Victorian Exploring Expedition

Burke and Wills · 1860 CE – 1861 CE · Earth

Cross the continent from Melbourne to the northern coast before South Australia could, and report on the country and a telegraph route.

Historical context

Gold had made Victoria the richest colony in Australia, and its Royal Society wanted the honour of the first crossing before South Australia and Stuart could take it. The money bought camels from Karachi, a professional staff and six tons of stores, but it could not buy a leader who had ever travelled in dry country. Burke’s answer to every difficulty was speed, and speed is what killed him on a creek where a whole people lived comfortably on fish and nardoo.

The voyage, step by step

1. Royal Park, 20 August 1860

   20 August 1860

   Fifteen thousand people watch nineteen men, twenty-seven camels and six tons of stores leave Melbourne.

2. Menindee, October 1860

   October 1860

   At the last town on the Darling, Burke splits his expedition and leaves half of it behind.

3. Camp LXV on Cooper Creek

   16 December 1860

   A stockade is built on the waterhole, and on 16 December four men ride north into the summer.

4. The stony desert

   1861 CE

   The four men cross the gibber plains that had turned Charles Sturt back in 1845.

5. Up Eyre Creek and the Diamantina

   1861 CE

   The braided channels carry them north with water and feed for the first time in weeks.

6. The mangroves of the Flinders, February 1861

   9 February 1861

   Burke and Wills push through tidal mud to salt water, and never see the open sea.

7. Nine hours too late

   21 April 1861

   On the evening of 21 April the three survivors walk into a depot abandoned that morning.

8. Nardoo on the Cooper

   May 1861

   Living on ground fern spores, Burke and Wills starve on a creek where a whole people is well fed.

Outcome

Reached tidal water on the Flinders estuary in February 1861; Gray, Burke and Wills died on the return and only John King came out alive.

Burke and Wills

Leaders of the best-equipped expedition Australia ever sent out, who crossed the continent to the Gulf of Carpentaria and starved to death on Cooper Creek on the way home.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

• Burke and Wills expedition — Wikipedia
• Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into and report upon the circumstances connected with the sufferings and death of Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, with the journals of William John WillsVictoria. Burke and Wills Commission · John Ferres, Government Printer, Melbourne · 1861

Continue exploring

• The source of the Nile with GrantJohn Hanning Speke · 1860 CE – 1863 CE
• Up the White Nile to Lake AlbertSamuel and Florence Baker · 1861 CE – 1865 CE
• Sixth expedition: Adelaide to the northern seaJohn McDouall Stuart · 1861 CE – 1862 CE
• Search for the Nile sourceRichard Francis Burton · 1857 CE – 1859 CE