Bermagui’s Rodney Kelly held a press conference in Sydney’s Darling Harbour on Friday before setting foot on a replica of the ship his ancestor Cooman was confronted by before being shot by Captain Cook's landing party.

“I felt a really powerful sense come over me and I was just imagining the lads on the shore from their perspective, it was a lot to take on,” Mr Kelly said.

“We checked out [Joseph] Banks’ and [James] Cook’s rooms,” Mr Kelly said.

“They have a replica of a spear hanging up on a wall made from bamboo with four prongs like the ones taken from Botany Bay,” he said.

Mr Kelly also spotted a Far South Coast connection in one of the ship’s prominent rooms.

“There’s a painting of Gulaga with a black duck on a piece of wood that had Umburra on it which is the centerpiece of the room where Banks and Cook would’ve sat together looking at maps,” he said.

Mr Kelly made Australian history last month after the NSW Parliament passed a motion acknowledging the Gweagal clan of the Dharawal tribe as rightful owners of the artefacts held in the British Museum and the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Earlier this year the British Museum responded to Mr Kelly’s request for the repatriation of the artefacts buy offering them on loan basis only.

An excerpt from The Endeavour Journal of Sir Joseph Banks tells the story of that first encounter 246 years ago.

“A Musquet loaded with small shot was now fird at the Eldest of the two who was about 40 yards from the boat; it struck him on the legs but he minded it very little so another was immediately fird at him; on this he ran up to the house about 100 yards distant and soon returnd with a sheild,” Banks’ journal reads.

During the press conference Mr Kelly announced October speaking engagements in Germany, Holland, Scotland and Cambridge in England.

Mr Kelly will be traveling to Europe with activist and former advisor on indigenous affairs to prime ministers Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke, Vincent Forrester, and former fire keeper of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, long-time activist and son of Gary Foley, Roxley Foley.

“I’ve got Vincent [Forrester] to come over and talk about the time before Captain Cook,” he said.

“Dylan Wood, who is managing the tour, and Roxley [Foley] have no plans to come back either.

“They are going to stay there to keep the movement going.”

Mr Kelly said NSW Senator Lee Rhiannon had shown her support in raising the issue in Federal Parliament and another supporter, Louise Pulling, has been consistently writing letters to Malcolm Turnbull’s wife Lucy requesting she attend one of Mr Kelly’s lectures.

“It feels like a slow process for me but when you look at the time frame everything has happened in, it’s amazing,” he said.

Mr Kelly is hoping his European speaking tour will create a media frenzy ahead of his meeting with the British Museum to discuss the return to Australia of the Gweagal shield and numerous spears.

“We want to drum up some support first and get the public to come along with us,” he said.

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