Burke and Wills Expedition

0: cooper creek map

1: Burke & Wills 1: The Royal Society

This is the home on La Trobe Street of the Royal Society of Victoria, which originated the idea of the Victorian Exploring Expedition (VEE), as the Burke-Wills endeavour was originally called.
The committee in charge received 700 applications from would-be participants, and Burke interviewed 300 of them at the hall in just three hours on July 4, 1860 – then chose only people he knew.

Many planning sessions for the expedition took place at this hall, and as the day of departure approached, the men of the party signed a formal memorandum of understanding and heard a stirring farwell speech here, one of several given at various church and community-hall send-offs.

2: Burke & Wills 2: Castlemaine

There were several meetings and a slew of votes in the early months of 1860 before Robert O'Hara Burke was chosen as leader of the VEE – despite his complete lack of experience in such undertakings.
Born in County Galway, Ireland, in 1821, he'd been a captain in the Austrian dragoons. One source claims Burke had bolted in battle and been disgraced, but he left the army as a lieutenant in '47 and signed on with the Irish Mounted Constabularly. He immigrated to Australia in '53 and joined the Victorian Police, first at Carlsruhe, then Beechworth and finally – after a stint fighting in the Crimea – here in Castlemaine, where he was a popular if eccentric superintendent. A fellow policeman submitted Burke's application to lead the VEE, calling him "a most active man and very strong, and is kind and gentle in his manners, but possessing a strong will, ambitious, and had been accustomed to command from boyhood".

Burke's selection as leader of the expedition was not unanimous – two professional explorers were on the final ballot – his choice had much to do with personal influence and political motivations. It's been claimed that his corrupt former boss on the Castlemaine police force was on the selection panel.

Castlemaine, deterred from its ambition to have Burke's remains buried here after the expedition, erected a monument to him, pictured below, on Wills Street, where the placemark rests. John King, the VEE's sole survivor, attended the laying of the cornerstone in 1862.

3: Burke & Wills 3: Flagstaff Gardens

William John Wills, born in Totnes, England, on January 5, 1834, had first been a shepherd when he migrated to Australia in '52, but three years later he began studying surveying and astronomy and moved to Melbourne to work at the magnetic observatory and weather station that was situated here in Flagstaff Gardens until 1863 (interference from the surrounding buildings forced its relocation to the King's Domain). Thus also knowledgeable in meteorology, Wills was named the expedition's third-in-command, showing himself to be a quiet, hard-working individual, and one who always managed a good working relationship with Burke.

The original Flagstaff observatory was founded in 1858 by Georg Balthasar von Neumayer, a Bavarian-born member of the expedition committee who had been Wills' employer. He accompanied the expedition as far as the Darling River, completing his magnetic survey of Victoria. He died in Germany in 1909.

4: Burke & Wills 4: Mechanic's Institute

When Dr David Wilkie of the Royal Society (then called the Philosophical Institute) came up with the notion of a Victorian Exploring Expedition in 1857, a committee of esteemed persons met regularly here at the Mechanic's Institute on Collins Street – today it's the Athenaeum. They weighed several options but settled on an ambitious push northward by land, with the aid of camels.
In 1858, wealthy local merchant Ambrose Kyte anonymously offered £1,000 to finance a fresh expedition if another £2,000 could be raised through donations. The offer was seized upon and George Landells was sent to India to buy camels for the campaign.
Construction of this building was completed in 1842, when city council began meeting here. The Mechanic's Institute became the Athenaeum in 1873, at first serving primarily as a library but in '96 hosting Australia's first movie screening.

5: Burke & Wills 5: State Legislature

It took a year to raise the £2,000 in citizens' donations needed to secure the £1,000 in expedition financing bid by Ambrose Kyte, and then the exploration committee applied for another £6,000 from the state government, which was approved by one of its own members, Sir William Stawell, Chief Justice of Victoria.

6: Burke & Wills 6: The camels arrive

The camels for the VEE came from Karachi (then of course still part of India), arriving here at Hobson's Bay aboard the Chinsurah on June 13, 1860. They were paraded the next day across the Princess Bridge and down Swanston and Bourke Streets toward stables at Parliament House, inevitably creating a sensation at every turn. The man who brought them to Australia, Landells, was subsequently named second-in-command of the VEE.
Some Melbournians had seen camels before, at George Coppin's Cremorne Gardens pleasure park, and the expedition actually purchased 10 of his beasts to supplement those brought from India.

7: Burke & Wills 7: Princess Bridge

The VEE's beasts of burden, herded across this bridge into downtown Melbourne, weren't the first camels brought to Australia to expedite its colonisation.
In 1846 John Horrocks had imported nine dromedaries from the Canary Islands for his own exploratory venture into the interior. He found little of interest, and in fact managed to get shot by a camel in the process, while scouting Lake Torrens on the Spencer Gulf. He was loading his rifle to shoot a bird when the beast carrying him – a foul-tempered camel named Harry, sole survivor among its compatriots – jerked its pack into his trigger. The bullet took off one of Horrocks' fingers before embedding in his cheek. Harry was killed by his unamused handlers; Horrocks died of infection three weeks later. Australian exploration was clearly not without danger.

8: Burke & Wills 8: Royal Park

The Burke-Wills Cairn in Melbourne's Royal Park marks the beginning of the legendary journey. The monument has been here since in 1890, taking over commemoration duties from the tree that marked the actual departure point, which was originally fenced off in tribute. The cairn is 200 metres east of the tree.

It was here that the expedition party trained in shooting and camel husbandry, and where the stores were amassed for the excursion. The VEE set off at 4pm on August 20, 1860 – three hours later than planned, but there were many pats on the back to be received.
The Melbourne Herald: "At an early hour crowds of eager holiday folks, pedestrian and equestrian, were to be seen hieing along the dusty ways to the pleasant glades and umbrageous shade ... Hour after hour passed in the preparations for starting. In the bustle of hurried arrangements, some very amusing contretemps occurred. One of the most laughable was the breaking loose of a cantankerous camel, and the startling and upsetting in the scatter of a popular limb of the law. The gentleman referred to is of large mould, and until we saw his tumbling feat yesterday, we had no idea that he was such a sprightly gymnast. His down-going and up-rising were greeted with shouts of laughter, in which he good-naturedly joined. The erring camel went helter-skelter through the crowd, and was not secured until he showed to admiration how speedily can go 'the ship of the desert'."

9: Burke & Wills 9: On their way

Burke fired another assistant for being "a little too hilarious through excess of beer", but hired three more men on the spot.
Then, to the roars of some 15,000 citizens and a brass band playing "Cheer, Boys, Cheer", the party marched north in the direction of the Sarah Sands Hotel, turned, traversed whole length of the park again and headed out the South Gate onto Flemington Road, thence to Mount Alexander Road and out of town. One wagon broke down before it had even left the park.

10: Burke & Wills 10: Moonee Ponds

By midnight of the first cold, wet day of the expedition, August 20, 1860, the half-kilometre caravan had only covered a few times its own length, reaching Essendon on the edge of Melbourne. Here two more wagons broke down, so the party set up camp at the town of Moonee Ponds, in what is now Queen's Park.
Moonee Ponds and the municipality of Moonee Valley tend to be more famous today because the comedian Barry Humphries claims his alter ego, Dame Edna Everage, hails from here, but the locals shrug off his derision and take pride in their hometown's cosmopolitanism – more than a third of the population of 110,000 were born overseas – its Maribyrnong Riverside park and, of course, its historic Queen's Park.

11: Burke & Wills 11: Bolinda

In the VEE party were six Irishmen, four Englishmen, three Germans, an American, a South African and four Indian sepoys skilled at handling the 27 camels. They had 23 horses and six wagons laden with nearly 21 tonnes of gear, including six tonnes of firewood, ostensibly enough food for two years, but it's been said they should have known from earlier outings that they were at least three tonnes short of supplies. And much of what they had, HistoryHouse.com sneers, was "absurdly new-fangled and ridiculously excessive. It included an oak table with cedar top, 12 dandruff brushes for camels, six pairs of tailor's scissors and, incredibly, 10 pack saddles and 10 pairs of hobbles for oxen, even though they weren't taking any oxen with them."
Add to this a bathtub, a Chinese gong and a specially made branding iron designed to burn the letters B/VE, for Burke/Victorian Expedition, into tree trunks at campsites, a task that could be accomplished with a few strokes of an axe. Inflatable cushions and enema syringes probably quickly found their way onto the second-hand market somewhere en route.
Burke had stubbornly rejected Captain Francis Cadell's offer to transport the supplies to Adelaide by ship up the Murray and Darling Rivers.

12: Burke & Wills 12: Baynton

Three days out, Becker noted in his journal, "the appearance of the sky was not at all of a cheering character. Before we reached Bolinda it commenced raining, and ere night had set in, it came down in torrents. No tea, no fire, we slept in the wet." The camels, used to dry sand, were struggling on the boggy ground.

13: Burke & Wills 13: Mia Mia

Passing the village of Lancefield over the Great Dividing Range now called the Burke and Wills Track, the party halted for day of rest at Mia Mia, and Burke hired a new cook. Sightseers from Heathcote and Bendigo, who were well aware of the expedition and its ambitions, came out to see the camels.

"We are now at the Mia-Mia," Wills wrote his father, "lying between McIvor and Castlemaine (a roadside public-house). We are all right enough, except as regards cleanliness, and everything has gone well, barring the necessary breakdowns and wet weather."

14: Burke & Wills 14: Heathcote

In the VEE party at the outset were George Landells, in charge of the camels; William Wills, the surveyor; Hermann Beckler, medical officer and botanist; and Ludwig Becker, artist, naturalist and geologist.
American Charles Ferguson was named foreman, William Patton the blacksmith, John Drakeford the cook and Robert Fletcher the storekeeper. The other assistants were Thomas McDonough, Patrick Langan, Owen Cowan, William Brahe, John King and Henry Creher. Then there were four Indian sepoys to handle the camels they'd accompanied to Australia just for this purpose.

15: Burke & Wills 15: Bendigo

Samla, one of the four Indian sepoys on the expedition but the only Hindu, quit after the third day. The dietary restrictions of his faith prevented him from eating salted beef, the staple diet of the convoy. He suffered through two days with little to eat before obtaining permission to return to Melbourne. With four of the original recruits now departed, Burke took to hiring casual helpers and people with experience who offered their services. Of the other camel drivers, Belooch was a Parsee and Dost Mahomet and Essau Khan Muslims.

16: Burke & Wills 16: Terrick Terrick Plains

The explorers enjoyed more favourable weather as they crossed the Terrick Terrick plains north of Bendigo, but once again the rain became torrential as they approached Kerang, where they planned to cross the Lodden River. They were forced to rest at Tragowel, where the hospitality at the local lodgings of Mrs Booth and Mrs Holloway, who were expecting them, was much appreciated.
In November 1998, after 10 years as a state park, Terrick Terrick was declared a national park.

17: Burke & Wills 17: Tragowel

George Landells, pictured below, was engaged in the horse trade between Australia and India, and was well placed to import camels on his return trips. On the basis of his expertise with camels, he was appointed second-in-command to Burke, and even received a higher salary. His personality, however, was unsuited to his position, and particularly to a leader like Burke. Landells died in 1871.

William McDonough was reputed to have known Burke, or at least his family, in Ireland. He was hired for the expedition at £120 per annum. McDonough died in 1904 at the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum.

18: Burke & Wills 18: Kerang

The Loddon River, which the expedition crossed here at Kerang in late August, flows 392 kilometres from its headwaters in the Great Dividing Range near Daylesford, through Castlemaine to Swan Hill, where it meets the mighty Murray River.
Melbourne's German community had been well represented on the expedition's planning committee, and two German-Australians were among the officers appointed. Hermann Beckler, 32, the botanical collector and doctor, wrote his own account in his native language. The manuscript remained with his family for nearly a century before being translated and published as "A Journey to Cooper's Creek". Melbourne University Publishing says it "offers insights into the causes of the expedition's failure – an ill-chosen leader and route, and inappropriate and excessive supplies".
A Bavarian, Beckler, below left, was a physician, botanist, zoologist and mineralogist who came to New South Wales in 1856 hoping to discover new plant species. He tended the men stricken with dysentery and scurvy but could do little since the cause was malnutrition. He returned to Germany in 1862 and was a village doctor until his death in 1914.

Dr Ludwig Becker, below right, was the expedition's official artist, naturalist and geographer. Born in Darmstadt, Germany, he'd come to Australia in 1851 and become a prominent figure in Melbourne's scientific and artistic circles. At age 52, he may have been too old for the difficult journey, but his seniority within the Royal Society seems to have secured him his place on the expedition. Regardless, his sketches of landscapes, people and wildlife from the journey represent an outstanding accomplishment on such a troubled adventure.

19: Burke & Wills 19: Swan Hill

Bogs and rain slowed the overloaded expedition's initial progress across the state of Victoria. It reached Swan Hill, 320 kilometres from Melbourne, on September 6. A major factor stymying their advance was Landells' decision at the outset to forego loading gear on the camels so they'd be fresh for the desert campaign ahead. Burke had hired three extra wagons in Melbourne, but the poor weather and roads obviously took their toll on the carriages.
Burke, already fretting about mounting expenses, sacked three men from the party here, lying that he'd send for them later. But he took on new hands, indicating it was more a matter of personal dislikes. As well, sepoy Esau Khan was too ill to carry on. Among those hired was Charles Gray, 52-year-old sailor who was working as an ostler at the Lower Murray Inn. Charlie Gray was an experienced bushman, having travelled with the Gregory brothers during their expeditions.

Waiting for Burke at Swan Hills was an urgent telegram – a warrant for his arrest, threatening him with imprisonment because one of his personal cheques had bounced, a serious offence in those days. Burke telegraphed friends back home to sort it out on his behalf.
Swan Hill got its name in 1838 from a surveyor who couldn't get a decent sleep while camped here because the waterfowl, primarily black swans, never shut up. In 1853 Francis Cadell sailed his paddle steamer, Lady Augusta, up the Murray this far. The whole town came out to welcome him – all 12 of them. Their numbers swelled when a punt crossing was established, the only one on the Murray within 70 miles. The punt operated until 1896, when a bridge was built, about the time the photo below was taken.

Today visitors to the town of less than 10,000 enjoy the Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement, an vast open-air historical museum on the banks of the Little Murray River. It's a reconstruction of a 19th-century river port where the staff wear period attire and kangaroos and peacocks stroll about. With a more genuine story to tell is the Burke and Wills Tree, an enormous Moreton Bay fig, the seed of which was planted by the explorers' local host in 1860, one Dr Gummow. The tree, arguably the largest of its kind in the country, is marked here on Curlewis Street.
The Burke party crossed the Murray on September 11, 1860, and set off into New South Wales.

20: Burke & Wills 20: A camel caravan

The camels caused a great deal of trouble for their handlers. Ludwig Becker was lifted bodily off the ground by one that managed to get its teeth into the seat of his trousers. Even an experienced cameleer like Dost Mahomet was later permanently disabled when another similarly lifted and shook him. The explorers seem to have been unable to stop them from wandering at night, and many morning hours were wasted mustering them. Specially made camel shoes, to help the animals traverse stony ground, soon proved virtually impossible to fit.

Overall, however, the camels performed well, though HistoryHouse.com cited another source as insisting they "were wilful and mischievous, disappearing from time to time with varying levels of success ... However, the real problem was that the camels were half pissed, that is to say, drunk. The expedition had taken some 60 gallons of rum for the camels, which, according to Landells, 'revived' them when they were tired and hungry. However, other members of the party took to 'reviving' themselves, and Burke went berserk when he found out."
At one point, thinking their camels exhausted, the party allowed them to slip out of sight. The camels then kicked up their heels and ran all night, causing Wills to note dryly that "they were not quite so much done up as they appeared to be".

21: Burke & Wills 21: Balranald

The expedition left Swan Hill after being feted like heroes, and arrived here on September 17. Its leaders had by now recognised the wisdom in proceeding more lightly, so the party dumped containers of lime juice, bags of sugar and rice and heavy tools. Burke also discharged a number of men, among them the foreman Ferguson, although not as many as he would have liked.
"Our journey so far has been very satisfactory," Wills wrote to his mother. "We are most fortunate as regards the season, for there has been more rain this winter than has been known for the last four or five years. In fact, it seems probable that we shall finish our work in a much shorter period than was anticipated, very likely in 10 or 12 months."

Balranald dates back to the late 1840s, when the area's Commissioner for Crown Lands, George James McDonald, arrived at what was then just a tiny outpost and named it after his hometown in Scotland's Outer Hebrides.

22: Burke & Wills 22: Mungo National Park

Balranald bills itself as "the gateway to Mungo National Park", which was Australia's first national park to be named a World Heritage site. A great crescent-shaped dune dubbed the Walls of China stretches along the eastern shore of Lake Mungo, and its erosion reveals 40,000 years of Aboriginal history. Between the park and the Great Cumbungi Swamp, photographers, birdwatchers and fishermen love this place.

Glancing about him at his fellow explorers, John King alone would return this way alve. The Irishman, 22, served in the British army and was in Peshawar in 1854 during the Indian mutiny. He met Landells there while convalescing from a fever and came with him and the camels to Australia. His salary as a member of the expedition was £120 a year, and he was rewarded afterward with a lifetime pension, but he died of tuberculosis in 1872, still just aged 34.

23: Burke & Wills 23: Tarcoola

Sources differ over whether the expedition, still proceeding slowly across the rough ground, landed up at "Gambala" or "Gambanna", but it was here on the Darling River, at a place called Phelps' Tarcoola Station on September 24, where bickering over the best way to utilise the camels started to boil.
At the end of the month, against Landells' objections, Burke decided to put some of the provisions onto the foreign beasts, which had thus far only carried the men, though he did not yet load the animals too heavily. "From this time you have to give up your scientific investigations," Burke told Becker and Beckler, and "work like the rest of the men as long as you are on the road or not free from your camp duties". They'd have to jettison some of their scientific gear too, he said, ordering everyone to strip down to no more than 15 kilograms' pack weight.
With Neumayer returned to Melbourne, the party was no longer regularly sending scientific reports back to the Royal Society, and Burke was showing his disinterest in such studies. Beckler's medical supplies were likewise trimmed to a minimum.
It appears that Burke had an ulterior motive: He didn't want Becker to reach the north coast because he was 52 and it would make the whole excursion seem too easy. "The first two days of [walking] nearly cooked poor B– and I think he will not be able to stand it much longer," Burke wrote to a colleague in Melbourne.

Meanwhile the camels were suffering doubly because Burke had cut off their rum ration. Landells believed they needed it for warmth, as a stimulant and to ward off scurvy, but Burke was fed up with his men and the labourers at the shearing station totting their way through the supply. He dumped the remaining 60 gallons.

William Campbell opened the Tarcoola livestock run in 1848. Three years later it comprised 30,000 acres, enough grazing for 4,000 sheep. John Phelps took over in '57, and by 1882 it sprawled over more than a million acres. The house at Tarcoola is pictured below.
Here Burke's party set up camp and loaded some of their wagons and gear onto the steamer Moolgewanke for transport on to Menindee.

24: Burke & Wills 24: Pooncarie

Progress on the deep, loose, red sand was little more than mile an hour, with dense overhanging thickets on the little-used trail clawing at the party and the wagons frequently getting stuck, necessitatng the unharnessing and reharnessing of horses from one to another. But in the first week of October, the party chose their Darling crossover at Bilbarka, near what is today the pretty township of Pooncarie.
The nattering over the camels came to a head when Landells insisted on transporting them across the river by boat, even though none was immediately available. Burke put Wills in charge of swimming the animals across, so Landells quit, and Beckler too in sympathy, though the latter agreed to stay on until they'd reached Menindee and a replacement could be found for him. Wills was abruptly named second-in-command.

European settlement of the Pooncarie district is believed to have begun in the 1840s, when settlers headed west to illegally graze livestock on vacant crown land between the Murrumbidgee and Lower Darling Rivers. Burke and Wills' documentation of the place served to bring far more of them. Pooncarie is also famous today for Kinchega National Park, which boasts glittering lakes in a dry landscape, with many waterbirds and massive river redgums.

The Darling is the longest river in Australia, flowing 2,739 kilometres from northern New South Wales to its confluence with the Murray River at Wentworth in the south. It was named in 1828 by the explorer Charles Sturt, in honour of his employer, the state's governor Sir Ralph Darling. Today the river suffers from overuse of its waters, pollution from pesticide runoff and prolonged drought. In some years it barely flows at all.

25: Burke & Wills 25: Menindee

On October 15, two months and 750 kilometres out of Melbourne, the expedition at last reached Menindee – the mail coach regularly did that same distance in a week.
This was, by all accounts, the "edge of civilisation". Burke's worries about the slowness of his pace were compounded by the approach of summer, when travel in the interior would be difficult, if not impossible. As well, he knew the experienced explorer John McDougall Stuart was vying to be the first to cross the continent and might beat him.
So he split the group in two, in direct contradiction of the Royal Society's order to take the whole party at least as far as Cooper's Creek. After a few days' rest at Thomas Pain's hotel, he set out with seven men and a lightened load, aiming to move quickly to the Cooper and there wait for the others to catch up. With him was the new third-in-command, William Wright, who after a few drinks with Burke at the hotel, had agreed to get the party as far as Torowotto Swamp, 200 miles to the north.
Wright was the manager of a sheep station at Kinchega on the west bank of the Darling, and an experienced bushman.
Captain Frances Cadell had his paddle steamer on the Darling and offered to transport the expedition's stores upstream for £500, but Burke spurned the idea, still stung by Cadell's opposition to his appointment as party leader. Burke plodded on, wearing out his animals and blowing his budget on wagons even as cheques from the Royal Society started to bounce and the men's wages looked uncertain. At this stage he had only two of his original six officers remaining, and had sacked 15 men in all.

At Menindee the explorers had a base camp on Pamamaroo Creek from which the secondary party was to follow. It's today marked by a plaque on a tree. But Burke and company spent their 11 weeks in Menindee in more comfortable digs at Pain's pub, which he opened in 1853. Here Burke and Wills organised their supplies for a trip into the unknown, and for years afterward visitors would come to see their room and the arrow they supposedly carved in the door post indicating the direction they were headed next.

On October 19 Burke, Wills, Brahe, King, Gray, McDonough, Patton and Dost Mahomet left with 15 horses and 16 camels. The balance of the expedition party stayed for the next year.
The Yartla Street inn became known as the Maiden Hotel after the Maiden family bought it in 1879 (and held onto it for a century), and although a fire resulted in much of the building being razed in 1999, the hotel kept operating its historic bar out front as rebuilding proceeded. You can drop in for a pint to this day.

Menindee's striking string of lakes draw local daytrippers, and tourists also might take in the spot where John Cleary briefly introduced the state's first motorised postal service in 1910, then gave it up because it became too expensive to have a coach and horses follow him everywhere in case he broke down, as required in his contract. He switched back to horses.

26: Burke & Wills 26: Broken Hill

From Menindee to Cooper's Creek was the most straightforward leg of the entire journey, even though the route formed a wide arc. The weather was good, and the recent rains provided plenty of water and lush grass. Having left the cumbersome wagons behind, the party began to make good progress. Leaving George Landells behind had also greatly improved Burke's frame of mind.
Determined to make the most of the favourable conditions, Burke set a brisk pace – he did not allow the customary rest days, and often did not order a halt until well into evening.
Burke set out for Cooper's Creek in high spirits. He was fortunate. The wet season had been extremely wet, and there was plenty of fodder for the animals. The weather was mild, topping 90F only twice. He allowed no rest days, and pushed his men from dawn until as late as 11pm. After 23 days he and his entourage reached Cooper's Creek, with the loss of only one camel. Burke and Wills got along admirably, and their harmony filtered down through the rest of the crew. But while Burke wrote to the committee that he had discovered valuable new pastoral land with plenty of water, Wills noted that there had been no permanent water for some 36 miles. This discrepancy should have tipped them off, but did not.

27: Burke & Wills 27: Totoyna

Actual location. Some of the expedition party, HistoryHouse.com says, "had never seen a day of the backcountry in their lives; some had mates on the committee, another secured his position by purchasing the necessary camels. They were 'pre-eminently ignorant of frontier ... or bush life, and subsequently wholly unfit for an expedition of that kind'."

28: Burke & Wills 28: Kokriega

Actual location. "Riding on camels is a much more pleasant process than I anticipated," Wills wrote a friend, "and for my work I find it much better than riding on horseback. The saddles, as you are aware, are double, so I sit on the back portion behind the hump, and pack my instruments in front, I can thus ride on, keeping my journal and making calculations. The animals are very quiet, and easily managed, much more so than horses."

29: Burke & Wills 29: Botoja Claypans

Actual location. Alexander McPherson signed on as blacksmith, and also new was Englishman William Oswald Hodgkinson, 25, a former sailor who'd come to Australia in '51, serving the government on the goldfields, then in the year before the expedition reporting for the Melbourne newspaper The Age. He later moved to the Etheridge and Palmer goldfields, and in 1888 was elected to the Queensland parliament. He died of influenza in 1900 in Western Australia.

30: Burke & Wills 30: Naudtherungee Creek

Actual location. As the VEE's navigator, Wills relied on dead reckoning and observation to determine their position from day to day and filled his notebooks with copious astronomical observations. His real challenge came on the leg from Cooper's Creek to Carpentaria – terra incognita.

31: Burke & Wills 31: Torowotto Swamp

Actual location. Struggling past Mootwingee, through thunderstorms yet with little water and animal feed to be found, Burke's spent 10 days reaching the Torowotto Swamp. On October 30 Wright, accompanied by Aboriginal trackers, returned to Menindee to bring up the remainder of the men and supplies and Burke continued on to Cooper's Creek.

32: Burke & Wills 32: Cannilta Waterhole

With Landells gone, the job of tending to the camels fell to Irishman John King, 21, who had come to Australia with Landells and the camels aboard the Chinsurah. He knew little about the dromedaries, but his time in India meant he could speak the language of the sepoys.

33: Burke & Wills 33: Bulloo River

Actual location. The party travelled to the east of Tibooburra and 40 kilometres to the east of what was to become Olive Downs. No giant monoliths dominated the landscape; it varied constantly, with an air of surprise hidden around almost every bend in the road. Wide open vistas broken by gum-lined creeks. Salty lakes set among sand hills. Dunes and swales running at odds with the prevailing winds.

Burke and his seven men – Wills, John King, Charlie Gray, William Brahe, Dost Mahomet, William Patton and Thomas McDonough – camped at what they called the Bulla Waterhole by the Bulloo River. Confusion arises because this is today Koorliatto, while the "Koorliatto Waterhole" mentioned in two of the men's journals is far to the south. At the same time, there is a Bullah Bullah Waterhole near east of Boulia, far to the north on the expeditions route. Bulla bulla is the Aboriginal term for "butterfly". The party next crossed the Gray Range to the Wilson River.

On June 22, 1977, gold prospector Albert Smith noticed three lights in the sky moving down toward him and then nestling in a clump of trees near his camp by the Bulloo River. He saw figures emerge amid dazzling lights. He claimed he was visited by people from another world over the next two days.

34: Burke & Wills 34: Camp 53

This is the actual location of the camp according to Wills' notes. Pictured below, a waterhole on the Bulloo River.

35: Burke & Wills 35: Camp 54

From Wills' journal: "From Camp 54 to Camp 55 we were obliged to take a very circuitous route on account of the rugged and stony nature of the ranges, which were more extensive than we had anticipated. They stretch away far to the north and north-northwest." They trekked considerably farther north, mapping the availability of water and possible grazing land, before turning around and linking up with Cooper's Creek.

36: Burke & Wills 36: Reaching the Cooper

Close to the actual location. Burke arrived at the red clay bank of Cooper's Creek about three weeks after leaving Menindee, on November 11. Beyond lay utterly unexplored territory. Cooper's Creek marked the edge of the land that had been explored thus far by Europeans. Captain Charles Sturt was here in 1845 and Augustus Charles Gregory in 1858.

37: Burke & Wills 37: Camp 58

From Wills' diary: "From Camp 57 we traced the creek in a west-northwesterly direction about six miles. It then runs out among the sand hills, the water flowing by various small channels in a southwesterly direction. The main channel, however, continues nearly south until it is lost on an extensive earthy plain covered with marshmallows and chrysanthemums."

38: Burke & Wills 38: Camp 63

With the recent rains, the area around the Cooper was in bloom with fertile pasture lands as far as the eye could see, and the local Aboriginals were camped along the creek. A plague of rats forced the explorers to shift downstream from here on December 6.

39: Burke & Wills 39: The Depot Camp

Actual location. Camp 65, which Burke marked with an "LXV" on a tree, was the become the pivotal juncture for the entire expedition, and a legend in its own right. For now, the men regarded it as just another resting place, and almost immediately began searching the area beyond the creek for northerly routes that promised a ready supply of fresh water. Wills and McDonough almost perished on one of these forays when they allowed their camels to wander off and were forced to return to camp on foot, a 48-hour hike.

Burke had the option of waiting until March and avoiding the summer heat, but, still panicked that John McDougall Stuart might reach the distant coast first and steal his glory, he changed his mind about waiting for Wright to bring up the rest of the men and supplies from Menindee and announced that he, Wills, King and Gray would set off promptly.
Burke's despatch to the planning commmittee in Melbourne: "I did not intend to start so soon, but we have had some severe thunderstorms lately, with every appearance of a heavy fall of rain to the north ... I do not wish to lose so favourable an opportunity. We are all in good health, and the conduct of the men has been admirable."

40: Burke & Wills 40: The party divides

Burke's quartet selected six of the 12 camels on hand and drew supplies for three months – 150kg of flour, 55 of dried beef, 45 of dried pork, 25 of biscuit, six of tea, three of salt and tins of preserved vegetables. Mahomet, Patton and McDonough were left behind under the command of William Brahe.
On December 16, Wills wrote, they "started at 6.40am for Eyre's Creek [and] followed down the creek to the point where the sandstone ranges cross the creek".

41: Burke & Wills 41: The rival's progress

December 17: "We continued at first in a direction west-northwest for about 12 miles, then about northwest."
Was Burke's dreaded rival, John McDouell Stuart, pictured belore, a genuine threat? Stuart was an experienced explorer who had backing from the South Australia government and was setting out to beat Burke to the finish line on the north coast. The newspapers did a lot to incite rivalry between the two expedition headquarters in Victoria and South Australia. One paper published a poem that proved rather prophetic, as it happened:

Oh, Mr Burke 'Tis risky work
To see the northern coast,
Then have a care Or else prepare
To be a desert ghost.
'Mid sand and stones
You'll leave your bones
'Tis said, if all be true,
For says report,
You're not the sort,
To take the party through.

Stuart (1815-66) had set out in March 1860 and travelled deep into the north before being forced to turn back by short supplies and hostile Aborigines. He returned to Adelaide in October, and in marked contrast to proceedings in Melbourne, had organised and set out on his next expedition within a month. When news of Stuart's promising first attempt reached Melbourne in October 1860, Burke was at Menindee, and the exploration committee actually debated whether to pass this information on him. Several members were in favour of keeping him in the dark. Did they fear – correctly as it turned out – that Burke would do something rash, stung by the closeness of his rival?
But Stuart was still northbound when Burke and Wills reached the Carpentaria mangroves, then was again blocked by impenetrable scrub. Stuart's third attempt in October 1861 was successful, and he returned to a banquet in his honour in Adelaide on January 21, 1862, the day Burke and Wills' bones were being buried in Melbourne.

42: Burke & Wills 42: Camp 68

Burke and his companions were lucky in their choice of route, and in the weather – the rains were good, and fresh water was abundant. Their encounters with Aborigines were benign, and the terrain was not difficult. Despite these good conditions, after six weeks' march northward from this spot – their projected time of return – they would still be far short of the northern coast.

43: Burke & Wills 43: Camp 69

"Leaving what seemed to be the end of Cooper's Creek," Wills wrote, "we took a course a little to the north of west, intending to try and obtain water in some of the creeks that Sturt mentioned that he had crossed, and at the same time to see whether they were connected with Cooper's Creek ... We left on our right the flooded flats on which this branch of the creek runs out, and soon came to a series of sand ridges ...
"Our attention had been attracted by some red-breasted cockatoos, pigeons, a crow and several other birds, whose presence made us feel sure that there was water not far off; but our hopes were soon destroyed by finding a claypan just drying up. It contained just sufficient liquid to make the clay boggy."

44: Burke & Wills 44: Camp 71

Wills described this spot as "one of the most delightful camps we have had in the journey". They proceeded northwest by north across high ridges of loose sand, "many of which were partially clothed with porcupine grass", then struck out across the vast Sturt Stony Desert.

45: Burke & Wills 45: Christmas

"We took a day of rest on Gray's Creek to celebrate Christmas," Wills wrote in his journal at Camp 72. "This was doubly pleasant, as we had never, in our most sanguine moments, anticipated finding such a delightful oasis in the desert. Our camp was really an agreeable place, for we had all the advantages of food and water, attending a position of a large creek or river, and were at the same time free from the annoyance of the numberless ants, flies, and mosquitoes that are invariably met with amongst timber or heavy scrub."

46: Burke & Wills 46: Camp 73

Leaving Gray's Creek at 4.30am on Christmas Day, the party "proceeded to cross the earthy rotten plains in the direction of Eyre's Creek". This they soon found, and spent the night of the 26th on its bank.

47: Burke & Wills 47: Diamantina River

Burke's four-man echelon found the going here easier than they'd expected after reading Sturt's account of his 1845 trek. The stones of the Stony Desert didn't extend too far, and they crossed with ease until, just south of the present-day town of Birdsville, they came across a branch of the Diamantina River, which they believed would provide the perfect route to the north coast. There would indeed be a ready supply of water, but problems would mount over the food supply, sore feet, disease and sheer exhaustion.

Little more than a pub and few houses today, Birdsville sits on the edge of the 176,500-square-kilometre Simpson Desert, at the northern reach of the notorious and dangerous Birdsville Track, but its sheer isolation lures hundreds of visitors each year. The Birdsville Hotel, built in 1884, is listed by the National Trust. It's a mandatory stopover, and roars anew each September when the town's spring races are held.
The poet Douglas Stewart lamented that Birdsville had "shrunk between two deserts on a ridge in the sun". The "other" desert is the 30,000-square-kilometre Sturt Stony Desert to the southeast, named for the first European here, the explorer Charles Sturt.

In the 1870s a series of large livestock stations spread across the area, and the droving track to the west coast was hugely important until 1904, when interstate trade became tax-free and the cattle and sheep could use cheaper routes to the markets.
Originally called Diamantina Crossing, the town was renamed by the owner of Pandie Pandie Station, who was amazed by the diversity of feathered creatures in the area, including seagulls!

48: Birdsville

49: Burke & Wills 48: Camp 77

The intermittently flowing Diamantina River was named in 1866 by the explorer William Landsborough, in honour of the wife of Queensland's first governor, Diamantina Roma Bowen.

50: Burke & Wills 49: Wright at Menindee

Meanwhile William Wright, who'd taken Burke as far as the Torowotto Swamp and was then sent back to Menindee to bring up the remainder of the men and supplies, discovered that Beckler had moved his camp to a more suitable spot at the junction of the Darling River and Pamamaroo Creek. This spot is marked to this day as the "Burke and Wills Campsite", though those two never used it.
Wright dawdled, awaiting confirmation of his appointment from Melbourne. He wanted money for additional animals and gear, more meat to replace the jerked meat and biscuit that had gone rancid and his family put on a steamer to Adelaide. Hodgkinson left for Melbourne on December 19 to collect the money, arriving there at Christmas. The Royal Society held a special meeting on New Year's Eve and approved a £400 grant for Wright to buy horses and sheep. Hodgkinson was back in Menindee by January 9.

51: Burke & Wills 50: Brahe at the Depot

Meanwhile, back at the Cooper's Creek Depot, the temperature was rising and Brahe and his waiting men were forced to take their horses and camels further and further away to find feed, all the while keeping watch for inquisitive natives who might wish to pilfer supplies.

A German, Walter Brahe, pictured below, had come to Victoria in 1852 to work on the goldfields and was an experienced handler of cattle, horses and wagons. Burke's precise orders to him upon his departure later became a matter of intense controversy. Burke was too slovenly to put a detailed order in writing, by one account, simply illiterate by another, and his verbal instructions were interpreted differently by several listeners. Brahe insisted he'd been told to wait three months or for as long as his own supplies lasted, and after that would be free to return to Melbourne.

52: Burke & Wills 51: Wright stalled at Menindee

In early January, Wright – still mustering relief supplies for Burke – was approached by a pair of mounted troopers sent from Melbourne to track down Burke. Given fresh directions, the troopers headed north to the Torowotto Swamp, accompanied by an Aboriginal guide named Dick. Five weeks later Dick staggered back into camp and told Beckler that the troopers were stranded at Torowotto, their horses dead. Beckler, the sepoy Belooch and an Aboriginal named Peter set out to rescue them, returning with the troopers safe on January 15. By this time much of the surface water around their campsite was rapidly drying up.

53: Burke & Wills 52: Roseberth Station

Burke et al were moving northeast along the Diamantina, past what is today Roseberth Station, but it was "trending considerably towards the east without much likelihood of altering its course", Wills wrote, so they "struck off from it, taking a 10 days' supply of water, as there were ranges visible to the north, which had the appearance of being stony. A northeast by north course was first taken for about seven miles in order to avoid them."

54: Burke & Wills 53: The Historical Society

The Burke Wills Historical Society notes: "The actual route Burke and Wills followed once they left Camp 78 is unknown and one of the most intensely debated issues. Wills' map and some of his journals containing astronomical observations have been lost. Because the journals have never been transcribed, it means the expedition's track north of the Diamantina, through the gibber rises, confused sand dunes and extensive claypans, is a matter for conjecture."

The BW expedition remains an inspiration for many Australians who actively pursue their enthusiasm, such as the Burke & Wills Historical Society Inc, some of whose members are pictured below. This organisation was founded in April 2005 after individuals who had separately been retracing the explorers' steps and relocating specific sites mentioned in their accounts assembled several dozen authorities on the subject at a conference in Cloncurry.

With a membership hailing from across the country and including surveyors, historians, researchers and scientists, the society's second annual gathering that year featured a two-day trek through the outback from Birdsville to Bedourie, along a possible section of the expedition route. Society members ruminated on the likely path during Happy Hour at the Birdsville Hotel and around campfires by the Diamantina River. The mayor of Diamantina Shire showed them the just-discovered remains of a camel possibly old enough to be one of the six Burke and Wills used. Visit http://www.burkeandwills.org/.

55: Burke & Wills 54: Tropic of Capricorn

Encountering far less water than they'd hoped for, Burke and his men were relieved to come across "a creek of considerable dimensions" and stayed for the night. "I should have liked this camp to have been in a more prominent and easily recognisable position," Wills noted, "as it happens to be almost exactly on the Tropic of Capricorn."
They'd reached what became known as the Burke River (the Wills River is 14 kilometres upstream), near the present-day town of Boulia, and continued north along the 140th meridien of longitude.

A sign at the entrance to Boulia invites tourists to fill their waterbags at the spots where Burke and Wills once did. The town has been grazing territory almost since they departed, but the tourists supplement the local economy, lured not just by the legend and the rugged landscape but by the Min Min Encounter, a recently built attraction capitalising on the eerie phenomenon called the Min Min Lights, said to haunt travellers hereabouts.

56: Boulia

57: Burke & Wills 55: Camp 88

On January 8, Wills recorded that they'd left camp "with a load of water, determined to be independent of all creeks and watercourses". The next camp they left "without water, trusting to get a supply of water from the rain that fell during the thunderstorm".

58: Burke & Wills 56: The roar of insects

"Last evening we had been nearly deafened by the noise of the cicadariae, and but for our large fires should have been kept awake all night by the mosquitoes." The explorers' worries about dwindling water supplies eased the next day when, "in the excitement of exploring fine, well-watered country, [we] forgot all about the eclipse of the sun until the reduced temperature and peculiarly gloomy appearance of the sky drew our attention to the matter".

59: Burke & Wills 57: Phosphate Hill Mine

January 14 found the explorers at Camp 94, just east of what is today Phosphate Hill Mine. King wrote in his journal of "picturesque and pastoral country. Extensive amphitheatres were richly carpeted with succulent grasses, while the hills which enclosed them were lightly timbered with the mallee scrub, as likewise with the native orange tree."
But the group was now entering rugged hill country heading toward the mountains south of Cloncurry. On January 15, King wrote that they were "still threading our way among the ranges, creeping round their spurs wherever practicable". The next day Wills climbed a mountain looking for gap "but the attempt was ineffectual".

Australia gets all of its commercial phosphate from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean and this one domestic mine.

60: Phosphate Hill Mine

61: Burke & Wills 58: Termite high-rises

Pushing mostly due north toward the Standish Ranges, the party crossed "a splendid flat" traversed by well-watered creeks lined with white gum trees. Large ant hills are very numerous; they vary in height from two and a half to four feet."

62: Burke & Wills 59: Camp 98

"The plain became everywhere stony, being scattered over with quartz pebbles," Wills wrote in his journal, "and a little further on we came to low quartz ranges. At about five miles we crossed a creek with a sandy bed, which has been named Green's Creek. There were Blacks not far above where we crossed, but we did not disturb them ... [Later again] we surprised some Blacks – a man who, with a young fellow apparently his son, was upon a tree, cutting out something; and a lubra with a piccaninny. The two former did not see me until I was nearly close to them, and then they were dreadfully frightened. Jumping down from the trees, they started off, shouting what sounded to us very like 'Joe, Joe'. Thus disturbed, the lubra, who was at some distance from them, just then caught sight of the camels and the remainder of the party as they came over the hill into the creek, and this tended to hasten their flight over the stones and porcupine grass."

63: Duchess

64: Burke & Wills 60: Duchess

Burke's party climbed the Selwyn Range at Ohara's Gap, north of today's town of Duchess, then descended to Turner's Creek. It was precipitous terrain, and in one of his infrequent journal entries, Burke noted the "camels sweating profusely from fear".

The hamlet of Duchess boomed with the copper rush of the late 1890s and by 1904 its mine far outproduced even neighbouring Cloncurry's Great Australian Mine. Duchess was revitalised when phosphate was discovered to the south in the 1960s.

65: Burke & Wills 61: Camp 104

Burke's stop on January 22 may well have been in the vicinity of the Cloncurry Mine, shown here. Cloncurry itself, just to the north, is today a quiet outback township, but this is where copper was first discovered, and it quickly became western Queensland's most important transportation centre for the mineral, a distinction it held until the 1920s when the bottom fell out of the copper market. This is also where the first regular Qantas flight landed, and where John Flynn established his first Flying Doctor base.

Burke and Wills were the first Europeans seen here, their visit on January 22 marked by a monument at the side of the Flinders Highway between Cloncurry and Duchess. Burke named the Cloncurry River, by one account after his "cousin Lady Elizabeth Cloncurry", by another "my old friend Lord Cloncurry".

66: Burke & Wills 62: Cloncurry

The township took the name Cloncurry, from the river named by Burke, when it was surveyed and gazetted in 1876. Burke's waterbottle is on display at the Mary Kathleen Memorial Park and Museum, located approximately here on McIlwraith Street. Mary Kathleen was a uranium-mining town nearby in the late 1950s that didn't last long, its attributes being auctioned off.

The search for Burke brought explorer John McKinlay to the area. He noted traces of copper, but it was prospector Ernest Henry who, in 1867, discovered rich deposits. Visitors can tour the long-defunct Great Australian Mine south of Cloncurry, where the labourers included many Chinese and Afghans, as attested by theitr individual cemeteries within the town.

67: Burke & Wills 63: Wright gets moving

On January 26, after considerable delays and prevarication, William Wright's party set out for Cooper's Creek with fresh supplies for the expedition. Their progress was painfully slow, the animals freshly broken in and uncooperative and water hard to find. North of the Torowotto Swamp they had to follow Burke's three-month-old tracks to the Cooper. Vermin, hostile natives and the heat influenced the camps' names: Desolation Point, Mud Plain, Rat Point. By the time they reached the Koorliatto Waterhole on the Bulloo river, Becker, Charles Stone and William Purcell were desperately ill.

The Australian National Botanic Gardens takes some consolation from the men's suffering in Beckler's discovery here of the Barrier Range Wattle, Acacia beckleri, one of 475 items the botanist collected between Swan Hill and Koorliatto Creek. Compare that to the 40 specimens Beckler was able to gather beyond the 30th parallel after Beckler became too busy tending to sick companions.

68: Burke & Wills 64: Camp 105

Wills wrote that the party set out from here on January 27 just past 2am, following the bends of the Cloncurry River by moonlight.

69: Burke & Wills 65: It could have ended here

The expedition was stymied at leaving Camp 110 on January 30 when the camel named Golah couldn't make it across the bed of the creek they were following. They tried several places, then decided to leave him behind – the struggling, Wills recorded, "had separated King from the party, which became a matter for very serious consideration when we found Blacks hiding in the box trees close to us".

This day the group reached the east-west track marked by the explorer August Gregory in 1856, thereby fulfilling the VEE's official responsibility – to find grazing land this far north of the Cooper. Burke could have very well headed straight home, honour intact and duty done. But despite the fact that this was the his point of no return – only enough food remained to get back to Cooper's Creek if they turned around now – they continued on, Burke bent on heroism, though dependent on luck.

70: Burke & Wills 66: Camp 118

The broaching of yet another mountain range at a place the Burke party called King's Gap ended at Corella Creek, which they followed northward from January 21 to February 9. Wills determined that they were approaching the Gulf of Carpentaria and announced they were "in the country that had been discovered by Mr Gregory and other previous explorers".
But the wet season had arrived and the going was dreadful, the men frequently knee-deep in floodwaters and the camels floundering in mud.

71: Burke & Wills 67: At the Flinders

On February 9, Burke and Wills reached the juncton of the Bynoe and Flinders rivers. Misled by damaged equipment, Wills thought they were on the Albert River, 100 kilometres to the west, but regardless, the water was salty and showed a strong tidal rise and fall, so the explorers knew they were near the sea. Camp 119 was officially the expedition's northernmost. At this point Burke decided he and Wills would push alone to the coast with just his horse, named Billy, and three days' provisions. King and Gray stayed behind with the five remaining camels, which "could scarcely be got along", as Wills wrote.

72: Burke & Wills 68: A horse with no legs

"Our first difficulty was in crossing Billy's Creek, which we had to do where it enters the river, a few hundred yards below the camp. In getting the horse in here, he got bogged in a quicksand bank so deeply as to be unable to stir, and we only succeeded in extricating him by undermining him on the creek's side, and then lugging him into the water. Having got all the things in safety, we continued down the river bank, which bent about from east to west, but kept a general north course. A great deal of the land was so soft and rotten that the horse, with only a saddle and about 25 pounds on his back, could scarcely walk over it. At a distance of about five miles we again had him bogged in crossing a small creek, after which he seemed so weak that we had great doubts about getting him on. We, however, found some better ground close to the water's edge, where the sandstone rock crops out, and we stuck to it as far as possible."

73: Burke & Wills 69: A banquet of yams

Burke and Wills floundered across several miles of bogs before discovering an Aboriginal track by which "we got on much better, for the ground was well trodden and hard. At rather more than a mile, the path entered a forest through which flowed a nice watercourse, and we had not gone far before we found places where the Blacks had been camping. The forest was intersected by little pebbly rises, on which they had made their fires, and in the sandy ground adjoining some of the former had been digging yams, which seemed to be so numerous that they could afford to leave lots of them about, probably having only selected the very best. We were not so particular, but ate many of those that they had rejected, and found them very good."

74: Burke & Wills 70: Surprised Aborigines

"About half a mile further we came close on a black fellow, who was coiling up by a camp fire, whilst his gin and piccaninny were yabbering alongside. We stopped for a short time to take out some of the pistols that were on the horse, and that they might see us before we were so near as to frighten them. Just after we stopped, the black got up to stretch his limbs, and after a few seconds looked in our direction. It was very amusing to see the way in which he stared, standing for some time as if he thought he must be dreaming, and then, having signalled to the others, they dropped on their haunches, and shuffled off in the quietest manner possible.

"Near their fire was a fine hut, the best I have ever seen, built on the same principle as those at Cooper's Creek, but much larger and more complete: I should say a dozen Blacks might comfortably coil in it together. It is situated at the end of the forest towards the north, and looks out on an extensive marsh, which is at times flooded by the sea water. Hundreds of wild geese, plover and pelicans, were enjoying themselves in the watercourses on the marsh, all the water on which was too brackish to be drinkable, except some holes that are filled by the stream that flows through the forest. The neighbourhood of this encampment is one of the prettiest we have seen during the journey."

75: Burke & Wills 71: Northernmost camp

Battling up the swamplands alongside the Flinders River, Wills wrote: "Proceeding on our course across the marsh, we came to a channel through which the sea water enters. Here we passed three Blacks, who, as is universally their custom, pointed out to us, unasked, the best part down. This assisted us greatly, for the ground we were taking was very boggy. We moved slowly down about three miles and then camped for the night; the horse Billy being completely baked. Next morning we started at daybreak, leaving the horse short hobbled."

The Flinders River is the longest in Queensland, rising in the Gregory Range and entering the Gulf of Carpentaria 520 miles through two mouths, the Bynoe being the other. It was named for the English navigator Matthew Flinders by Captain John Stokes of HMS Beagle.

76: Burke & Wills 72: Almost the sea

Burke and Wills advanced 15 miles in all from Camp 119 before admitting defeat. They scratched the letter "B" into a tree and turned around.
Burke wrote in his notebook during the trek back, "It would be well to say that we reached the sea but we could not obtain a view of the open ocean, although we made every endeavour to do so."
By the time Burke and Wills had been as close to the coast as possible and returned, all four men were showing signs of dire privation. Flailing at clouds of mosquitoes, Burke ordered King to mark 15 trees around Camp 119 and they abandoned all non-essential items. They had enough food left for five weeks, but knew it would take them 10 weeks to get back to Cooper's Creek.

77: Burke & Wills 73: Homeward bound

The failure to wet their boots in the open waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria must have taken the edge off Burke and Wills' sense of achievement, but they were in too perilous a situation to worry about it as they set off on their long return journey to Cooper's Creek.

There was another series of camps along a path that generally but not always aligned with their northward route, and to these they gave more descriptive names inspired by the circumstances. Return Camp 5 on February 20 was Pleasant Camp, 6R on the 21st Recovery Camp. Thunderstorms bucketed rain for much of the month before they reached 11R on the 26th, Apple-tree Camp.

78: Burke & Wills 74: Salt-bush Camp

On their return to Camp 108 – now dubbed 14R, or Salt-bush Camp – on March 2, they found the camel Golah where they had left him. "He looks thin and miserable," Wills observed. "Seems to have fretted a great deal, probably at finding himself left behind, and he has been walking up and down our tracks till he has made a regular pathway; could find no sign of his having been far off, although there is a splendid feed to which he could have gone. He began to eat as soon as he saw the other camels."

79: Burke & Wills 75: Feasting Camp

On March 3, passing what had been northward Camp 107 and Eureka Camp southward, Gray rode over a snake that was more than eight feet long. "We thought that it was a log until he struck it with the stirrup iron". They later dined on its meat at "Feasting Camp 16R", but Burke was soon ailing with dysentery, "unable to keep his seat".

80: Burke & Wills 76: A camel's demise

The camel Golah Singh was abandoned on March 4 when it was unable to continue. It had taken the men two weeks longer than anticipated to reach the northern shore, and they now had roughly a quarter of the provisions they had left with. They'd had plenty of opportunity to replenish their stores from the native fauna, but Burke's relentless pressure to keep moving had left them little time to do so.

81: Burke & Wills 77: Humid Camp

On the expedition's way north, the weather had been hot and dry, but on the way back the wet season was in vigour. Tropical monsoon rains slowed their pace to a mile or two a day, if they could travel at all. It took a month to get back to Cloncurry. On the 13th at Camp 25R it rained all day, bursting the creeks.
"We took shelter under some fallen rocks, near which was some feed for the camels, but we had soon to remove them up amongst the rocks, out of the way of the flood, which fortunately did not rise high enough to drive us out of the cave." March 21 was spent at "Humid Camp", so-named by Wills, the 23rd at "Mosquito Camp", 35R. One of these locations, Return Camp 32, was identified in 1994, and then in 2005 the Burke & Wills Historical Society dispatched a team there to verify the discovery of camel bones.

82: Burke & Wills 78: A good thrashing

At Native-Dog Camp, 37R, on March 25, Wills was heading back to their previous camp for some items left there when he came across Gray secretly eating some of the skilligolee (flour) from the provisions. Gray claimed he needed it because of his dysentery, but Wills ordered him before Burke. King spoke in Gray's defence, but Gray "received a good thrashing" nevertheless, as Wills recorded: "There is no knowing to what extent he has been robbing us. Many things have been found to run unaccountably short." Gray's death soon after the incident meant that the extent of the beating Burke gave him would be forever more debated. Was it a few slaps or so horrific that King said he would have killed Burke if he'd had his pistol handy? Gray had been complaining of ill health throughout the return trek, but Wills believed he was "gammoning" – faking it.

As the men set off southward again, one of the camels had to be abandoned because it was too sick to work or be eaten, and two others were killed for their meat, which was jerked in the sun. Far to the south, at the Koorliatto Waterhole, animals and men were also suffering as William Wright strained to reach Cooper's Creek with fresh supplies for the Burke party.

83: Burke & Wills 79: Bilpa Morea Claypan

On March 30 the men shot Boocha, another of their camels, for the meat, and over the next 26 days they butchered two more. Burke was soon also forced to shoot his horse Billy, who was "so reduced and knocked up for want of food that there appeared little chance of his reaching the other side of the desert", Wills wrote. "We found [the horsemeat] healthy and tender, but without the slightest trace of fat in any portion of the body."

The men were showing signs of severe vitamin B deficiency – pains in the back, weakness in the legs. Gray was suffering particularly badly from dysentery. To reduce their load further, the men buried all their equipment and instruments, intending to retrieve them later. That cache has never been found.

84: Burke & Wills 80: The death of Gray

Charley Gray spent his last few days semi-comatose, strapped to the back of a camel. "He had not spoken a word distinctly since his first attack, which was just about as we were going to start" southward, Wills wrote. Gray died on April 17 at a spot the party called Polygonum Swamp but was later identified as "near Coongie Lakes", possibly Lake Lignum. King testified later that the party spent most of a full day burying Gray. They were so weak, he said, that it difficult digging a deep enough hole in the stony ground. The time lag would later have tragic consequences for Burke and Wills.

One of the rescue expeditions found Gray's remains later in the year, as well as those of other Europeans, and fearing the whole party had been wiped out called the spot "Lake Massacre". The exact location is unknown; for sheer convenience, the placemark sits on a site Wills earlier named as "Three Waterholes".

85: Burke & Wills 81: No welcome back

On the evening of April 21, Burke, Wills and King re-entered Camp LXV, the Cooper's Creek Depot, but their expectations of a joyful reunion with their fellow explorers were immediately dashed when they found the place abandoned. Brahe and the others had stayed a full four months, but when the appointed waiting period had elapsed, and in poor shape themselves and no sign of a relief party, they headed south – a mere nine hours ahead of Burke's arrival as it turned out.

A large coolibah tree at the camp had the word "dig" etched in it, still bleeding sap. There is disagreement over the wording of Brahe's blaze on the tree, which became known as "the Dig Tree" in the 1930s following the publication of "Dig", Frank Clune's novel about the expedition. Farmer John Conrick, who bought the surrounding land in 1873 (it stayed in his family until 1960), insisted it was "DIG UNDER 40 FT W", but expedition investigators said it read "DIG [under] 3FT / 9FT / 40FT/ NW/ NE/ SW/ W". The date "APR 21 1861" was also inscribed. Alfred Howitt, who led a search party here, may have also added to Brahe's inscription.
At any rate, Burke and company dug, and found a camel's box with a note from Brahe: "I intend to go SE from Camp 60 to get on our old track near Bulloo. Two of my companions and myself are quite well; the third, Patton, has been unable to walk for the last 18 days, as his leg has been severely hurt when thrown by one of the horses. No person has been up here from the Darling. We have six camels and 12 horses, in good working condition."

All the signs pointed to the astonishing fact that Brahe was likely no more than 10 miles away, but rather than try and catch up with him, the battered Burke and his colleagues ate some of the food left for them and decided to slowly make their way along the creek and then strike out overland towards the nearest settled area in South Australia, which was considerably closer than Menindee.

Now preserved by Queensland Heritage (camping is permitted), the Depot is a fenced enclosure about 60x70 metres with two gnarled, engraved coolibah trees, two stone cairns, interpretive signs and a modern hut. Some of the Dig Tree markings remain legible, and on the second tree is a portrait of Burke carved in 1898 by John Dick, variously described as a local stockman and itinerant artist. Photos taken in the early 20th century show the slow collapse of the six-metre-square stockade known as "Fort Wills", built by Brahe after Burke's departure for the north. Its last posts were still standing in the 1930s but were probably washed away in the great Cooper floods of 1949-50.

The cairns were erected, respectively, by the Conrick family in 1937 and the Royal Historical Society of Queensland in about 1960.

86: Burke & Wills 82: Death attends the Wright-Brahe reunion

The Brahe contingent had travelled 15 miles up Cooper's Creek and cut across the Gray Range. At Camp 52, at the Coolabaree Waterhole on the Bulloo River, they came across fresh horse and camel tracks – those left by William Wright, who was so long overdue bringing up fresh supplies. Wright's party was facing its own horrors. By the time they reach Bulloo Lakes, 150 kilometres short of their destination, no man was in condition to carry on.

Charles Stone died of syphillis on April 22 after spending his last hours with revolver in hand, hurling abuse at his comrades. William Purcell, who had been fainting for several days, suffering from beri-beri and scurvy, succumbed the next morning. Ludwig Becker died on the 29th. All three were buried together near the water's edge. Initially three blazed trees marked the spot and these were later protected by a chain fence. In early 1987 a small headstone was erected by the men of Bulloo Station and unveiled by Brisbane members of the Queensland Historical Society. The chain fence was replaced with a more sturdy stockrail fence, which protected the headstone but not the three blazed trees, and now only one of the blazed stumps remain.

Just as Becker's burial was being arranged on the 30th, Wright and Brahe's companies met up almost miraculously. Brahe was horrified to find only Beckler and Wright in any form of health. Smith, Patton and Belooch had scurvy and beri-beri as well, McDonough had been crippled by a horse and Hodgkinson was beginning to show signs of disease. Brahe placed himself under Wright's command and they set out for Camp 65 for a last look.

87: Burke & Wills 83: The fate of Mahomet

Dost Mahomet, Burke and Wills' Afghan camel driver, chose to settle in Menindee. He'd lost an arm following a run-in with a camel, but found work in the bakery of William Ah Chung, which is today an art gallery on Menindee Street. In the aftermath of the expedition, when accounts were being settled back in Melbourne, Mahomet's formal request to be paid at the full rate of his European colleagues – £10 a month – was rejected. Mahomet died some years later; his grave is just outside town.

88: Burke & Wills 84: Mount Hopeless

Leaving Camp 65 on April 23, Burke, Wills and King set out down the Cooper the next day after leaving notes of their own in the cache-pit, filling it in and disguising it from possible Aboriginal scavengers by raking the ground over and covering it with animal dung.

They followed the Cooper and Strzelecki creeks, along the trail blazed in 1858 by AC Gregory. Their aim was to reach the police outpost at Blanchewater station, 150 miles to the southwest. Burke referred to the destination as Mount Hopeless, and some sources credit him with naming the hill as such.
Gregory had made the distance in less than a week with few problems, but Burke and Wills couldn't find where the Strzelecki branched off, and searches to the south turned up no water supplies, so they kept returning to the dependable Cooper.

On one their forays, on April 28, the camel Landa got bogged at the Minkie Waterhole. "Although we tried every means in our power, we found it impossible to get him out," Wills wrote in his journal. "All the ground beneath the surface was a bottomless quicksand through which the beast sank too rapidly for us to get bushes or timber fairly beneath him, and being of a very sluggish stupid nature he could never be got to make sufficiently strenuous efforts towards extricating himself. In the evening, as a last chance we let the water in from the creek so as to bouy [sic] him up and at the same time soften the ground about his legs but it was of no avail. The brute lay quietly in it as if he quite enjoyed his position." Landa was shot and as much of its meat removed as possible and dried.

89: Burke & Wills 85: Last beast of burden

At the Burke trio's latest camp on May 6, the sole remaining camel, Rajah, was loaded with the most necessary gear for another search for a route southwest from Cooper's Creek, the men hoisting "a small swag each of bedding and clothing for our own shoulders", Wills wrote. The next morning "Rajah showed signs of being done up, he had been trembling greatly all the morning, on this account his load was further lightened to the amount of a few pounds by the doing away with the sugar, ginger, tea, cocoa and two or three tin plates".

90: Burke & Wills 86: Stranded on the Cooper

As the first week of May closed, Burke, Wills and King struggled from one encampment to another on the Cooper. Only one of them would still be alive two months hence, but though their deprivations were already worsening, Wills was at this point still cheerful at times. On May 5 he wrote in his journal: "Nothing could be finer than the weather has been for the last three weeks. The winds have generally been from the south, blowing freshly throughout the day and then dying away in the evening. Sometimes a stiff breeze has continued to blow during the night, which has then felt unusually cold but the nights have generally been calm and cloudless."

By the next day, though: "The present state of things is not calculated to raise our spirits much. The rations are rapidly diminishing. Our clothing, especially the boots, are all going to pieces and we have not the materials for repairing them properly. The camel is completely done up and can scarcely get along, although he has the best of feed and is resting half his time. I suppose this will end in our having to live like the Blacks for a few months."
On May 7 Rajah refused to rise, even unladen, so he too was shot and what was left of his flesh dried. With no camels to carry water, the men couldn't leave the Cooper at all. "We are tring to live the best way we can, like the Blacks, but find it hard work," Wills wrote.

"Mr Burke and I started down the Creek to reconnoitre. At about 11 miles we came to some Blacks fishing. They gave us some half a dozen fish each for luncheon and intimated that if we would go to their camp we should have some more and some bread. I tore in two a piece of Mackintosh stuff that I had and Mr B gave one piece and I the other. We then went on to their camp about three miles further. They had caught a considerable quantity of fish but most of them were small. They led us to a spot to camp on, and soon afterwards brought a lot of fish and bread which they call nardu. The lighting a fire with matches greatly delights them but they do not care about having them." There were also on offer "a couple of nice fat rats ... most delicious ... baked in the skins".

91: Burke & Wills 87: Wright and Brahe at the Depot

Brahe, meanwhile, had recrossed the Gray range with Wright and arrived at the Depot on May 8. They stayed only about 15 minutes, hastily concluding that no one had been there since Brahe's party left. Tragically, they failed to dig up the cache to check if the supplies were intact. Had they done so, they would have found that it now contained notes from Burke and Wills, who were at that moment some 35 miles down the creek. Burke and Wills had not altered the inscription on the marker tree, and now neither did Brahe. Wills would be back here in three weeks – and leave again none the wiser that his salvation had been close at hand.

Wright and Brahe returned to Bulloo, where Wright packed up his remaining men and animals and turned south for the Darling River. En route there, Patton died – he'd been first to complain of sickness.

The placemark indicates a shed containing a display and information on the expedition.

92: Burke & Wills 88: Tilcha Waterhole

From Wills' diary from May 11: "To day Mr Burke and King started down the creek for the Blacks' camp determined to ascertain all particulars about the nardu. I have now my turn at the meat jerking, and must devise some means for trapping the birds and rats. What a pleasant prospect, after our dashing trip to Carpentaria, having to hang about Cooper Creek living like the Blacks."

They had several campsites around the Tilcha Waterhole, with Junction Camp the primary one. Wills spent a week trekking back and forth to the Depot upstream to update his notes for possible rescuers, and when he got back he discovered that Burke had accidentally burned down their gunyah (shelter of boughs), destroying all their gear save a revolver and rifle.

93: Burke & Wills 89: The staff of life?

The "Blacks", who Burke so disdained and his companions tolerated primarily due to necessity, were in fact the proud Yandruwandha people, who were generous with offerings of fish, the small cakes made from nardoo and other food. What they understood about nardoo was what the explorers fatally misunderstood: that its seeds, if not correctly prepared, are toxic. Nardoo contains thiaminase, which depletes the body's natural thiamin – vitamin B1. Burke and Wills probably died from beri-beri.
"I cannot understand this nardoo at all," Wills lamented in his journal on June 20, though he'd earlier called it "the staff of life". "It certainly will not agree with me in any form. We are now reduced to it alone, and we manage to get from four to five pounds per day between us. The stools it causes are enormous, and seem greatly to exceed the quantity consumed." Nardoo (Marsilea drummondii, sometimes spelled ngardu or nardu) is a small four-leafed clover with a seedpod called a sporocarp. The seeds are ground and cooked with water to make cake or porridge. It was readily available to the Burke party, but although it assuaged their hunger, it provided virtually no nutrients and did nothing to curb their physical deterioration.
Nardoo became the unofficial floral emblem of the failed expedition. Specimens were brought back by the relief party and treasured like holy relics. Charles Summers worked it into the floral border on his monument to the explorers in Melbourne.
Another gift from the Aborigines was pitcheri, the leaves of Duboisia hopwoodii which, when correctly prepared, are enjoyably narcotic. King compared its effect to "two pretty stiff nobblers of brandy".

Aborigines played an intriguing role at crucial stages of the expedition. The explorers brought with them glass beads and pocket mirrors to trade with the natives, but otherwise their only other preparation derived from the accounts of their predecessors like Stuart, who had bad luck with them. Becker hoped any hostile Aborigines would be so stunned by the sight of the camels that guns would prove unnecessary. The Aborigines in fact got used to the camels very quickly.
In any event, by the time Burke, Wills and King returned to Cooper's Creek, their struggle to survive meant they could no longer simply ignore the locals, and for the most part they were received with great hospitality. Burke, however, tired of the obligation to provide something in exchange and on one occasion he refused to part with a piece of cloth and fired his revolver over the head of the man who had asked for it.
After the death of Wills and Burke, King earned survival rations from the Yandruwandha by shooting birds for them. They treated him as "one of their own" for two and a half months, he said. They asked to see Burke's body, and "the whole party wept bitterly, and covered [the remains] with bushes". Alfred Howitt rewarded them with sugar, mirrors and Union Jack handkerchiefs, and the South Australia government gave them land, though this soon ended up in missionaries' hands.

94: Burke & Wills 90: Return to the Depot

Having dutifully celebrated Queen Victoria's birthday on May 24 with a feast of nardoo, Wills left Burke and King to return to the Depot, 30 miles upstream, to deposit his journals and leave another note imploring anyone who might read it to send help. Brahe and Wright had been here since but hadn't altered anything, so Wills didn't either – he just just reburied the camel box, yet again covering the hole with leaves and dung.

Over the next few days Wills made his way back to Burke with great difficulty, still managing daily journal entries. June 2: "A certain amount of good luck however still stuck to me, for on going along by a large waterhole I was so fortunate as to find a large fish about a pound and a half in weight which was just being choked by another which it had tried to swallow but which had stuck in its throat. I soon had a fire lit and both of the fish cooked and eaten."
On the 3rd he was welcomed at an Aboriginal camp and sat before "a large pile of fish ... I was expected to dispose of this lot, a task which to my own astonishment I soon accomplished, keeping two or three Blacks pretty steadily at work extracting the bones for me. The fish being disposed of next came a supply of nardu cake until I was so full as to be unable to eat any more."

95: Burke & Wills 91: The trio reunited

On June 16 – Wills back with the other explorers after an 11-day trek of some 70 miles – the men finished off the last of the meat from their last camel. "King," Wills wrote, "was fortunate enough to shoot a crow this morning."

96: Burke & Wills 92: Wright at Menindee

Wright and Brahe reached Menindee on June 19, a month after revisiting the Cooper's Creek Depot. Their group had suffered on the return from thirst, lost and dying animals and the fact most of the men were on death's doorstep. William Patton was the last to die, on June 5, but the party was able to make better progess thereafter.
Wright's trek north had been a debacle, four men dying needlessly and nothing delivered by way of relief. In Menindee Wright disbanded his group and headed back to Adelaide. Beckler and the survivors remained in Menindee, while Brahe rode back to Melbourne with the news that Burke and Wills had not been seen since they'd headed north to the coast. The newspapers were rife with speculation about what could have happened, pressuring the exploration commitee to mount a rescue effort.

97: Burke & Wills 93: Hope ebbs away

On June 21 Wills wrote in his diary that "unless relief comes in some form or other I cannot possibly last more than a fortnight. It is a great consolation at least in this position of ours to know that we have done all we could and that our deaths will rather be the result of the mismanagement of others than of any rash acts of our own. Had we been come to grief elsewhere we could only have blamed ourselves, but here we are returned to Cooper Creek, where we had every reason to look for provisions and clothing, and yet we have to die of starvation in spite of the explicit instructions given by Mr Burke “that the Depot party should await our return, and the strong recommendation to the committee that we should be followed up by a party from Menindee.”

June 23: "All hands at home. I am so weak as to be incapable of crawling out of the [shelter]. King holds out well but Mr Burke finds himself weaker every day."
June 24: "A fearful night. At about an hour before sunset a southerly gale sprung up and continued throughout the greater portion of the night. King went out for nardu in spite of the wind and came in with a good load, but he himself terribly cut up. He says that he can no longer keep up the work and, as he and Mr Burke are both getting rapidly weaker, we have but a slight chance of anything but starvation unless we can get hold of some Blacks."
June 25: "The cold plays the deuce with us from the small amount of clothing we have. My wardrobe consists of a wide-awake, a merino shirt, a regatta shirt without sleeves, the remains of a pair of flannel trousers, two pairs of socks in rags, and a waistcoat of which I have managed to keep the pockets together."
June 26: "The nardu is beginning to agree better with me, but without some change I see little chance for any of us."

98: Burke & Wills 94: The rescue efforts

In early 1861, with the fate of the expedition being hotly debated across the country, several rescue efforts were mounted. Frederick Walker was in charge of the Victorian Relief Expedition, which headed westward from Rockhampton.

William Landsborough led the £2,500 Queensland Relief Expedition, which sailed aboard the Firefly to the Gulf of Carpentaria and then rode south. Along the way Landsborough heard of the expedition's fate, but made exploratory contributions of his own by naming the Barkly Tablelands and the Georgina and Gregory Rivers. He returned safely to Melbourne in October 1862.

Captain William Henry Norman sailed the HMCS Victoria to the Albert River on the gulf. The 166-foot twin-engine sloop, launched in 1855, had ferried colonial troops to New Zealand the year before to quell a Maori uprising.

John McKinley led the South Australian Burke Relief Expedition (SABRE) out of Adelaide, which on October 20 at Polygonum Swamp found the remains of a white man believed to be Charley Gray. McKinly also uncovered another partially empty grave and suspected the entire Burke party had been killed, so he called the site Lake Massacre. The identity of the remains is still a mystery. McKinley blazed a tree on the spot and sent word home, then on December 2 went to the Cooper to see if Howitt had arrived.
On the 6th they found Burke's and Wills' graves – and Howitt's abandoned camp. McKinley carried on regardless, following Burke's track to the gulf and discovering on the way the bones and saddle of Burke's horse Billy. When McKinley reached the gulf he found that Norman and the Victoria had already been and gone, so he walked across Queensland to the east coast at Bowen, covering 4,500 kilometres in just over a year.

99: Burke & Wills 95: Howitt begins the search

Chosen to lead the main rescue effort out of Melbourne, Alfred William Howitt left by train for Menindee on June 26. Even-tempered, highly intelligent and a skilled bushman (who would have been a good choice as leader of the original expedition), he was born in Nottingham, England, in 1830 and came out to the Victorian goldfields in 1852. Howitt later went into public administration and in his spare time was a pioneering anthropologist, studying Aboriginal society. He died in 1908.

100: Burke & Wills 96: The final entry

On a date that Wills recorded as June 26, but was more likely the 28th since his track of time had clearly slipped, the expedition's navigator was still making note of the temperature and barometer readings, the wind direction and the cloud formations. This is his finaly entry:

"I am weaker than every although I have a good appetite and relish the nardu much, but it seems to give us no nutriment and the birds here are so shy as not to be got at. Even if we got a good supply of fish I doubt whether we could do much work on them and the nardu alone. Nothing now but the greatest good luck can now save any of us, and as for myself, I may live four or five days if the weather continues warm. My pulse is at 48 and very weak and my legs and arms are nearly skin and bone. I can only look out like Mr Micawber 'for something to turn up', but starvation on nardu is by no means very unpleasant but for the weakness one feels and the utter inability to move oneself."

101: Burke & Wills 97: The death of Burke

Burke and King headed up the creek hoping to find Aboriginals and get some food, reluctantly leaving Wills in his gunyah. By the second day out, Burke was too fatigued to continue, so he and King camped here near the Mulkonbar Waterhole. By the next morning Burke was unable to rise at all.

King testified later: "From the time we halted, Mr Burke seemed to be getting worse, although he ate his supper. He said he felt convinced he could not last many hours, and gave me his watch, which he said belonged to the committee, and a pocketbook to give to Sir William Stawell, in which he wrote some notes. He then said to me, 'I hope you will remain with me here till I am quite dead – it is a comfort to know that someone is by. But when I am dying, it is my wish that you should place the pistol in my right hand, and that you leave me unburied as I lie.'
"That night he spoke very little, and the following morning I found him speechless, or nearly so, and about 8 o'clock he expired. I remained a few hours there, but as I saw there was no use remaining longer I went up the creek in search of the natives. I felt very lonely, and at night usually slept in deserted wurleys belonging to the natives. Two days after leaving the spot where Mr Burke died, I found some gunyahs where the natives had deposited a bag of nardoo, sufficient to last me a fortnight, and three bundles containing various articles. I also shot a crow that evening; but was in great dread that the natives would come and deprive me of the nardoo."
The note that Burke wrote and gave to King to deliver explained the circumstances and indemnified King in case there were any suspicions. "I hope that we shall be done justice to. We have fulfilled our task, but we have been abandoned. We have not been followed up as we expected, and the depot party abandoned their post."

The site of Burke's death – on June 28 by best estimate – is today a peaceful, picturesque, sandy stretch of the riverbank marked by a monument.

102: Burke & Wills 98: The death of Wills

Before leaving this spot with Burke in search of food, Wills had also given King a note to deliver, a letter to his father: "My dear Father, These are probably the last lines you will ever get from me. We are on the point of starvation, not so much from absolute want of food, but from the want of nutriment in what we can get ... Adieu, my dear Father. WJ Wills. I think to live about four or five days. My spirits are excellent."
Wills' father wrote later, "Imagination, with all the aid of poetical fancy, can conceive no position to exceed this in utter desolation." Wills was dead by the time King returned. The natives had taken some of his clothes, but ritually placed boughs from his gunyah over his chest. King buried him in the sand, then again went looking for the Yandruwandha to beg for food.

103: Burke & Wills 99: Supreme Court

On July 1, The Age newspaper reported that the Royal Society had received a telegram from Alfred Howitt saying he had already found Brahe, but learned that Burke and three others had pushed on to the north coast on December 16 and not been seen since. Sir William Stawell summoned an urgent meeting here at the Supreme Court to discuss the information: William Wright had returned to Menindee; Becker, Stone, Purcell and Patton were dead; Burke was lost somewhere with the barest provisions.

Wright had informed Howitt that he'd arrived in Menindee on June 17 with Beckler, Brahe, Hodgkinson, McDonough, Smith and Belooch, plus 13 camels and 23 horses, many from Burke’s original allotment. In a lengthy chronicle he said he'd set out on January 20 en route to the Cooper and struggled against water deprivation, disease, exhaustion, attacks from Aboriginals and "a marsupial rat" before falling back. On April 29 he encountered Brahe, Patton and McDonough on their return to the Darling from Cooper’s Creek.
They then set out together for Cooper's Creek, which came to nought, and the return "was tedious in the extreme from the difficulty of moving men so extremely weak as were our sick. Patton died five miles south of the point, on the 30th of May, and the whole party were saved by a providential fall of rain about this period, as no other water than surface water was found from Purria Creek to Wannawinta, a distance of upwards of 150 miles, Kerriapundi, Duruoto, and Purlprumatte Creeks being dry." His camels succumbed one by one to "scab" and other woes.

Sir William, the newspaper reported, immediately wanted to know why Brahe left Cooper’s Creek when he did, since "so far as he could gather from the despatches, Mr Burke expected Mr Brahe would remain at the depot until he returned, or the provisions had been exhausted. Now it seemed that neither of these events had occurred, and that Mr Brahe had recrossed the country at the time most dangerous to the camels." Brahe said he was compelled to leave "principally on account of [Patton] being so very ill. The blacks annoyed us and tried to rob us."

104: Burke & Wills 100: Howitt at the Depot

The relief expedition headed by Alfred Howitt reached the Cooper's Creek Depot, after just 25 days' travel, on September 11, and again it appeared untouched since Brahe had left it. Howitt, unaware that Wills had buried most of his notes in the same trunk left for them months earlier, didn't dig up the cache.

105: Burke & Wills 101: Howitt finds King

On September 15 the relief party's surveyor, Edwin Welch, spotted across the creek a group of Aborigines shouting and gesticulating. They scattered as he approached, leaving behind a man covered in scarecrow rags and part of a hat. Welch didn't immediately recognise the figure as being human. "Before I could pull up I passed it," he wrote later, "and as I passed, it tottered, threw up its hands in an attitude of prayer, and fell on the sand. When I turned back the figure had partly risen. Hastily dismounting I was soon beside it excitedly asking, 'Who in the name of wonder are you?'
'I am King, sir.'
For a moment I did not grasp the thought that the object of our search was attained, King being one of the undistinguished members of the party. 'King,' I replied.
'Yes,' he said. 'The last man of the Exploring Expedition.'
'What, Burke's?'
'Yes,' he said.
'Where is he – and Wills?'
'Dead, both dead long ago' and he fell to the ground."

The Yandruwandha had taken care of King and in return he shot crows for them and administered first aid. Howitt appeared on the scene. "I found King sitting in a hut which the natives had made for him. He presented a melancholy appearance – wasted to a shadow, and hardly to be distinguished as a civilised being but by the remnants of clothes upon him. He seemed exceedingly weak, and I found it occasionally difficult to follow what he said. The natives were all gathered round, seated on the ground, looking with a most gratified and delighted expression."
Howitt pitched camp, expecting to remain 10 days while King recuperated enough for the journey home. A marker today indicates the spot where King was found.

106: Burke & Wills 102: Wills' grave

King was well enough by the 18th to accompany Howitt, Brahe and others "to perform a melancholy duty", as Howitt put it. "We proceeded down the creek for seven miles ... to where poor Wills died. We found the two gunyahs situated on a sandbank between two waterholes and about a mile from the flat where they procured nardoo seed, on which they managed to exist so long. Poor Wills' remains we found lying in the wurley in which he died, and where King, after his return from seeking for the natives, had buried him with sand and rushes. We carefully collected the remains and interred them where they lay."

Wills' skull was missing except for the lower jaw with pieces of beard still attached. Howitt read from Corinthians – "O death, where is thy victory?" – and buried the bones, blazing a tree to mark the spot: "WJ WILLS XLV Yds WNW A.H."

"The field-books, a notebook belonging to Mr Burke, various small articles lying about, of no value in themselves but now invested with a deep interest from the circumstances connected with them, and some of the nardoo seed on which they had subsisted, with the small wooden trough in which it had been cleaned, I have now in my possession. We returned home with saddened feelings; but I must confess that I felt a sense of relief that this painful ordeal had been gone through.
"King was very tired when we returned; and I must, most unwillingly, defer my visit to the spot where Mr Burke's remains are lying until he is better able to bear the fatigue."

107: Burke & Wills 103: Howitt's camp

The next day Howitt prepared his carrier pigeons to deliver the news to Melbourne, but found their tail feathers had been ruined in their cages. So he shot two wild pigeons and spliced their feathers onto his own with waxed threads! "The plan answered far better than I expected, and the birds can now fly about the aviary we have made of a tent with the greatest of ease." They were set free on the 20th, and immediately set upon by kites. One was killed, but two got away.

108: Burke & Wills 104: Burke's grave

Howitt's September 21 diary entry: "Finding that it would not be prudent for King to go out for two or three days, I could no longer defer making a search for the spot where Mr Burke died, and with such directions as King could give, I went up to the creek this morning with Messrs Brahe, Welsh, Wheeler and Aitkin. We searched the creek upwards for eight miles, and at length, strange to say, found the remains of Mr Burke lying among tall plants under a clump of box trees, within 200 yards of our last camp, and not 30 paces from our track.

"The bones were entire, with the exception of the hands and feet [evidently eaten by dingoes]; and the body had been removed from the spot where it first lay, and where the natives had placed branches over it, to about five paces' distance. I found the revolver, which Mr Burke held in his hand when he expired, partly covered with leaves and earth, and corroded with rust. It was loaded and capped. We dug a grave close to the spot and interred the remains wrapped in the Union Jack – the most fitting covering in which the bones of a brave but unfortunate man could take their last rest. On a box tree at the head of the grave the following inscription is cut in a similar manner to the above, R O'H B 21/9/61 A.H."

The carving below is at the Dig Tree Depot site, done by a later craftsman.

109: Burke & Wills 105: The search completed

On September 28 Howitt's party exhumed the cache from beneath the Dig Tree, finding the field books and papers safe, and the following day began the trip home. King's ill health drastically slowed their progress, but for the rest of his life he celebrated his birthday on September 15, the day Howitt's men found him.

110: Burke & Wills 106: The news reaches home

Having left Howitt in Menindee, Brahe brought the news of Burke and Wills' deaths to Melbourne on November 4, and the uproar overshadowed the first running of the Melbourne Cup here at at Flemington the next day. (Henceforth it would become "the race that stops a nation".) As soon as the Royal Society's committee met, Victoria Governor Sir Henry Barkley suggested the VEE be renamed the Burke and Wills Exploring Expedition in tribute.

111: Burke & Wills 107: King's return

John King, who Wills' father suggested would have preferred returning to Melbourne "at least unostentatiously, if not in sackcloth and ashes", was instead met at the train station by a huge crowd. One newspaper's account: "The arrival of the train was hailed with vociferous cheering. The carriage in which King was a passenger was at once recognised by its being decorated with flags. Such was the 'rush' to see King that it was some time before the porters could reach he carriage door, and when they had reached it they experienced considerable difficulty in getting the door opened."

King was escorted to an open carriage, which was followed and mobbed thoughout its course along Collins and William streets to Government House.
"King was assisted upstairs, for though he looked very healthy and robust, he was scarcely able to stand. He was taken into the room adjoining the Chief Secretary's office, where he was shortly afterwards joined by his sister. In a few minutes the approaches to Government House, the lobbies, stairs and landing were impassably crowded, so that it was necessary for the police to clear a passage for His Excellency from his own office to that of the Chief Secretary. The excitement was almost too much for the poor fellow, and it was thought advisable to get him away as speedily and as privately as possible to St Kilda, where his sister resides."

King died nine years later, aged 31. He too is buried at Melbourne General Cemetery.

112: Burke & Wills 108: Assessing the guilt

A commission of enquiry, summoned because of objections to letting the exploration committee investigate the tragedies and the expenditure of £50,000 in public money, took evidence amid much rancour in November and December and made its report in January. It blamed Burke for dividing the party, putting Wright in authority and not keeping a journal or writing down instructions. Wright was severely criticised for not leaving Menindee earlier with the provisions, and the exploration committee was slammed for inaction once it suspected things were not going well.

Brahe's decision to leave the Depot was deemed understandable but "most unfortunate", yet the commission decided that the pain he must be feeling, knowing that "24 hours' further perseverance would have made him the rescuer of the explorers ... must be in itself an agonising thought". Brahe was at the same time praised for "gallantry and daring", Wills for his "fidelity".

Dispute over the true bases for blame and failure continued unabated for many years.

113: Burke & Wills 109: Laid to rest

Howitt was instructed to bring the explorers' remains back to Melbourne for what would be Victoria's first state funeral. This he did in December, collecting funerary relics such as locks of the explorers' hair and nardoo seeds from their last campsite. On his train trip to Melbourne he was met at almost every stop by crowds and delegations wishing to pay homage to the bones of Burke and Wills.

The remains lay in state at the Royal Society Hall for two weeks, where they were viewed by most of the city's residents. On January 21, after much jostling for places of honour in the procession and the privilege of bearing the coffins, they were paraded past an estimated 60,000 people and laid to rest in Melbourne General Cemetery. The inscription on their shared monument, which is surrounded by three Morton Bay Figs, mourns "the first to cross the continent of Australia, comrades in a Great Achievement, Companions in Death And Associates in Renown".

It was a while before this monument was fashioned from the largest block of granite ever quarried in Victoria. Having created tremendous excitement when it was hauled into Melbourne, it was very nearly forgotten once deposited at the cemetery, languishing for several years until the government scraped together the money to erect it.

114: Burke & Wills 110: Room for romance?

Among the collection of expedition artefacts here at the State Library of Victoria are locks of the explorers' hair, a camel buckle ... and a "love glove".
The single glove is supposedly one of a pair given to Wills by Julia Mathews, a 15-year old actress who performed in Beechworth in 1854 while Burke was a police officer there. Burke fell in love with her, followed her on tour, offered to marry her and attempted to win over her mother – with little success. Six years later he was still in love and, before departing on the expedition, made at least one will which left everything to Julia. Even on the journey, the secretary of the exploration committee was sending Burke notes about "you know who".

However the glove in question was given to Wills – it was from his descendants that the library obtained it in 1999. Or perhaps she gave Burke and Wills one each. Who knows?

115: Burke & Wills 111: The monument

News of the expedition's tragic end was only days old in Melbourne when talk began of the need to erect a monument. The state government made its £4,000 grant conditional on public contributions of £2,000, but the absence of King and Gray from several proposed designs sparked arguments, and the German community threatened to boycott the fund-raising because of the poor treatment of Becker, Beckler and Brahe. The government finally funded the entire cost.
The design competition was won by ex-Londoner Charles Summers, who seated his bronze Wills poised over an open notebook behind a Burke gazing to the horizon.

The monument was originally installed at the intersection of Collins and Russell Streets, but by 1886 traffic was so busy there that it was moved to Spring Street opposite Parliament House, then again at least twice more before finding its present location at the corner of Swanston and Collins Streets.

116: Burke & Wills 112: Carved in stone

There are huge monuments to Burke, Wills and their comrades all over Australia today, and many commemorative markers along the expedition's route. The land out here, though, the "ghastly blank", always has the last say.

In its assessment of a proposal to preserve the Dig Tree site on Cooper's Creek, Queensland Heritage decided: "While the expedition itself was a disastrous failure, it led to comprehensive and successful exploration of an enormous area of the outback, which identified the areas inhabitable by Europeans, informed the process of pastoral settlement, particularly in western Queensland, created German missionary settlements in the northeast of South Australia, led to the violent dispossession of Aboriginal people from the Cooper Creek region, and defined the present border between Queensland and the Northern Territory."

From that mixed bag emerge the rakish judgements of later cynics. The irreverent website HistoryHouse.com, under the heading "Exploring their way out of a paper bag", sums things up thus: "They got lost, ran out of provisions, and chased intoxicated dromedaries all over the desert before dying short of their goal. Of course, none of this stopped the Australian government from proclaiming then national heroes."