Burke and Wills

In our Burke and Wills: Then and Now stories we highlight the work of the expedition’s artist, naturalist and geographer, Ludwig Becker.

Also taking part in the expedition up to Menindee was plant collector and doctor, Hermann Beckler. Beckler collected many hundreds of plant specimens, which the government botanist, Dr. Ferdinand Mueller, added to the Melbourne Herbarium and used to establish a variety of new species.

Historian Dr. Linden Gillbank is giving an illustrated talk on the botanical legacy of Beckler’s work this Wednesday 17 August. For further details please visit the Royal Botanic Gardens website events page.

We’ve been quiet on the Burke and Wills blogging front… but as enthusiasts will know, 11^th February is a significant date in Burke and Wills expedition history.

It was on or around this date in 1861 that Burke and Wills, the only expedition members still heading north, reached the Gulf of Carpentaria at the Flinders River.

Wills mapped the journey from Coopers Creek to the Gulf. His original chart was then traced in November 1861 using light boxes. Here’s the path they took at the ‘pointy bit’ of their journey:

Traced copy of Wills's chart held by the Public Record Office Victoria

The full version of the chart can be viewed here.

Burke wrote of achieving their goal of crossing the Australian continent: “…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.” The brief history of their journey is available at Burke and Wills Web.

So, what’s the Gulf like now? Twelve year old Kallem Newton from Karumba lives just 10 kilometers from the spot depicted on Wills’s chart. In our Living with Crocodiles video, Kallem describes his life, including his parent’s boat tours:

The weather:

The birds:

And, last but not least… the crocodiles… living and also long dead:

Kallem notes that Burke and Wills were lucky to have escaped these reptiles. And in a sense we are lucky as well – if they’d perished this far north their diaries and maps would more than likely be lost to us now due to damage from the damp climate.

We now have a new series of videos from the last leg of the BWEE  expedition.

All filmed around the Gulf of Carpentaria and along the Flinders and Corella Rivers of North Queensland they include the discovery of a fossil shell laid down on an inland sea: Ben’s Ammonite Discovery and musings on the origins of The Aussie Accent. There are tales of crocodillians, modern and prehistoric: Crocodiles Then and Now; a young boys life in the town of Karumba: Crocodiles in my backyard and finally Jonathan Kings’ thoughts on the end of the BWEE expedition: Journey’s End.

Hi All,

If you weren’t able to participate in our live Burke and Wills video
conference, held on Thursday 11 November, the recording can be
viewed here.

The Elluminate session included a tour of CV by Content Curator, Eleanor Whitworth, and a discussion of ways in which teachers and students can use the content by Joanna Clyne, a history teacher working with the History Teachers Association of Victoria.

We were very pleased to have Burke and Wills guru Dave Phoenix paricipate
- and from far north Queensland! Others joined in from across Victoria,
including East Gippsland and Chilton.

It was suggested that we set up a Twitter hash tag for follow-up purposes. We have now set up a Twitter account. What else would you find useful?

Jonathon King at the Gulf of Carpentaria

The Burke and Wills Environtmental Expedition has completed the first stage of its journey, arriving at Karumba in the Gulf Country of Queensland. They visited the location where Burke, Wills and their two companions turned back to head south – due to thick mud and mangroves the 1860 expeditioners did not quite reach the open water of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The exceptionally heavy rains and flooded roads in the inland has meant that the Environmental Expedition has postponed one leg of the trip. In April 2011, they’ll return to visit locations between the Dig Tree at Coopers Creek and the Selwyn Ranges, near Cloncurry.

There are still a lot of videos to be uploaded from the areas they’ve travelled (including ones about crocodiles and dinosaurs!) though, so our story has not quite finished… We’ll let you know here when they are published.

We’re holding a video conference for Victorian history and art teachers, particularly years 5 – 9, on Thursday 11 November, 4.00 – 4.45pm.

New to web conferencing? It’s easy! For guidance on how to participate in the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Elluminate web conference centre, click here.

If you are participating in Remembrance Day activities, this conference may be a good opportunity to make a full day of professional development.

In this Elluminate session discover the Burke and Wills Environmental Expedition, and learn about the rich educational resources in the Culture Victoria website.

Tour beautiful records from the 1860 expedition. Gain additional insight into these records through the fascinating contemporary material being produced by members of the re-enactment expedition, which includes historian Dr Jonathan King, award winning cinematographer Michael Dillon, and artist Ben Beeton.

Presenters are Eleanor Whitworth, a writer and Content Curator for the Culture Victoria website, and Jo Clyne, an experienced teacher currently working as a History Education consultant with the History Teachers Association of Victoria.

To join the session, click on the following link sometime in the hour prior to the start time (4.00pm): https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007026&password=M.C9ACD518C3AD334BC61CC2EBF56591. Or, you can login via the Events Calendar Page.

To participate, you will need access to a microphone and headset on a desktop computer (not a laptop).

Look forward to seeing you there!

Watching the film of the BWEE’s visit to Dost Mahomet’s grave got me curious about Mahomet’s life. Hoping to discover more, I Googled him.

According to Burke & Wills Web Dost Mahomet participated in two further exploration expeditions under the command of A.W.Howitt.  After being seriously injured by a camel in 1862 he returned to in Menindee where he worked for the town’s Chinese baker, Ah Chung. He died in 1880.

Dost Mahomet worked Ah Chung's Bakery, Menindee

However, to my surprise, I discovered that there was a second “Afghan” cameleer named Dost Mahomet living and working in Australia in the nineteenth century.  It is this second Mahomet who is described in detail in Wikipedia.

He arrived in Western Australia in the 1890s and lived and worked around the mining areas of the Pilbara and Murchison in Western Australia.  There is quite a bit of information about his life, career and family in the entry, including his marriage to a European woman and eventual murder in 1909.

Both died at a relatively young age, but even for the times, it seems they each had an eventful life.

After their time at Coopers Creek, the BWEE  is now starting North again.  They are battling the rains and wet conditions, but Michael Dillon reports that they have arrived in the town of Eromanga in Far Western Queensland (North East of the Dig Tree).

With the current rains, they were lucky to make it to Eromanga (population 171). They were among the last vehicles to make it through, three hours after they set out, the road from Coopers Creek was closed to traffic behind them.  Allowing for the rains, they will next make their way to Birdsville, by whatever roads that are open.

The team has also sent us a video from Mutawintji National Park in Western New South Wales.  In their video Becker’s Mutawintji Les and Jonathan locate the exact spot in Mutawintji Gorge where Ludwig Becker completed his pencil sketch Reservoir in Mootwanji Ranges It is interesting to compare the pencil sketch with the colour footage of this important permanent water source.

Les Sprague and Jonathan King at Mutawintji Gorge

"Reservoir in Mootwanji Ranges" by Ludwig Becker

Four more films from the BWEE  have arrived on our desks. During their visit to Menindee in North-Western New South Wales, the team met with some of the locals, explored  Burke and Wills sites and observed the environmental changes that have affected the area:

A Menindee local!!

Students met with the BWEE team in Menindee

The Burke and Wills expedition camped on the banks of Pamamaro Creek

Dost Mahomet was one of the cameleers from the Burke and Wills Expedition. Afterwards he lived at Menindee and died there in 1880.

The videos have all been loaded  into the Burke and Wills stories. They include:

Menindee Then and Now

Dost Mahomet

Environmental Expedition Mission

Bamamero Creek

After loading the Becker sketches,  I was intrigued to recognise in the videos some of the places that Ludwig Becker had painted or sketched 150 years ago.

We have also loaded the first part of Ben Beeton’s visual journal.  Burke and Wills Environmental Expedition Artwork These first images combine photographs, sketches and environmental impressions to create a vivid picture of the first part of his journey from Melbourne to Menindee.

Impressions from the Menindee Lakes, 9 September 2010 by Ben Beeton

As the journey continues more of his work will be loaded into Culture Victoria.

Liz

The Burke and Wills Environmental Expedition team are well on their way north, currently spending a few days in Menindee. I had a great chat with them on Thursday just before they headed out with elder Aunty Beryl Carmichael, who comes from Ngiyaampaa country in western New South Wales, to learn about bush tucker.

We had planned for Michael Dillon and Ben Beeton to upload their videos and art work from their location into our website content management system. But, technology being what it is, we’ve had to resort to the somewhat old fashioned, but very reliable, Australia Post!

I’ve particularly enjoyed receiving their packages as they’ve all had Burke and Wills stamps! Here’s a pic of one complete with a Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement postmark:

There will be a lot of videos and images being added to our Burke and Wills stories over the next couple of weeks (you may get to see some of the bush tucker session with Aunty Beryl), such as this one, Re-crossing Mount Hope, where Dr. Jonathan King climbs Mount Hope and and identifies the location of Ludwig Becker’s water colour sketch View from Mt. Hope.