Who were the main Australian explorers and where did they go?

Answer 1

• 1788: Governor Arthur Phillip traced the Parramatta River as far as Rose Hill, assisting the expansion of the new colony
• 1799: Bass and Flinders circumnavigated Van Diemen's land (now Tasmania)
• 1801-2: Flinders circumnavigated the Australian continent
• 1813: Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth became the first Europeans to cross the Blue Mountains, opening the way for expansion to the west
• 1813: George Evans discovered the fertile Macquarie Plains and Macquarie River
• 1817: John Oxley charted the Macquarie and Lachlan Rivers
• 1818: George Evans discovered the Castlereagh River
• 1823: Allan Cunningham broke through the Warrambungle Ranges, discovering Pandora's Pass
• 1823: John Oxley sailed north along the coastline, entering Moreton Bay and being led to the Brisbane River by three ticket-of-leave convicts
• 1824-5: Hamilton Hume and William Hovell made the first overland journey from Lake George(near where Canberra now stands) to Corio Bay (they were supposed to reach Westernport Bay), crossing the Murray River (then called the Hume) for the first time
• 1829-30: Charles Sturt charted the Murray River all the way to the southern coast, discovering that the Darling River joined the Murray
• 1836: Major Thomas Mitchell discovered "Australia Felix", the rich, fertile western part of Victoria, and the Grampian Mountain Range
• 1840: Paul de Strzelecki explored the Australian Alps and climbed and named Mt Kosciuszko
• 1840-41: Edward Eyre crossed the Nullarbor Plain, going from Streaky Bay to Albany in the first east-west crossing
• 1844-45: Ludwig Leichhardt made the first overland crossing from the Darling Downs in Queensland to Port Essington in the Top End - he was gone for so long that people thought he had died
• 1860-61: Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills left Melbourne to try to be the first explorers to reach the north coast at the Gulf of Carpentaria - they reached the Gulf but did not return alive
• Between 1858 and 1863, John MacDouall Stuart made several attempts to cross the centre of Australia from Adelaide to the Top End: he succeeded, and returned alive
• 1873: Colonel Peter Warburton explored between central Australia and Perth
• 1873: William Gosse sighted and named Ayers Rock as he travelled through Australia's interior
• 1874-5: Ernest Giles made several expeditions from central Australia to the west coast and back
• 1874: the Forrest brothers, John and Alexander, explored east of Geraldton
• 1879: Alexander Forrest explored around the Kimberley area of Western Australia and the Fitzroy River
• Between 1909 and 1911, Douglas Mawson explored the Antarctic