Burke & Wills Expedition across Australia 1860-61 

Whoa... This was an extremely well-done documentary. Many thanks to Astrovisuals1 for sharing this with us. Much appreciated.

The narrator has a wonderful voice, really enjoyable to listen to the excellent narration.

A realy well done documentary THANK You

Sound like Howard would have been the best choice. Rescued the lot, packed light and a true bushman. This was my assignment at school 25 years ago

Very good. John King, like Burke were Irish. King was born in Moy, Co Tyrone. I have read Sarah Murgatroyd's account of the expedition in her book 'The Dig Tree' ' three times. An excellent read, that recaptures the terrible events,as if you are there. The Society in Melbourne were ultimately responsible for appointing Burke, considering he had no experience in the outback. Albert Howitt went to Cooper's Creek in record time and had no casualties. Similarly, other explorers with outback experience had no fatalities.

Brave souls of pioneers rest in this beautiful land

Mum was a Pre School Teacher and gave me plenty of Australian Story books about the History and Flora and Fauna , way back in the 70's. It helped make me more Australian considering I was 6th Generation as well. The Burke and Wills , Flinders , Stuart and Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson

Such a high quality production. Great script and narration. 😀😀

hi love the story of Burk and Wills and all of our Explorers Ashley Australia

Burke and wills are my assignments at school thank you for the info.

Really interesting doc, thanks.

I believe the best guy for the job would actually have been the man who led the rescue mission - Alfred Howitt. A wise leader & proper bushman, with a better understanding of the 'natives'. So strange how he was overlooked...🙄

A very informative video soo well narrated,astonishing history.

Very interesting, good video. It tracks well with what i'm reading in Alan Moorehead's excellent account of the expedition, called "Cooper's Creek", very well researched. 👍

Absolutely love theses doco,s it cool to put a face to the names, of the articles I work on👍

Love the video!!!

Yes I remember learning about this in a Qld state school. Tragic in all but this type of venture is not to be entered into lightly. One really has to have a sound realistic knowledge and appreciation of ones own abilities.

Sadly, Sarah passed away after her book was published in 2002. Sarah was only in her mid thirties. I hope she made it to a good place.

If you really want to learn how badly the whole thing was organized and carried out you should read "Cooper's Creek: Tragedy and Adventure" by Alan Moorehead. He pulls no punches and tells how the expedition was so overburdened that the leaders were making their first camp before the rear had even left Melbourne - and how (you're gonna love this!) they took a piano with them !!! They didn't tie up their horses at night and thought they'd been stolen by Aborigines when in fact they'd simply wandered off. The whole thing was quite simply a man-made disaster.

i read about this expedition in Ernest Favenc's excellent book "The History Of Australian Exploration, 1788 - 1888" Published in 1888.

2:08 The Tempsky is Gustavus von Tempsky, a Prussian adventurer, explorer, and soldier, he is mostly known for his involvement in the New Zealand Wars. He was killed in 1868 during battle in the Taranaki, by a shot to the head.

Fascinating 👍

Thank you for your information and it enough to do for my assignments from CAMBODIA

Mad dogs and Englishmen. Summer is too hot in Australia. That's why we live on the Eastern coastline. Inland north is ridiculously hot in summer. When the wind blows from the north west it gets up to 46°C. That heat will kill a white man just by itself.

Astro: so glad for the subtitles!

Burke and wills is my assinment at school thankyou for the imfo :)

I've been to the tree where Burke died, it was a very peaceful place. Good place to die I guess.

When I stop and think about how my ancestors migrated to New Zealand in 1864, it impacts me hard learning about the issues and adventures of their contemporaries. I just learned of Burke & Wills' expedition, that was prompted by the Philosophical Institute of Melbourne just 6 years before my ancestors left Ireland. Drawing connections between the events that may have affected my ancestors, or that they would have been at least aware of, is very impressive. This documentary video made a mark on me, and I appreciate the quality of the content! Going through the video a second time, I am not impressed by the quality (or lack thereof) of the closed captioning on this video. Aboriginal names are a challenge and the botching of them is understandable, but good grief, this was atrocious!

Awesome thx

15:15 ". . . on the same day that dickhead staggered back into the man . . . " These captions are hilarious.

There was NOT a depot at Carpentaria - why would there have been! There should have been at least six depots across the country to have any chance of getting back to Cooper's creek nearly 1000km away. If their aim was to cross the continent they achieved it - but WHY was it necessary to go back the same way? Re-crossing the country was foolhardy with only TWO depots between Carpentaria and Melbourne - a distance of nearly 3000km - utterly ridiculous

Landells is my great great great grandfather. My mother's side

Just having to watch this for school

It is a good documentary, however, it suffers from a serious omission. Aboriginals taught Burke and Wills how to make seedcakes from nadoo, however, Burke and Wills managed to forget one critical step, that of soaking the pulverised nadoo seeds for 12 hours to get rid of the enzyme thiaminase which depletes the body of vitamin B1, causing beriberi. Wills wrote in his diary: "My pulse is at 48 and very weak and my legs and arms are nearly skin and bone. I can only look out like Mr Micawber for something to turn up, but starvation on nardoo is by no means unpleasant, but for the weakness one feels, and the utter inability to move oneself, for as the appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest satisfaction." It is most likely that the combination of vitamin B1 deficiency and vitamin C deficiency (scurvy) caused their deaths. The local aborigines had no problem eating nadoo, but they prepared it properly, after all, they had 50,000 years of experience to teach them.

Intresting

I followed this on Google maps.

""Burke and Wills and camel", initials in the tree." Australian Crawl

Read the book "Cooper's Creek." It's not a long book, and it is a great read.

At school i am learning about Burke and wills

Interesting. Reminds me of Scott's tragic expedition to the South Pole.

a fair amount of this narration is incorrect 1. originally expedition was called Burke and Landells. prior to the send off Adam Landells asked to speak to George James Landells as he thought it to be his Half brother. this was not granted. Adam walked away not knowing this important answer. 2. Landells was employed for his bushman skills and knowledge of Camels and horses. 3. After Landells resigned due to Burke selling off all the rum for the camels and also Burke not knowing anything about the bush Wills became 2nd in command. 4. Not long after Landells left the country he died in Calcutta. 5. his wife replied to statements during the royal inquest into the ill fated journey..

Hard enough in a well equipped landcruiser 🚙🐫

OMG! Burke & Wills :D

The Robert Scott of the Outback

Can somebody please tell me what the harmonica music is. Also who was the player.

Seems crazy to go to Adelaide instead of the nearby depot

could include more dates other then that very helpful

The botanist is von Mueller.

cool video

144p resolution - was that an attempt to be “period correct” ? 🤔🤔🤔

Oh no, not for me! I'll settle for my boring life in Melbourne - no way would I set out on such an expedition!😳

Really makes me wonder what these men were thinking so much could go wrong so much risk didn’t know what they would run into snake bites getting attacked anything could happen all those explorers where rough tough and brave

Tempsky who got no votes in the leadership ballot, went to New Zealand and made a great name for himself in the wars against the Maori.

cool

Will’s lost diary was found 10 yrs after this was made and it read like Brokeback mountain.

The statue of Burke and Wills is not at the city Square, since it was created, it has gone walkabout…. Hopefully one day it will come back to the city Square.

hence the Australian slang you Burke

How not to run an expedition.

It seems like Burke was a glory hound,racing to the coast He should have kept better care of his men,animals,and supplies.

Afghans in Australia in 1860? Wow.

....bit harsh but pretty fair Ian 👍

Note, 5:25. John King was Irish, not English.

what's the song?

Theres a great telling of this story on The Dollop podcast w/Dave Anthony & Gareth Williams. Maybe a little innacurate but def. hilarious.

Bizarre decision not to follow the rest after they left cooper's creek only 7hrs ago and towards a water hole. Also pretty awful of the others not to check if the dig had been dug.

No one had crossed Australia from East to West or vice versa until the new Century. Sadly this has information they had no idea about, so I wish it had narrated this as it effected them in time

In hindsight, its seems clear to me that Burke was a bit of a "burk." Wandering here there and everywhere, splitting up his party in his wilful haste. Men died needlessly because of his impetuousness.

brits and aussies you expect but strange how many germans were involved.

Imagine; we are living at a point of history where people dont even recognize that this is from old tv-documentary. Look at te comments!! They really think that this video is just some random youtuber!!! Really, the sound effects, the narrator; old british tv-voice... These people have only seen some reality TV and rap videos.. Makes my stomach turn..

John King is my uncles great great great great great uncle

We only use trees as land markers because we tried using kangaroos but they kept hopping away.

Interesting, carrying too many supplies, like the Scott polar expedition.

17:11 Wait...wtf?!? Lions?!? In Australia?!? How....just....did I have a stroke? I think this dude just broke my brain.

Naughty Burke! Bad Burke!

ONLY 111 COMMENTS ON SOMETHING WITH 114,996 VIEWS???

17:13, wait what lions? Australia has lions? Did they escape from zoos? Edit: Oooh, Trooper Lions. A person who loses things, not cats that eat things.

If you make movie about this story it will be goof ??

Gold Rocks

A buch of green horn Europeans take on the outback, LOL.

The most recent comment!

How could they have been victimized by scurvy with fish and fresh meat? No arrangement for relief by sea? Despite all this they were successful and the country was traversed. It must have been tougher than we can imagine.

They should have just sent Howard in the first place.

Great documentary. I feel so sorry for the animals that perished: horrible deaths. The subtitles are a scream. (Better not to have any if they can't do better than that!)

Great doco. Cannot understand why they died with plenty water, fish, aboriginies who were surviving well alongside them.

I HATE SCHOOL (im doing this for school)

You could of included how much of the food he brought but thanks

Yet another piece of Australian history that would not sound out of place in the wild west, I.E. the Donner Party. I'm starting to think Aussies and Americans are almost the same thing. Politics aside, of course.

At 17:13 the narrator mentions horses lost to lions. To my knowledge no big cats ever lived in Australia in modern times. Is this just a slip then?

oatmeal for the camels and the afgan drivers 3:00 wtf

It is baffling that this documentary dont suggest the native Australians possible had crossed parts of the continent. It is just condesending not to include the locals when making this historic videos now that in retrospect we know of the traveling the nomadic Native Australians are known for, the so called "walk abouts".

As Peter Fitzsimons famously quoted, they died between aisle A and aisle B of the local supermarket in the minds of the local aborigines.

The locals welcomed them into the towns and villages they came across😂😂😂.

A bit like Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic - ignored good advice and made bad decisions.

65000 years and no wheel, no bow and arrow and no need to explore.

A very good presentation So totally ruined by the absolute garbage subtitles.

Shades of the Polar explorers, who ignored the native tribes & all that nature had to offer. All were RN Officers, with no idea of Polar conditions, but plenty of arrogance.

Lions in Australia? no way

Dumping stores wasn't a good idea

Piano huh, gee thats travellin light ...Burke. 😂😂😂😂

As an Australian, I remain disgusted by the entire B&W story, and why it is given such prominence in high school history books. It’s not a story about the European exploration of Australia, it’s a story of hubris and bad luck that achieved nothing. The take away from the story has nothing to do with the significance of exploration, what was actually observed, and the consequences of this activity for the nation. B&W is served up as the main event of the period of exploration, when it was anything but. How many other Australian explorers are house hold names, and does anyone know their stories? The plan and simple fact of the matter, is most people do not know what the explorers had to say about what they saw… and this ignorance has not served us well in our collective understanding of this nation. Significantly we hear almost nothing about what the explorers saw.