Burke and Wills Memorial

The Burke and Wills expedition, originally called the Victorian Exploring Expedition, was an exploration expedition organised by the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV) in Australia in 1860–61. The exploration party initially consisted of nineteen men led by Robert O'Hara Burke, with William John Wills being a deputy commander. Its objective was the crossing of Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres (approximately 2,000 miles). At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-Indigenous people and was largely unknown to European settlers. The expedition left Melbourne in winter. Very bad weather, poor roads and broken-down horse wagons meant they made slow progress at first. After dividing the party at Menindee on the Darling River, Burke made good progress, reaching Cooper Creek at the beginning of summer. The expedition established a depot camp at Cooper Creek, and Burke, Wills and two other men pushed on to the north coast (although dense swampland stopped them from reaching the northern coastline). The return journey was plagued by delays and monsoon rains, and when Burke's party reached the depot at Cooper Creek, they found it had been abandoned just hours earlier. Burke and Wills died on or about 30 June 1861.