We fulfilled our task but we were … not followed up as I expected and the Depot party abandoned their post … King has behaved nobly and I hope he will be properly cared for. The expedition departs from the Royal Park, In much of the interior of Australia remained uncharted.
Some Victorians, made wealthy from the gold rushes , were prepared to fund exploratory expeditions. They had three goals: scientific discovery, seeking new grazing land and finding a route for an overland telegraph line.
South Australian explorer John McDouall Stuart had already discovered productive grazing country during several expeditions from Adelaide to north of Lake Eyre by the late s.
It was lavishly equipped with items including 50 gallons of rum to revive tired camels there were 27 of them , and an oak table. However, three months passed before Wright left Menindee. Just over a month later he divided the exploring party again, setting off with Wills, King and Gray for the Gulf of Carpentaria. William Brahe was left in charge of the depot with instructions to wait three months for their return.
On about 9 February the four expeditioners reached the Bynoe River, near the Gulf of Carpentaria. Burke and Wills left the other two and tried to walk to the ocean but were unable to find a way through the mangrove swamps. The party started their return journey to Cooper Creek on 12 February Extreme heat and illness forced the party to rest at the Bulloo River where Charles Stone, William Purcell and Ludwig Becker died of malnutrition and dysentery between 22 and 29 April.
On 5 June William Patton also died. He buried a cache of food and a note stating his intention at the foot of a coolabah tree. About nine hours after Brahe departed, Burke, Wills and King arrived.
They found the cache, which had enough supplies for a month, but instead of following Brahe back to Menindee or staying at the depot, on 22 April they decided to head south west to try to reach a station at Mount Hopeless. Burke, Wills and King buried a message of their own under the Dig Tree explaining their plans.
They were careful to leave no trace that they had been there, so that Aboriginal people would not dig up the letter. The south-north leg was successfully completed except that they were stopped by swampland 5 kilometres from the northern coastline , but owing to poor leadership and bad luck, both of the expedition's leaders died on the return journey.
Altogether, seven men lost their lives, and only one man, John King, crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne. Recommend site Bookmark site! Plaque: 9-November Chris Gregory. An obelisk commemorates the Burke and Wills expedition of They both happened to arrive in Australia in , Burke becoming a police officer in Victoria, and Wills — who showed a love of learning — a surveyor and astronomer.
Burke was by nature a risk-taker, and while rising rapidly through the ranks of the police force, began to look for something more. When the Royal Society of Victoria began organising its expedition to cross the continent from south to north, Burke worked hard to ensure he was appointed leader. He made year-old Wills expedition surveyor and third in command. The trio stumbled back to the main camp on Coopers Creek to find the rest of the party had left for Melbourne that morning. Both Wills and Burke died two months later within a few hundred metres of each other.
King managed to stay alive for another month, helped by Aboriginals, before a search party found him. Many memorials have been erected throughout Victoria to the Burke and Wills expedition, and small memorials can be found at their death sites near Innamincka, South Australia.
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