What happened on Burke and wills expedition?

Answer 1

The Burke and Wills expedition was arguably the greatest exploration disaster in Australia's history. The main reason for the expedition was to find a suitable route across Australia which would be the route for the Overland Telegraph Line to follow. Australia was, up until that time, isolated from the rest of the world because there was no telegraph line into the country. A line waited off the island of Java to be connected to northern Australia. Both the Victorian and South Australian governments wanted the prestige of being the first in Australia to receive news via the line coming from the north. Hence, each state had a stake in mounting an expedition.

When the South Australian government offered a reward of two thousand pounds to the first expedition to reach the northern coast, it started a chain of events that affected a Scottish explorer by the name of John McDowall/McDougall Stuart, as well as young Englishman William Wills, and the Irish-born Robert O'Hara Burke.

Due to the South Australian challenge, the Victorian Government decided to sponsor its own extremely well-funded and well-equipped expedition from south to north. The proposed expedition was widely publicised, and confidence in its success rode on the back of the new wealth being enjoyed by the young colony of Victoria in the wake of the goldrushes.

The Burke and Wills party was very well equipped and, because of its size, was split at Menindee so that Burke could race ahead to the Gulf of Carpentaria with a smaller group. Part of this smaller group established a depot at Cooper Creek to stock provisions for when the explorers returned from the Gulf. Burke chose the wrong tim,e of year to make the push for the north, leaving in December 1860 - Australia's summer. He took with him Wills, Charles Gray and John King.

The expedition to the Gulf took much longer than Burke expected: when he returned to Cooper Creek, he found that the relief party had left just seven hours earlier, which was actually less than how much time it had taken to bury Gray, who had died on the return journey. Through poor judgement, lack of observation and a series of miscommunications, Burke and Wills never met up with the relief party. They perished on the banks of Cooper Creek. King alone survived to lead the rescue party to the remains of Burke and Wills, and the failure of one of the most elaborately planned expeditions in Australia's history.