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Edward Eyre was the first European explorer to cross the Australian continent from east to west. Born in 1815 in Hornsea, Yorkshire, he came to Australia as a young man and gained valuable bush skills whilst droving cattle overland from Sydney through to the Liverpool Plains, Molonglo and Port Phillip.

Eyre originally intended to cross the continent from south to north, taking with him his overseer, John Baxter, and three Aborigines. He was forced to revise his plans when his way became blocked by the numerous saltpans of South Australia, leading him to believe that a gigantic inland sea in the shape of a horseshoe prevented access to the north. It was then, in 1840, that he set out from what is now called the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, making his way across the Nullarbor Plain to Albany in the the west.

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16y ago

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