Australia Adventure Travel - Hot on the Trail (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine June 2003

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The Hard Way
Hot on the Trail (Cont.)

THE BURKE AND WILLS expedition began falling apart even before making it out of Melbourne. The axles of several sagging wagons snapped, and three team members were sacked.

Four weeks later and 250 miles north, Burke realized he was dangerously overburdened. He dismissed seven more men and jettisoned gear willy-nilly—everything from a useless camel stretcher to a store of lime juice, an essential preventive of scurvy. Still, a week later the draft horses were so exhausted they were set free, the wagons left to rot in the bush. Even the camels began collapsing in the heat.

Burke's temperamental character wrought havoc. He fired and hired personnel at random. Two months into the journey, he dismissed Landells—who later wrote that Burke's conduct as a leader was horribly wanting in "judgement, candour, and decision"—and named young William Wills his second in command.

Burke did not keep a diary; instead he relied on Wills to do so. Wills took copious notes on the flora and fauna, and navigated and plotted the team's course through the desert.

After traveling 465 miles in 56 days—a distance a horseman like Stuart could have covered in ten days—Burke reorganized again, leaving five men, tons of gear, and dozens of horses beside the Darling River. The Victorian Exploring Expedition was disintegrating.

Temperatures rose to 140 degrees in the sun, yet Burke ignored the advice of Aborigines and often passed up shaded watering holes where "bush tucker"—game and desert vegetables—was plentiful. The expedition reached Cooper's Creek, the grand oasis of the Australian outback, on November 11, 1860.

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