Author: Sarah MurgatroydPublisher:
ISBN: 9781877008085
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
Following Burke and Wills Across Australia
Author: Dave PhoenixPublisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
ISBN: 1486301592
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Every Australian has heard of Burke and Wills but few have travelled in their footsteps. In 2008, historian Dave Phoenix decided to walk across Australia from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria, following the track taken by the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition. Now you can follow them too. Following Burke and Wills Across Australia guides you on a road trip that follows one of history’s great transcontinental journeys, sharing the explorers’ experiences on the way. Maps lay out a route that takes you as close as possible to the Expedition’s track. As you travel the outback roads, you can learn all the details of the day to day journey of the Expedition from the explorers’ own words, and compare what you see with their descriptions of the country in 1860–61. Each chapter provides information about what to see now: the location and descriptions of the markers and memorials placed along the route over the 150 years since the Expedition, and places where you can stand where the explorers stood and look out over prospects they drew and described. The book is a perfect companion for those wanting to see outback Australia, and at the same time understand a journey that has attained mythic status in the history of Australian exploration. Even if you want to follow only part of the track, this is the book for you.
The Dig Tree: Text Classics
Author: Sarah MurgatroydPublisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1921921862
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391
Book Description
The story of Burke and Wills is legend. Sarah Murgatroyd reveals new historical and scientific evidence to tell the story of the disaster with all its heroism and romance, its discoveries, coincidences and lost opportunities. Generously illustrated with photographs, paintings and maps, The Dig Tree is a spell-binding book.
Burke and Wills
Author: Peter FitzSimonsPublisher: Hachette Australia
ISBN: 0733634095
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 702
Book Description
The iconic Australian exploration story - brought to life by Peter FitzSimons, Australia's storyteller. 'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago. MELBOURNE, 20 AUGUST 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent, the Victorian Exploring Expedition sets off, farewelled by 15,000 cheering well-wishers. Led by Robert O'Hara Burke, a brave man totally lacking in the bush skills necessary for his task; surveyor and meteorologist William Wills; and 17 others, the expedition took 20 tons of equipment carried on six wagons, 23 horses and 26 camels. Almost immediately plagued by disputes and sackings, the expeditioners battled the extremes of the Australian landscape and weather: its deserts, the boggy mangrove swamps of the Gulf, the searing heat and flooding rains. Food ran short and, unable to live off the land, the men nevertheless mostly spurned the offers of help from the local Indigenous people. In desperation, leaving the rest of the party at the expedition's depot on Coopers Creek, Burke, Wills, Charley Gray and John King made a dash for the Gulf in December 1860. Bad luck and bad management would see them miss by just hours a rendezvous back at Coopers Creek, leaving them stranded in the wilderness with practically no supplies. Only King survived to tell the tale. Yet, despite their tragic fates, the names of Burke and Wills have become synonymous with perseverance and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. They live on in our nation's history - and their story remains immediate and compelling.
The Dig Tree
Author: Sarah MurgatroydPublisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 192152099X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381
Book Description
Murgatroyd has brought together for the first time new scientific and historical evidence, and tells the story of Burke and Wills, the explorers who set out to cross Australia from coast to coast, in brilliant detail. Here, at last, is the book that brings to life Australia's most infamous story of exploration. The Dig Tree describes vividly the remarkable courage, the suffering and the moments of sheer lunacy, as Burke and Wills struggled to survive in a harsh land they did not understand. Sarah Murgatroyd's style is immensely readable. She has written with warmth about Burke and Wills and their party, and reveals fascinating detail - for example, that Burke had a notoriously bad sense of direction, and was famous for getting lost even on the way home from his local pub! Though we all know the basic story of the Burke and Wills expedition, The Dig Tree reveals just how little most of us know of the individuals, the politics, the blunders and the ambitions behind this extraordinary event in Australia's history. This is essential and utterly compelling reading.
Author: Michelle MurrayThe Dig Tree
Author: Sarah MurgatroydPublisher: Bloomsbury Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780747562986
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
In August 1860, an expedition team left Melbourne to make the journey into the Gulf of Carpentaria in the northern coast. Only three of them reached their destination. They later discovered that the rest of the party had disappeared, leaving behind only a carved message on a coolibah tree.
Author: Frank CluneBurke's Soldier
Author: Alan AttwoodPublisher: Viking
ISBN: 9780670040360
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
Melbourne, 1871: John King is dying far from the deserts he traversed with the legendary Burke and Wills. Ten years on from that fateful expedition - the first to cross the Australian continent from south to north - King is finally ready to tell his story.The young Irishman had already endured the horrors of the Indian Mutiny when he signed on with the erratic Burke to explore a land he knew little about. As one of the advance group who were later abandoned by the rest of their party, King was with Wills as he penned his final letter; at Burke's side when he died. Then he was alone, the sole survivor, though barely alive when rescued by Alfred Howitt.But Howitt is a man who cannot let things be, and now he seems more inquisitor than saviour. He wants to know what King knows before it is too late . . .Effortlessly blending fact and fiction, this gripping novel brings to life the forgotten man of the most mythologised journey in Australia's history.
The Aboriginal Story of Burke and Wills
Author: Ian ClarkPublisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
ISBN: 0643108106
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
The Aboriginal Story of Burke and Wills is the first major study of Aboriginal associations with the Burke and Wills expedition of 1860–61. A main theme of the book is the contrast between the skills, perceptions and knowledge of the Indigenous people and those of the new arrivals, and the extent to which this affected the outcome of the expedition. The book offers a reinterpretation of the literature surrounding Burke and Wills, using official correspondence, expedition journals and diaries, visual art, and archaeological and linguistic research – and then complements this with references to Aboriginal oral histories and social memory. It highlights the interaction of expedition members with Aboriginal people and their subsequent contribution to Aboriginal studies. The book also considers contemporary and multi-disciplinary critiques that the expedition members were, on the whole, deficient in bush craft, especially in light of the expedition’s failure to use Aboriginal guides in any systematic way. Generously illustrated with historical photographs and line drawings, The Aboriginal Story of Burke and Wills is an important resource for Indigenous people, Burke and Wills history enthusiasts and the wider community. This book is the outcome of an Australian Research Council project.
