing the thing in the first place. Punishing temperatures, vast areas of basically nothing, incredibly hostile wildlife that can kill you in really horrible ways…..what about that screams “good place to set up a colony”?
well, to be fair. the Dutch arrived years before the British and pretty much went “nope” and buggered off.
The brits landed in a nice area, so they probably didn’t consider that much of the environment would potentially kill you at the time. Why free settlers would come after the establishment of how hostile the place is would probably be a more reasonable thought.
