Why is Ludwig leichhardt famous?

Answer 1

Ludwig Leichhardt is famous for both his successes and his failures. his success was in the enormity of the first expedition he undertook, and for surviving when everyone thought he must have died. his failure was in his disappearance on his final expedition.

Leichhardt was one of Australia's early explorers. He came to Australia from Prussia, and he was an absolutely passionate botanist.

Leichhardt made a total of three expeditions. In October 1844, he left from Jimbour on the Darling Downs to find a new route to Port Essington, near Darwin. Leichhardt was not a good bushman, lacked skills of organising his party, and often became lost. One man was killed by aborigines on the marathon expedition, and numerous horses and supplies were lost. Leichhardt reluctantly discarded his extensive collection of botanical specimens, as there were too many to carry. His journey of nearly 5,000km took so much longer than expected that a friend of Leichhardt's composed a funeral dirge for him, expecting to never see him again. However, Leichhardt reached Port Essington in December 1845.

His second expedition, from the Darling Downs in Queensland to Perth in Western Australia, commenced in December 1846. However, wet weather and malaria forced the party to return after they had travelled only 800km.

Leichhardt's final expedition began in March 1848, picking up where his second expedition left off. However, somewhere in Australia's vast outback, Leichhardt, together with six other men, eight horses, fifty bullocks and twenty mules, vanished. Many theories have abounded as to what happened, and many claim to have found evidence of the remains of the expedition, but what really happened remains one of Australia's enduring mysteries.