STAFF at Captain Cook's cottage have defiantly covered up anti-Australia Day graffiti with a painting of the Endeavour, the ship responsible for bringing Cook to Australia.

The home of Captain Cook was vandalised overnight with anti-Australia Day slogans.

Workers at Captain Cook's Cottage cover anti Australia Day graffiti with painting of "Endeavour". #7NewsMelb pic.twitter.com/7FjX8Fry82 — NickMcCallum7 (@NickMcCallum7) January 23, 2014

Victoria Police confirmed authorities attended the scene at 7:45 this morning and found the cottage, based in Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens, sprayed with graffiti.

One message reads "26th Jan Australia's shame" while another says "F@#$ Aus Day".

Police are hoping CCTV cameras will lead them to the vandals.

According to the Herald Sun pedestrians walking through the gardens stopped to see the damage.

This is the second year in a row the historic cottage, has been targeted.

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Last year it suffered a similar fate, with vandals paint-bombing the structure on January 28, and another on February 4 with the words, "Cappy Cook was a crook killer liar thief"(sic) sprayed across the brickwork.

The anarchists who claimed responsibility for last year's vandalism said the cottage was an "absurd shrine to genocide".

The recent attack comes ahead of Australia Day plans for the landmark, including "stories of the famous explorer in the Discovery Centre", according to the City of Melbourne website.

Built in 1775 in Yorkshire by Cook's parents, the cottage was transported and erected in Fitzroy Gardens in 1934.

"The cottage was taken apart brick by brick and packed into cases and barrels to be shipped to Australia, along with cuttings of ivy that originally adorned the house, which were replanted when the building was erected in Melbourne," said the website.

Captain James Cook was the first recorded European to sail into the eastern coastline of Australia on April 19, 1770.

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Of his first encounter with Indigenous Australians on April 23, he wrote in his journal, "…and were so near the Shore as to distinguish several people upon the Sea beach they appear'd to be of a very dark or black Colour but whether this was the real colour of their skins or the C[l]othes they might have on I know not."