Do Go On - 5 - Burke and Wills (Australian Explorers)

Episode Date: November 25, 2015

Burke and Wills are Australia's most famous explorers, but were they any good? No... not really. We discuss their famous journey... What went right? What went wrong? And what... yeah, mainly what went wrong... Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] the show and get rewards like bonus episodes:www.patreon.com/DoGoOnPod  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenjai Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go on the relatively new comedy podcast with myself, Dave Warnocky, and I'm here with my chums, Jess Perkins. Hello.

Hello, Jess. And of course, Matt Stewart. How are we, Matt? Good thanks, Dave. Thanks for, I was going to say having me. Thanks for me. Oh. Remember when you said, I think you should do the intros every week, Dave.

and I was like, oh, maybe we should all have a go at doing the intro. Well, I'm glad that you convinced me that I should do the intro. What, you reckon? I'm starting to feel, I'm feeling like I'm warming into it. You're really getting into this? Well, this is the podcast where...

We're going to keep that? Yep, all right, great. I think that's fun. No worries. It's great to have you on your own show. Hi, Matt. I'm here too. Oh, hey, Jess.

Yeah, okay. Thanks for coming in. So, hold on. Who's hosting it then if you're a guest and so is Jess? It's a vicious cycle. We're all guests. We're all guests. Everyone is a guest tonight.

If you are listening to this show, welcome. I'm your guest. Jess is my guest. You're Jess's guest. Yeah. This is like a game of guest too. That sucks. Well, this is the show where we take it in terms to prepare a class report to

present to the other two people research one topic and sort of try and educate the others about something and this week Matt is going to be presenting a report to Jess and I and we have no idea what you are about to talk about Matt. So we normally start an episode with a question. That's right, because we're all big trivia peeps. That's right. That's how we got into this. World of trivia, that's right. In one way or another we've worked

with questions and such. Yeah. So the question I want to ask you guys, which is the answer is the topic I'm going to talk about. My question is what is the biggest failure in Australia's history? What's a big failure? Big Australian failure. Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott from Desperkins.

Electing him, that is a big failure, but I would probably say, I reckon Gallipoli, the Gallipoli campaign. Great one. That, oh, absolute disaster, and it was not the Australian's false. That's probably a better answer than what I have. Oh, okay, right.

What have you got? So we're not going to talk about Gallipoli? No, not Gallip. But it is an historical, failure. Is it part of the First World War? No, it's not the First World War. It's pre-First World War.

So at the time, it was a bigger, it was much bigger failure than Gallipoli because at the time, Gallipoli was just a nice coastal town. Okay, well, there you go. And failed at anything. No, that's right. Glippley was... They were all success by them.

It was a gem. Yeah, a real gem. I guess it still is for them, because Australia were the ones who failed. Glippley, buddy kicked it in the dick. I was right. Turkey did pretty well. Okay.

I'm going to stop guessing. I think, okay, Jess and I, clearly wrong. What do you guys know about the Burke and Will's expedition? Oh, I have, yes, I have heard about that night. I don't know too much, but I know it ends badly. Yeah, it's not good. Well, actually, I know my dad always, if anybody says they've walked somewhere or how you're going to get somewhere, I'm just going to walk,

dad will always go, ugh, you know what they did to Burke and Wheels? Really? Yeah, it's a great joke. So in a way, they were a success. because they ended up in a Perkins, Mr Perkins. A family phrase. Yeah, yeah. So there you go.

Good on them. Good on. End of episode. Come on, everybody. Let's go to the pub. So I was, I looked into this a lot about a month ago, and I haven't thought about it much since then. So I'm going to hopefully give you a sweet report still.

Great. I don't think in the month that the report will have been redundant, considering the events happened 150 years ago. I'm hoping no new information has come to life. It's come to life. Oh, actually, it turns out that they had a great time. All right, so let me take you back. To what, 1850?

Right, 1850s, that was when gold was found in Victoria and it kicked off a big gold rush. Melbourne basically pretty much didn't exist at that time. But by the end of 1852, there were 90,000 new people in Victoria searching for gold. So Melbourne had a big boom. It was around that time when I got the nickname Smelban, because they're... Surridge was very good. Do you know that? I did not know we had that nickname.

That's amazing. Yeah, there was all open sewage. And a big boom in population, and a big boom in... In boomers. I found a quote, In the block bounded by Great and Little Burke Streets, Elizabeth Street and Swanson Street,

there is a space of upwards of 100 square yards. Hitherow occupied... That's how you know what's old, because I said Hithero. Hithero occupied by a green, putrid and semi-liquid mass. partly formed by the outpourings of surrounding privies. Oh, God. So that's right in the middle of the city. Do you say 100 yards?

Oh, my. Filth. But anyway, we've come a long way. That's right. Natalie says you just have those old horse and carts walking down boat street and everywhere. That's the worst thing you're going to smell in Melbourne. What a weird.

That is weird that we've hung on to that, right? I think it's bad for the horse. I don't, well, I just, who wants to go around Melbourne slowly? Like, that's all you get is like a really slow trip around Melbourne. Well, I think Jess Perkins' dad because he wants to avoid walking. Because look what it did to Birken wheels. If only they had a horse. They probably had a horse.

We'll get into that, I imagine. Anyway, despite all that, all the cash floating around from the gold made Melbourne a real destination for some of the world's biggest and brightest. Yeah, great. People that were cashed up and didn't want to spend money on plumbing the city. Yeah, Melbourne, for a little time there, Melbourne was like one of the big cultural centres of the world. It was a hectic little time. But it probably wouldn't have got the title of the world's most livable city back then because of the shit everywhere. Probably not.

They did solve that problem not too long after. And Victoria's Capital was dubbed Marvelous Melbourne around that time. Ah, that's better. Better than Melbourne. Cash just flowing around and they were getting stuff done. So around that time, you know, Melbourne was starting to think we got a, let's put ourselves on the map here. Let's do something big. We've got all this cash.

We've got this cash. We've got a lot of shit. What can we do? Let's do something with it. And that's where the idea of this big expedition came about. In 1858, interestingly, Queensland wasn't even a thing yet. It was still New South Wales. Do you know that?

New South Wales pretty much was all of Australia for a little while. And then slowly other states chipped away at it until it became the little... ...the little... ...the little... ...theircouvered... Victoria was in New South Wales, South Australia, Northern Territory. That was all New South Wales. Western Australia was there pretty early on

and Van Diamondsland and Tasmania was but nearly everything else was New South Wales Yeah yeah big New South Wales Cool Yeah anyway that was that interesting Yeah What I'm going to try and do is Give you some real interesting tidbits

Hey please That is the point of the show Please do go on with those tidbits Jess you're going to have to lower your brows Because there's more coming okay Okay I'll try You can't take them any further high You can't hold them up for an hour.

It's ridiculous, Jess. You're being ridiculous. I'm just sort of, yeah, trying to put you in the time there. Queensland wasn't even a thing. We're going a little while back. Melbourne was only 23 years old, and Victoria, only 7 years old. So Victoria was New South Wales. Melbourne was in New South Wales initially.

That was something I didn't know. I had no idea. My goodness. Australia was still 43 years away from federating, as you know, in 1901. That's right. Good, good, good. Testing is. And the vast majority of European settlements were on the coast, which is still the truth. Still the case, yep.

The Philosophical Institute of Victoria was keen to set up an expedition. So they were a big group of scientists and just intelligent Melbourneians, basically, and Victorians who wanted to make their mark. So they set up this idea, but they didn't have the heaps of money that was needed. Heaps of money was required. Heaps. They didn't have enough. They didn't have heaps.

And in 1859, the Institute received a royal charter and became the Royal Society of Victoria, which still exists today. It's still got a building in the city somewhere. You can go visit if you want. Oh, there you go. Royal Society of Victoria. A wealthy... RSV. Yeah.

A wealthy member of the public named Ambrose Kite donated a thousand pounds. Now that is the name. Ambrose. That's a real good. Bring that back. And a thousand pounds. A thousand pounds is a heap. A lot of money.

Yeah, it's a heap of money. But it's not quite the heaps they needed. After that, he said that only, he would only be able to give the $1,000 if they were able to raise another $2,000 from the public. Oh, that's like the original Kickstarter. Yeah, basically. But if you get your stretch goal, I will contribute another £1,000. Yeah, that's pretty much what it was.

Or like the Good Friday Appeal where they say, we'll give you this money, as long as you can get Agro and Phelpsy to do 15 push-ups live on air. singing the national anthem backwards or something like that. I don't know if that's a thing. Sorry, guys, they only did 14. We're going to keep the million dollars. The hospital is going without this year. Sorry, you're in hospital.

Sorry, plain Phelpsi. It took a year. So it took a year to get that 2000. And how were they raising the money? Were they just on the street? Yeah. I imagine they're rattling like coin boxes, but back in the day,

people are just depositing like little gold nuggets that they just found. Just chucking it in the box. Like, oh, it's 2,000 pounds worth of gold, which is a lot of gold. That is a lot of gold. But eventually it took them a year, but they got the 2000. They did get the 2000.

So then Ambrose just kicked in his thousand. They gave him 3,000 altogether. And then with that 3,000, they took the Kickstarter to the government and asked for an extra £6,000, which was approved by a guy in the government who was also on the committee. Oh, there you go, classic government right there. How handy? So they're up to £9,000. There's a lot of money. Yeah, so they have got the heap of cash.

they required. I'm using a lot of what I'm using here is Dave Phoenix's history. He wrote a brief history which I'm leaning on pretty heavily here. I mean, it's a really entertaining story. So I've so far have been able to suck all of that bit out of it

and just give you the facts. I don't want to entertain. Hey, we need a bed of facts so we get going. So they've got £9,000 and what is the point of the expert? Like, what do they, they want to put themselves on the map

in what way? Well, at this stage, there's no record of anyone crossing Australia from south to north coast. Oh, so they want to go all the way from the bottom up to the top. I want to be the first to do it. All right. Around the same time, South Australia are organising their own ones. So it becomes a bit of a race. They've got this guy who's quite experienced named John McDowell Stewart.

He's a South Australian Scottishman, Scottishman. And he's been around. So he's a pretty handy explorer. So he's a leader of the Adelaide Party. And they're trying to go from Adelaide North, are they? Yeah, so there's a slightly different path, but they've still got... You've got the same goal. Same goal.

They've probably got different challenges. But anyway, I've got this... Dave Phoenix gave a few different reasons for the expedition, which is what you were sort of asking. I was saying, it's a scientific expedition that would discover new species, new discoveries of golden minerals, new and fertile lands for grazing, the extension of the boundaries of the small colony, the establishment of a telegraph line to London, and the pride of being the first colony to unlock the secrets of the interior.

I love that, the pride, the pride. It's all about pride. Unlock the secrets. But it's now, I think, like those other things were kind of just to sell it to people. That's right, the government aren't going. Yeah, it'd be pretty great for us if we did this. The government are like, oh, I'm not going to give you £6,000. Oh, how about a telegraph line to London?

Yeah. Sold, you've got the money. We might find gold, and, yeah, yeah. You can have cows out here maybe. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Now we're talking.

Now we're talking. You can call the queen. Ooh. Secrets of the interior. Now that sounds like a little bonus. And pride. And pride for you and us because we funded it. So they were good to go, right?

They were all good to go. All they need now is a group of people and a leader. So the people raising the money are happy to get the money and plan the thing, but they don't want to do with themselves. Yeah, it's not that kind of thing where it's like, we did it. They go, we organize this. It's our thing. You know, it's still their thing to be proud of.

Sure. And it's for the colony. It's for Victoria, this brand new colony, 23 years old. Yeah, no, seven years old. Yeah, really close. It's a really new colony. And it's just someone to say, hey, look at us. Victoria, we're sick.

Or something like that. That is. No, I reckon that's what they said. Definitely a direct quote. Yeah. Look at us. We're sick. So they put.

together an exploration committee and their main goal at the start was to find a leader for the exhibition. Pretty important role, obviously. Yep, sure. Their initial choice was the South Australian Peter Edgerton Warburton, but they were also considering a guy called

A.C. Gregory and another guy called William Blandowski. Oh, Blandowski. I wish they'd got... Birk and Blondowski is much better. Bill Blondowski. What a better ring to it. There was a debate that went on for months over this. I want Blandowski, damn it

I wonder why, like, why would you care so much who was going to, not care so much, but like if these people wanted to do it, why not just let them do it? You know what I mean? Like, no, I don't reckon he should. Yeah, off you go. Well, I think it's, so the leader's making all the decisions and we'll find out as we go that it's pretty crucial

who the leader is because they can make some really good decisions. They can. Potentially. Don't like your use of the word can there. They could. It's not promising that for our faithful leader. foreshadowing. Oh, fair enough.

A bit of sizzle. A bit of sizzle. So because we haven't heard of the names A.C. Gregory Blendowski and that Adelaide guy before, am I to believe that they were not chosen? That's right. It was at some point, at a meeting at some point, exactly on the 20th of June 1860, they had a vote where Robert O'Hara Burke came from the clouds, got 10 votes, Warburton 5, and yeah, no one else got any votes.

Gregory Blondowski out. So, Berkus, did you just, I just kicked down the door and, said, I'm here. Yeah. Like in the house. Do you guys know anything about this guy? Like, is history or anything? For some reason I assumed like Burke Street was named after him, but now it's...

I always thought that as well, but it wasn't. It was there before him, so that's disappointing. Although, yeah, there's been a few little things named after him, but yeah, I always thought the same. Little Burke, maybe. Yeah. Because Burke Street's spelled an O, right? Yeah, that's right.

Oh, yeah, he's B-U-R-Cann. Any time we get to Melbourne specific, you should probably... probably talk to our interstate and international. All right, so Burke Street, it's the main street of, pretty much the main street, like the mall, where trams can go and pedestrians can go, but people can't in Melbourne. So it's one of this, it's a, did I say people can't or cars? Yeah. People can't go there.

Pedestrians can. Pedestrians can. If you're a pedestrian. You're an animal pedestrian. It's one of our most famous streets. Which most of them are. Not many animals have their car driving license. Well, possums, but anyway, another one for our overseas listers. And, yeah, so just a big street.

I honestly also thought that it was named after him. Yeah, but you're right. The spelling's different. Yeah, it's with a no, right? Yeah, it is, yeah. Anyway, so he was an Irishman who was born in 1821. Ireland is a country in the northern hemisphere for our overseas list. So 1821, right on.

In Galway County. That's where I'm from. Are you really from Gaul? Well, not me personally, but my family, yeah. Yeah, cool. Oh, well, there's a connection. Cool. You got any Burks in the family?

I don't think so. I think so. I could have been related to... Yes, then. You could have been related to the guy that Burke Street is not named after. Well, it could have been. Instead, I only have to claim bloody Kieran Perkins. Is he actually related to you?

Well, I claim he is. Oh, right on. Right on. Right on. Kieran, a champion Olympic Australian swimmer. Two-time gold medalist. If we could go back to Robert O'Hara. Sorry, sorry.

Not, Kieran was not on this exhibition. But Robert O'Hara, Burke was... He lived quite an interesting lot. Just see if you can spot the one thing he hadn't done. Okay. Okay. Well, there's probably a few other things, but one key thing he hadn't done at this moment. He'd never tried pineapple.

He'd never learn to walk. That's right. That's his mind. You got on this walking experience. That'll be fine? Yeah, it'll be right. He went straight from crawling to sitting and stayed in the chair. Just dragged himself around.

It was a long 6,000 mile journey from Melbourne to Queensland. Robert O'Hara Burke crawling, refusing any help from the party. I'm sorry, Matt. Do go on. So at the age of 20, he joined the Austrian army as an Irishman. I don't fully understand that. A right of passage maybe for that time, who knows? Okay, so he's in the Austrian army. I can accept that. So he was there for a few years, then.

He had it home to Ireland in 1848, where he'd, joined the police force. Okay, so he's in his 20s now, yep. Yep, and then five years later in 1853, he came over to Australia for the gold rush, but he ended up becoming a cop in the Victorian police force as well. So at this stage, got some good experience in the army and as a policeman. Perfect, good. Nothing about walking or exploring so far.

Okay, so he's done no... But leadership skills. Leadership skills, maybe. But no exploring. No exploring. At all. Had not explored at all. Hang on.

He got on a boat to Australia. That's a bit exciting. But he's never crossed a continent as vast as desolate as Australia. He caught a train once across parts of Europe. I like this. He's working as a cop in Victoria. The Crimean War broke out. So he jumped on a ship.

He's like, I want in. I want in. I care about the Crimea. Jumped on a ship. headed back but by the time we got there it was too late the war was over the light brigade was charged it was all done so he jumped back on a ship came back to australia and rejoined the police force so he's just spent what i'm imagining it takes a long time to get quite a while then maybe he's just spent the nine months on a ship so frustrating

so frustrating you didn't get to kill anyone god what a waste of time what a bummer what a bummer no one was murdered by robert o'harabur so he came back came back to victor Rejoin the police force quickly rose through the ranks. So like just said, he showed some sort of leadership skills. But it was, at the time, you know, it was a quickly growing population. So they just needed people. They needed cops.

And he was around the Castleman District, Country, Victoria. And then in 1860s, when he took leave to lead the exploration, just took leave. Did they put an ad out or something? Is that how he, and he just applied and... I think that's basically how it was. He just put it on gum tree. Yeah, on a gum tree. Yeah, they actually nailed it to a country.

But what about the other guys? Were they more qualified? Yes. Great. Great. So they're going, what the fuck? You've just chosen some Irish cop. That's Burke.

He was first in charge. Second in charge was a man named George James Lendels. Oh. Landels? Oh, no, Wills. Oh, well, get to Wills, will we? Well, Wills wasn't second in charge, no. Okay, okay.

So James Landel second? George James. George James. Landels, he was born in Barbados. Oh, exotic. Exotic. And his family lived, they moved around a bit in Barbados, Jamaica, Gambia and England before he moved. I don't know if anyone knows geography, but there's a long distance between Jamaica and Gambia, which is in Western Africa.

Yeah, that is a big job. And then up to England, okay. Then up to England and then to India in 1842. Well, he's traveled a lot, but has he explored before? Well, his big thing was because they made a decision with this exploration that because they were going through some pretty full-on desert terrain, well, they thought it was, they didn't know a lot about it. They were going to bring in camels. So they brought... And that worked out well, didn't it?

Yeah. I mean, it was important because they definitely did help. The camels did help them get through some deserty places. That's right. Like the desert. But if people don't know, Australia has the largest population of feral camels. in the entire world. Yeah, I haven't checked.

I wonder if any of them come back from that. I think they ended up eating most of them. I don't know if they just let any of them go free. So later on they brought in more camels. Because now they had to have a big cull because it was close to a million. Really?

Million camels in the middle of Australia. I think I've ever seen a camel. And they would... You've never seen a camel? I'm sure I have. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure... Yeah, I have because there's one at Chesterfield Farm. Anyway.

Oh, right on. I went there last year as an adult. But they've bought in some camels. good. But he was the man who was sort of in charge of that. He was sent out to India to purchase the camel. Oh, he's Camel Man. He's the Camelman.

That's kind of why he was chosen to be second in charge, just because his expertise with the camels, which was seen as a real key point in the success or potential success of this expedition. Right on. You're loving right on today. Right on Camelman. Like, every time you say it, Matt just lights up like a little, like he's so excited.

I'm going to say a lot more now. Right on. Right on. I'm echoing it every time he's sad. Yeah. I've noticed. Okay, so we've got a second in command. Yep.

That's who I see. Yep. So, vice captain. Yeah. He was hailed for his travels through the very unsettled lands by the English skinnian newspaper, Sindian. Let's say Sindian. And similarly lauded in Melbourne where the exotic animals caused the sensation. This is a quote from our man.

David Phoenix. David Phoenix. Bloody hell you're a good morning. You're on today, yeah, well done. I'm a big fan. The Dave Phoenix fan. Apparently, when the camels were brought to Melbourne, they were paraded through the streets.

Oh, that's great. And they cause a real sensation, as did their handlers, who have been identified variously as Indians, Sepoys, and Malays. Sepoys being Indian serving in the British arm. Is Sepoy's right? Bloody hell, this is scratchy, but...

It's fine, it's fine. But those handlers, that small group of handlers, which was about five dudes, I think, three, four, five dudes. It's not that clear. It's so funny that they were just not seen as being important enough to document even where they're from. There's a lot of info about the camels. But they were the people who were handling the camels. If it wasn't for them, the camels, I don't know, would have gone rogue or something. Rogue camels.

Which they did later. Exactly, that's right. That did not work out well for the middle of Australia. If only we'd paid more attention to these. Handlers. To our Sepoy slash Malaysian slash... Who do you think was third in charge? Is it Will's?

It's got to be Will's. All right. Number three. And you know, you guys know Will's first name? I do because it is so ridiculous that it's one of those things that it's... Can it be real?

I think that his name is William. William. It is. William John Wills. Because I was thinking John. So maybe... Willie Wills. Willie Wills.

Willie Wills. Willie Wills. Which is very similar to a character, Jonathan Schuster plays Willie Wheels You ever seen that? No, I have not seen that

Melbourne comedian Jonathan Chester There you go Anyway, Willie Wills was born around 1834 I love old

Oh my God Can someone talk for me? Old records. No, this is your thing When people don't know when people are born It is fascinating It's like a whole year

You couldn't even get it down to one whole year Especially someone who's quite important Yeah, that's right Someone who is third in command So he was born in command So he was born in Devon in England and his family moved to Australia

in 1853 and at first he assisted at his father's practice in Ballarat before studying, surveying and becoming an assistant at the astronomical and magnetical observatories at Melbourne under Professor G.B. Newmayer. So he's got some experience being an assistant. But...

I'm going to be the third assistant. In a lot of cool fields as well there. So he was very... good at surveying, which was very important. He was actually very handy. So, second and third in charge. Probably more qualified than number one. Well, definitely very handy

at least on board. But you know what? I reckon Burke just had he had the confidence. You know, he had that spark. Stage presence. Well, no, I think that from a bunch of different accounts

that I've read, they do talk about that. Very charismatic. Yeah, I was going to say charisma, yeah. It's probably attractive, man. Yeah. I'm going to make that assumption. Big beard, you know. A bit of a ladies, man. Yeah.

Don't worry, ladies, I'll be back in the summer. Yeah, I'll be back. Just wait for me. Wait right here. Sorry, got to go walk through the desert. Bye. Bye. What's that new phrase you've brought out?

Right on. Right on. Right on. Oh, indeed. On the 20th of August 1860 is go time. But it's go time and show time. Go time and show time. Yeah, that's right.

They assembled in Royal Park, Melbourne, in Carlton. And the men there were instructed on rifle shooting and caring for camels. There's two things you need to know, boys. Do we need to know how to read a map? Nah, just care for this camel. And shoot a gun in case you don't care for the camel. I love how it's just like on the day. We're about to go before we do.

Yeah. He's a couple of tips. Two-hour crash course. Yeah, it's crazy. It's so under-prepared. It's been going, they've been raising money for years and they haven't trained them. It feels, it's, it just feels like, you know that people talk about when things are organized by committee? They're always a mess.

And that is what this feels like. It's a big old mess. Big old party planning committee. So along with, so the dudes are getting trained, right? And there's also up to 20 tons of stores amassed, 20 tons to bring with them. They're carrying 20 tons. Oh my God. It's not a nice, lean, quick, exploiting.

up the center of Australia. 20 tons. And who's pulling that? Wheels. Camels and heaps of horses. It's on the back of wheels. What? So there was something around 20, 20 old horses,

26 camels and six wagons. Wow. What? I think you need supplies. They're going to walk a long way. That's okay. I support this motion. 20 tons.

Okay. I reckon you'd just take a couple less dudes. Anyway, look. Just go solo. Look. Hindsighters, 2020. Of course. So easy for us to say that now.

That may not have even helped. But on that afternoon before setting off, Burke fired a couple of his men for being drunk. And replacements were hired on the spot. Oh my God. Hey, are you drunk? You're fired. Hey, are you not drunk? You're hired.

You're in. Oh, man. Say bye to your mum. Yeah, just so loose. I just, I couldn't believe that. Wow. Do you know anything about camels? Well, neither did these guys.

Let's go. That's fine. That's right. I mean, they've done the crash course, but we can just teach. We'll do it as we go. It's fine. Really, it was only a 15-minute presentation. These Malayan slash Indian sapoy men, whatever they are,

I haven't taken the time to learn their names. They'll tell you how to clean up the camel shit, all right? Yeah, that's pretty much how it is. That just seems so bizarre to me. Get in the wagon. Well, somewhere I read online, they brought enough food to last for two years. Oh, wow. Which is way longer than they expect.

How long do they think it's going to take? I were thinking months, not years. Wow, okay. So that's good. That's good. I think that's good. I think maybe up to a year. So they had twice as much as what they probably thought.

They did 80 pairs of shoes. What? So about, I think that's about four per man. Wow. 20 camp beds, 30 cabbage tree hats, 57 buckets. And a part tree. Brandy, preserve fruit, vegetables and firearms. God, they're living like kings.

80 pairs of shoes. And they're also, so. They're not like... It's not like... It's not like the Harris-Hillan's collection though. It's probably like all work... You guys are worse than women.

It's okay that I said it. Yeah, that doesn't... It's okay. They said it in 1850. Yeah. And I'm being ironic. And they also... One other thing that was a bit different for the time,

they would normally bring a lot of their food as living livestock, which is I think what livestock normally is living. So, yeah. It might be one of the fundamental... It's in the... the name. Livestock.

Oh, goodness. Yeah. But they decided instead to bring try out dried meat. So that's why a lot of the stuff they were, like livestock can walk itself,

which is a pro. Sadly, salted beef cannot walk far at all. So that was... But neither could Burke. Well, he never learned. I never read anything about Burke walking. I have 80 pairs of shoes

for some reason. I put them on my hands and crawl. I don't imagine somebody like one of the leg guys just dragging him. Like a Sherper. Everyone grab a leg in an arm. Come on, guys, come on, it's a team effort. Put Burke in his sack. Start the dragging process.

There's time to a camel and whippers. And he's still like shouting out orders. Turn left. Turn left. I said left. Left. God damn it. All right.

So they set off, all right? They've fired a couple guys, got more guys on, done a quick training. They set off in the afternoon, right? So it's not a whole day of travel, but they set off in the afternoon, where do you reckon they camp? Remembering they left from Carlton. They're heading to the north of Australia. How far is the journey supposed to be?

There and back of things, 5,000 miles or kilometers, it would be miles. Well, Carlton North. They did a little bit better than that, but not heaps better. They camped that night in Essendon. Oh, my God. How many kilometres? Which is where I now live. Yeah.

And it's a 15-minute bike ride. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God. And that's day one. I mean, they're a little bit further down there. Say, say half an hour bike ride, maybe. But they've taken horses and camels, and they've taken a whole day to do it. Well, a whole afternoon.

I love that as well, that they're like, should we head off? Yeah, no, we'll head off to Zabo. Because it was a huge thing. After lunch. They had a huge send-off. everyone, the majority of Victoria, rocked up to the send-off. And you know what's great?

People then would have gone home and then they could have like passed them. Yeah, they're walking with them. Where are you? Where are you? Oh yeah, we actually live in Essenton. Yeah. Hey, we saw you just before.

Yeah. You're just getting here now. Oh, shit, all right. Good on you. No, all right, well, you know. Perks like I had to fire a couple of guys, all right? Yeah. Give me some crev.

I got dragged here, okay? Speaking of, our man Dave Phoenix said that Burke's leadership was pretty full on and he continued to alter his personnel, losing one of the Sepoys two days out of Melbourne. He hired a cook. Great, so he just left a Sepoy who's probably never been to this country before in the middle of Victoria. Go on. See you, mate. Oh, my God.

That's ridiculous. He knows probably little English. He's lost his camel friends. Oh, my God. Oh, that's awful. Good on you, Burke. Doing great. Then he hired a cook at Mia Mia, Mia.

Just on a whim. Something, oh, we should have got to cook, maybe. Hang on, we need to eat. Did they think this through it all? It doesn't feel like, does it? Then he hired a bushman with exploring experience at Chagall. There we go. Finally.

And then dismissed four more men at Swan Hill. Oh, my God. Which is not even left Victoria yet. So they're still in the first state, and they're supposed to get to a third. Yeah, that's right. And back again. And back again. And they've already lost.

what, five men at least at this stage, plus the two they fought on day one. So seven of the original crew were gone, but they've gained a bushman and a chef. But don't worry, he replaced those four men with another four randoms, including a sailor named Charlie Gray.

Who's useless on land? They're going to say, we're going this inland expedition. He's like, yeah, this is my forte. I know a lot about land. Yeah, so there was a lot of comings and goings from the crew. Like, there was a lot of, oh, and who are you sort of? Like, how weird would that be?

You wake up every morning and go, sorry, were you part of the group last month? Who's the new guy? What happened to Doug? Sorry, left him. Left him at Swan Hill. I feel like they're underprepared, but they have too many, like, they've got way too many shoes and too much food. I was like, under and over prepared at the same time.

What if you fire someone and there are a size 7 and then you hire a size 11? That is really, I know what shoes for him? We've got no shoes. Yeah, that was the kind of thing that was like. Do you have any experience? Not really. What shoe size are you? Seven, perfect.

Perfect, you're in. You're in. Here, have a pair of shoes. So, remembering these key dates, because I won't. The 20th of August is when they set off. Yep, I wrote that down, yep. The 11th of September is when they got to the Murray, the border. Okay.

So it's taken them? A couple weeks. And they set off. Three weeks. Three weeks to get to the border of the first date. Okay. From there they set off into New South Wales, obviously. And from there, they turned left for some reason.

I wouldn't be surprised if they accidentally did that. They are extremely underprepared. Okay, so they're in New South Wales now. Yeah, so they're in New South Wales now, and there have been further personnel changes. Second in charge is now William John Wills. What happened to the Barbados guy? There was an incident when looking to cross the river.

Our man from Barbados. George James landed out, the camel man. He's the camel man. He said the best way to get the camels across the river is via some sort of a punt. Like a rafty type thing? And Burke said, no. What was Burke's idea? Let's hear what the camel man has to say.

No. We'll do this. What did he think? He said, Wills, you're swimming him across. Willie, we need you. Oh, wait a boy. And his reasoning was that it was,

it was going to take too long to find the punts. They tried briefly and couldn't do it quickly, so he's like, no, we just have to forge on, let's go. And what does the sailor have to say about all this? Charlie Graves, like, oh, great, I can sail a camel. No, Wills, swim him. I can sail a camel. I can sail a boat

I can sail a camel I can sail it to be so yeah so he was he he he cracked it and quit and Burke gave Willie Willey Will's

what as a reward for swimming with the camels He gave him second in charge And did the camels make it across They made it But yeah he's like Are you sure you want to get them knackered Before we even get to the desert

Like doing this thing that they're not used to doing Using weird muscles And he was like He's like, I'm Burke. I'm Burke. I'm Burke. He'm Roar. Yeah, he's pretty much

he said, he said, I'm Burke. He's like, who's in charge here, hey? Hmm? They don't call this the Burke and Landell expedition. Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck on. Back to Barbados.

Yeah, so, okay, so Skippy ahead a little. Landels is gone, and they have started working their way up through New South Wales. It's been about two months since we last. left Melbourne and they've got to Menindy. That same journey at that time would take the male coach a fortnight. Sorry, sorry, how long did it take Birkenwills? Two months, about two months.

They should have just got on the mail cart. Am I to believe that they're going on this big journey with camels, all this stuff. And they've just, every couple of weeks, they see the mail cart just go. go past. I'm like, hey guys. Ding, ding. Any mail for Burke? Yeah, got a couple letters.

Some cookies from your wife. Thank you. And they just keep going back and forth. Oh, probably hates these assholes. What? Why did they not just start from Menindy on the, oh, my, on a coach. They had a big parade to set off these guys, but every morning, these postal workers are getting nothing.

No parades for them. Oh, that is so funny to imagine. Just them. Ding, ding. Yeah. You just feel like, it would feel like they're going past every couple of hours to you. You're like, oh, for the fuck's sake, there they're going. So they got to Maninida, and beyond there, it was pretty much unknown territory to Europeans.

They'd sort of push their knowledge. Europeans had pushed their knowledge up to Manindi in New South Wales, but beyond there. So was this sort of halfway-ish? Probably not quite a third. Oh, God. Oh, Burke. Anyway. So there's still a long way to go.

But he's an impatient man. He wants to just get it done. And he's also in the back of his mind, he's always thinking about this man, Stuart. Oh, yeah, because he's racing as the Adelaide Scotsman. Yeah, that's right. I've forgotten about that. Yeah.

So he's going, we can't afford to be too slow, even though he's being super slow. He's like, we're going to have to pick up the pace from here. And that's when he decided to break the group into two. And that was against the orders of the committee who were funding the whole thing. I bet they're thinking that leader was it. Good choice. Good choice.

He's not even listening to us anymore. So when they first split the party at Menindy, they split it into one group, which was the fittest seven men, that Burke found to be the fittest seven men. I don't know what kind of... The rigorous test. What did they figure that out?

Ten star jumps, go. He also picked the fittest animals. M-hmm. Again. There's camel from virile. Camel star jumps. And only a fraction of supply. So they became quite a lean operation now.

Burke told the others that he would send for them later. Sorry, I'm not even going to be like, Burke told the others to talk. Fuck off. Piss up, you and your Barbados mate can't fuck off. We don't need you. It's about 10 days later he did send for them. Actually, we need you.

Yeah, he's like, yeah, you guys, head on up now. We are ready for you. It's like in a job interview. Burke will see you now. About that time, he sent the new third in charge, William Wright, back to Minnindi to collect the others and meet Burke at the depot, which they were going to create at Cooper Creek. Right on, so the big supply area.

That's right. So they moved up to Cooper Creek, which is like the big famous historical base that they made for themselves. So at this stage you've got the seven guys up One of those is heading back to tell the bigger group With all the animals and supplies to start heading up Great, so you really could have just gone with the whole group But instead he's the fittest seven men

We'll forge ahead Then six of us will wait here While one has to go back Tell you to do the journey that you could have done the whole time And then we'll continue on Yeah, that's kind of it So dumb That's just

And the whole time the male coach is still zooming up and down Just zooming. Beep, beep. in November 1860 about three months after leaving Melbourne Burke and the other men that he still had with him established a depot at Camp 63 but that that struggled so they made another one at Camp 65

which is the famous one which was just inside the Queensland border so they made a little bit of ground in those 10 days and how many of them are at this Camp 65? So this is the six of them with the one guy sent back to send the message Queensland was now a thing It had only just became a thing the year before A state, no, a colony that said wasn't a state as yet Sure

And Burke was expecting the other half of the party To meet them at any time from then But after waiting for a further ten days He decided What's Burke's thing? You know, when he has a brainwave, it seems to be one main thing And that is to split the party once more Oh, no.

Oh, my God. Six is too many. They're just wasting so much time, just sitting around waiting for 10 days. Yeah. Well, they wanted the suppliers. So if the suppliers could get there. So they have no idea what went wrong. It turned out they were having troubles.

It's a big party. But not just physical troubles, but also like organization. There was one guy who, he basically demanded that his family get put on a train to Adelaide. and he wouldn't leave until there were all these and he's holding the supplies hostage and he wanted a pay rise I think and he

What? And I was like a flight Cuba And a mango I love mango And yeah And they waited for a couple of months So

So they They're making some ground now They're sort of They're losing That huge thing they started with at the start, maybe that could have started smaller. I reckon. So how many are there now? They've split again.

Now it's just the four of them. It's just four. So we've got. So, yeah, this breakaway group was Burke Wills, Charlie Gray. Who was our sailor? He's our sailor and John King. So they're the four and they've gone what... And who's our man? I know what the plan was.

John King. A 21-year-old Irishman. Great. Yeah. And he was put in charge of the camels. Because we lost the camel guy. So he's in charge of camels. He's new camel man. And he's no camel experience. He's young and Irish.

Although he didn't know much about camels. Please finish this sentence. He did speak the language of the handlers. Oh. So he could work as in... Well, they assumed he could. Yeah, exactly. So he...

Why would a 21-year-old Irish kid be able to speak? He came over on the boat with Landels. So he... He's a young guy. He's been through India and he's been hanging out with these guys for a while. I honestly thought you're going to say, that John King could speak the language of the camel. Yeah, I'll see that too.

They've grown a lot. I wish you could see your face by the. This camel is tired. Also, he's hungry. That river really hurt my feet. I miss James Landell. I speak the language of the camel. So, yeah, that was, he could speak.

So he was basically able to go pass on messages from Burke to the handlers and back again. Okay, so are the handlers still coming with the four? The handlers, I think they've gone ahead, Sands, Sapoys. Sure. Suppoys a fun word, too, by the way. It is. Hopefully I'm pronouncing it, right? These poor bastards have done so much work.

to get this anywhere near successful. No names, just the supports. Not even 100% sure how many of them. One of them is in country Victoria going, what the hell do I get home? That's outrageous. So on the 16th of December 1860, they set off from the depot at Cooper Creek

for the Gulf of Carpentaria, which is the end game. That's the goal on the northern coast. Burke told the four men they were leaving, leaving at the depot to wait for three months. Wills quietly went over to him and said, better make that four months. I don't trust this guy.

Well, he pretty much is like, I've kind of looked at this. Four months is more likely. Three months, we'd be very lucky. Nothing goes wrong. We make it back in three months. More likely, four months. And what do they say?

After four months, what do they do? Assume we're dead and go home. Pretty much assume we're dead, or we've gone to a Queensland settlement. And we set up new lives As cane farmers What? Assume we did

Like so guys just sit here for three months If we don't come back Just hit home Okay bye And then Bill's just like Make it far Love you bye But they definitely

They had full confidence Especially Burke He didn't Too much confidence Yeah he didn't think Failure was Even a possibility So he wasn't like

He's like He's listening to He's listening to 8 Mile And repeat Success is my only option Failure's not And Will's just like Yeah

Four month Mum's spaghetti's on his sweater already. Yeah, all over. So news got better for a little while. They found he going easier than anticipated heading north. And Burke's feeling pretty arrogant at this time. I reckon he's... Cock of the walk, maybe.

Well, not of the walk, obviously, but he's cock of the crawl. That's right. He's still crawling. Cock of the drag. And luckily for us, Wills took extensive notes through this whole time. So we've got notes directly from Willie Wills. So this is from Wills' is a... personal dear diary.

He said, we took a day of rest on Gray's Creek to celebrate Christmas. This was doubly pleasant, as we had never in our most sanguine, which also means optimistic, moments, we just looked that up, anticipated finding such a delightful oasis in the desert. Our camp was really an agreeable place, for we had all the advantages of food and water, attending a position of a large creek or river, and were at the same time free from the annoyance of the numberless ants, flies and mosquitoes. This is in paradise. Oh, Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. The Christmas miracle. So things were going great. Things were going real good. Burke was feeling real, real good. And they lived happily ever after. Thanks for list it, guys. Right, Matt?

It got harder from there. Oh. Sorry about that. The camels really struggled because they'd taken way longer than expected. So they were getting there during wet season. Which is in the tropical north It's not good news John King

Tell his camels to suck it up Wow It's where Charlie Gray's sailing experience Came into its own He's sailing a camel through the wet swamp Yeah just through the mud and muck So yeah the wet season broke And as they were approaching the golf

It made things incredibly tough It was pretty much as being bogged Birkenwills Keep digging the camels out I got my camel bogged Burke made a decision Of course he did What do you reckon that decision?

Split the party Split the party Oh no I'm gonna take the fittest camel And go on alone So he split it just to him and wills Oh And here in lies the Burke and wills

Yeah And he left King and Grey behind And they forged on But it was only 20 or so miles To go to the coast Oh that's close Yeah So they were really close

But it was getting so wet And so swampy And Yeah That I was the Don't tell me they gave up 20 miles to go. No, that was when they split.

So they kept going 20 miles in. And with approximately 5 miles to go. Did they know? They could just about see the coast. They could, the water was now becoming salty. Also they could taste it. So they could taste it. They were so close they could taste it.

They could literally taste it. Wow. I'm so close I can taste it. But there they had to turn back. They just couldn't go on any further. I honestly thought Burke was going to. split the party. Oh man,

that would have been too good. So they still, they count that as making it. So they still see it as a success. I reckon you've got to go in, have a naked dip in the ocean and then turn around for it to count. I kind of agree.

You have to see sand. You want sand between your toes. Yeah, I reckon. You're going to have that seat. And your 80th pair of shoes. Yeah. And 80th pair of shoes full of sand. They took a pair of thongs in there.

Yeah. Very good. So at this, at this point, at their very peak, five miles from the coast, they were two months away from when they'd left the depot. Oh, so it's exactly halfway

because they said wait four months, right? Yeah, Burke said three months, so Burke was being optimistic, but yeah, they said four months. So it was about halfway, unfortunately. Will's is feeling pretty smart going. Don't worry about it. Don't worry, I told them four.

Told them four. Unfortunately, though, they'd gone through two-thirds of the supplies. Okay. From there, they dumped the non-essential items. and started the return gym. What non-essential items are you carrying? They were carrying like measuring equipment and different sort of...

Will's a scientific equipment. He's like, I don't need my Xbox. Yeah, there's just like huge bits of metal. I think they were bringing still some pretty heavy things. And around this point, when they got back to the guys, so they met back with King and Gray 15 miles back. Will's wrote this note in his journal in March 1861 said, I found grey behind a tree eating skilligily.

Does that mean eating with skill? No. I think it's a thing called skilligily. Oh, right. I thought it was like he was eating. Skilligedly. So he was eating some of the supplies. He found grey behind a tree eating skilligily.

That's probably not how it's pronounced. He explained that he was suffering from dysentery and that he had taken the flour, it was the kind of flour, without leave. Oh, so without permission, he'd gone into the supplies and was eating flour. I'm sick, but I'm eating. Yeah, I've got dysentery.

I don't know what I'm doing. Will sent him to report himself to Mr. Burke and moved on. Go and tell Burke what you've done. Yeah, basically. And Will says, he having got King to tell Mr. Burke for him, was called up and received a good three. crashing. There is no knowing

to what extent he has been robbing us. Many things have been found to run unaccountably short. So hold on, there's four of them. The second in command has found the sailor going, eating too much. I liked Charlie. And then he

says, go tell number one. And then sailors got John King to tell the boss. Surely you're going to run into him. There's only four people at the whole fucking can. They're all in the same room at this time. They're sharing a tent. That's it. Just,

King, can you go tell your book? I'm kind of with you on this a bit, Jess, because it feels like Wills is the one writing this and it feels a little scapegoaty, but I'll come back to that in a second. So he's giving him a beating.

He gave him a, and different reports say to different levels. Some say it are within an inch of his life and some say, you know, just a pretty good, just a pretty good thrashing. So around this time again, one by one,

The camels grew weak and were abandoned. So some of them were abandoned, apparently. But it doesn't sound good for them. No. I don't think they're going, yeah, let's bone. Yeah, let's go, hey, let's go to the middle of Australia and procreate a million times. So they're either abandoned or killed for their meat. In April, I haven't mentioned this guy yet, but Burke's favorite horse, Billy, they had to kill as well.

So it was pretty tough. Oh, Billy Burke. according to Wills, it was a good healthy meat without an ounce of fat. Oh, they ate his pet horse. Well, you know, tough times. They had no supplies there. You do what you got to do. And this left them down to only two camels between the four men, right?

So to me, that's a key fact here. Yeah. So they're rotating between getting a ride, obviously, or drag. All right, now here's a fact. No one has disputed. I'm like, I'm making trouble here. But on the morning of the 16th of April, 1861, they found Gray dead in his swag. They spent the day digging a shallow grey for him.

Okay, so this guy, Gray, is now dead. All we know is that Will says he stole some flour and that Burke bashed him. I'm thinking they've gone two camels, four guys. That's not enough camels. Who do we, Gray's the old guy. Let's top him. And then I'll just back tape my journal saying, oh, we found he's stolen some stuff, you know? What do you reckon?

Yeah, I'm with you. 100%. I reckon Gray was a good guy. I reckon he's the best. I like Charlie. He's my favourite guy in the story so far. He's a sailor. Burke's a pain in the ass.

Burke's a real jerk. Burke's a jerk. They're definitely calling that behind his back. Burke, you jerk. That's another, another key thing that'll come back. back to haunt them a little bit is that they spent a day digging a shallow grave. So they spent a whole day in the middle of nowhere. They just don't move fast, do they?

They just, it's a shallow grave. Chuck some leaves on him and move on. Come on, that's like a couple hours. So that's a whole other day of food you've got to eat. It just, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Excuse me the shits these guys. They should have eaten him. So mad at them.

Yeah, it just feels like everything they do. It would be the hardest movie to watch. Oh, no. Oh, for fuck, say. What are you doing? What are you doing? Come on. And he's not even like a lovable idiot.

He's just an idiot. I'm sorry, but do go on. I reckon, you know, depending on the portrayal, though. He was charismatic. He may well have been lovable. Yeah, I mean, Heath Ledger made Ned Kelly seem lovable. Totally. Yeah.

So I was picturing Heath Ledger in the role of the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I remember that he's dead. Difficult now, yes. Difficult. Not impossible. It reminded me of the scene and Ned Kelly, when they ate one of the horses.

I was talking about that before. When you said they ate the horse, I was like, what happened to Ned Kelly? He pretty much wouldn't have had to change the character, either bearded Irishman. Yeah, done. Bit of a jerk. Maybe we could recut Ned Kelly

to be the Birkenabille story. Yeah, I reckon. Orlando Bloom is Wills. That works. He's got a bit of the Wills about him. Yeah. So we're down to three now. We're down to three in this...

Burke Wills and King. Burke Wills and King. The three men are rotated between the two camels. So they were still getting a bit of arrest. Only one of them had to be, you know, walk or dragged along at a time. When they, so they're heading back to the depot, right? Burke not only expected to be greeted by the group he'd left behind, led by a man named William Braille.

But he thinks that they've left a month ago, right? He also, yeah. Oh, no, he just thinks they'll have waited because I know what I said. Yeah. It's me, Burke. They wait for Burke. He's not a jerk. They wait for Burke.

He's expecting them to be there. So he's not only expecting him to be there. He's expecting to get a hero's greeting because he just clocked it. He'd just seen the north. Oh, so he's walking in with his hands raised in the air. He's doing like the queen waves off the side of the camel. He's expecting to go and they're going to be like, where's Charlie? Don't worry about that.

We made it. Yeah. Well, just nearly. I was five miles up. But anyway. Details. I could smell the ocean, I think. So he's not only expecting the small group that he left there,

but he's also expecting everyone else to now be there. Because they had so much time. As it turned out, on the evening of the 21st of April, 1861, when they arrived, it was just over four months after they left, there was no one there. They walked into camp, no one there. The depot was deserted. Where did everybody go?

So have you heard of the dig tree? Yes. That's kind of a, that's the thing I'd heard of, which I never really knew what it meant. But it was basically a tree that they left a message on. Etched in it said dig here, basically. Yeah. So Burke found that note. He was expecting to have there be a big party and everyone be like, oh, our hero's arrived.

But instead he just found this little note on a tree, tell him to dig. That's why it's called the dig tree. Interesting. Yeah. He followed the instructions and he dug. What he found was a small box of provisions and a message that read, Fuck you, Bo.

Jess, do you want to have a crack? That's not quite right. We split the party. Man, that would have made him proud, though, right? Yeah, my boys. Oh, God, they did it. So the note read, Deppo, Cooper's Creek.

April 21, 1861. The depot party of VE, the Victorian something expedition. The electric light orchestra. That leaves this camp today to return to the Darling. I intend to go southeast from Camp 60 to get onto our old track near Ballou. Two of my companions and myself are quite well. The third, Patton, has been unable to walk. I've got to be the burks of him.

I'm unable to walk for the last 18 days, as his leg has been severely hurt, when thrown by one of the horses. No person has been up here from the darling, so the other group had never got away. We have six camels and 12 horses in good working conditions. Oh, that's just a brag. Yeah. So that's the same day.

You just said April 21 twice. Yes. They'd left that day. The estimate is between seven and nine hours. Oh, my God. Oh, no. Oh, that's where you're saying, that day that they'd, they'd, buried grave.

They just went, oh, we'll just... Oh, it just took an hour to... It was a shallow grave. A whole day for a shallow grave. Just dig a bit. Chuck him in. No, no disrespect to you, Charlie. I really like you.

But a shallow grave's a shallow grave. They could spend two hours on it or all day on it. They spend all day on it. At the end of the day, it's still shallow. Yeah, they didn't respect you enough for a deep grave. So basically they waited for four months and five days, when told to wait for four months. Three months even, and then, nah, make it fall.

And they missed... a little bit longer just to give them a chance and they miss them by seven to nine hours. That is brutal. Oh my God. And if that had happened, if that had happened, they would have arrived to be greeted by six camels, 12 horses in good working condition and a bunch of supplies still. So now that all they have is a couple of supplies and a note that's probably the worst thing you could ever read.

Oh man. What do you decide to do from there? So one thing you would know from that note is that these guys are only seven to nine hours away. You're not far behind them. Yeah. Do you leg it and try and catch them? Yeah, I reckon I'd walk all night. Yeah, and he's given instructions.

Oh yeah, of course, because they'd have to stop again. They'd probably stop at night. You'd just keep walking. And he said where they're going. Yeah, he said where they're going. They decided against that. They decided to just wait for 10 days, see what happens. They just decided to split the group.

Yeah, it's like the party. Burke's like, all right, Wills. Oh no. So they had very little supplies. They were really struggling. Burke had a few issues. Another one of his issues was that he saw Indigenous Australians being inferior to white man. And due to this, he refused gifts of food from the local Jantuantha people.

Burke, come the fuck on. I think he did take some, but he could have, like he definitely, could have, anyway. You know what, whites weren't particularly nice to the indigenous, so they've turned around and gone, do you want some food? No, thank you. Yeah, I think we've got this.

Do you know who I am? But what I, what is sort of pretty funny about it is that he's like, I think we've got this, and then he and Will's tried to copy the locals, so they were sort of like looking at them going, they're eating these things called Nardu cakes, and they're somehow prepared from some seeds from a, a fern, a local fern around here. Yeah, let's just try that.

Let's try it without knowing any dangers of it. We won't take it, but we'll just try and make it. Yeah, that's right. We won't take it. The pre-prepared, one's prepared earlier. We got this. And after a while, they found these ferns and they did prepare some of it. What they didn't realize, if not prepared properly, it would prove toxic.

Of course it would. This crucial information could have obviously. been learnt from the locals, the Indigenous Australians, but instead, Birkenwheels decided to slowly done, let him decide, but they slowly died from starvation and chronic loss of vitamin B1, which is what the seed did. It would make you feel like you were full and it would make you feel like you were eating enough, but your body, like it, like it physically enough foods going in, but it's depleting your stores of B1 and means that, yeah, you're. you just slowly dive.

I don't know why I feel so bad. I've been eating so much of this berry. I think I'm going to eat some more. So apparently, I don't know if you have any interest in how it goes. This guy, anthropologists and botanist, Philip Clark, says that some of these foods like NADU need to be collected once they've aged, so not green like they were picking it. But it also needs to be sluiced and ground up, and a lot of the toxins washed out. And even after that, it needs to be baked just to make sure.

So they... So they're about five steps off. It was like trying to make a cake by putting eggs and flour in a bowl and going, well, that's what they were doing. Yeah. It was a cake. So they basically, so they died separately. Burke, Will's, I think Will's told Burke to go on or vice versa, and they sort of moved on a little bit.

And Will's died with the party. Yeah, just with a gun in his hand sort of died. And they, it was all a bit of a messy end. And they all died. Those two just died by themselves. Burke and Will's just dying of starvation alone. One of them had gone off from the other. Yeah.

Better news for John King. Kingie! He was the only one who made it all the way to the top who survived. Wow. Although he didn't, he was 20 miles short, but he basically made it to the north. And he decided to search for the local Yantrawanta people. And he basically just made himself a hangar. on.

This is what one account by a man named Philip Clark we were talking about before. He said that King basically

made himself a hangar-on of the local Aboriginal camp and sort of just refused to leave them alone. Even though at one point they were intimating

he should stay behind and not follow them. And him like pretending you didn't understand. Yeah, I will come with you. Thanks. I'll have some more fish. Yeah.

What? But Disco King Obviously, not like Burke. Didn't see them as being inferior. Saw them as being the only people who were comfortably living there. Yeah, that's right. They would know nothing about this land. They seem to be living off amazingly well.

But he hung around long enough that they adopted him into their clan and ensured that he survived. Wow. Yeah, so they saved his life. Apparently, you lived with them for several months and just enough time to strike up a relationship and have a child. What? Yeah. So he really got into the community. Oh, he did.

And do you reckon he's probably picked up the language, because it's a bit of a linguist, because he knew the English, and then he picked up the local Indian language when he was first. He was probably a pretty good at picking out language kind of guy. I think, yeah, maybe, I think when you immerse yourself in a different language, right, it's meant to come on a lot quicker

when no one else can speak English. That's right, and you're like, well, this is the only way I can communicate with my wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. And our son. No, but he left before the son was born. Oh, what a dog! I don't know if he necessarily knew that she was pregnant.

He's like, oh, condoms or whatever. No, but... Oh, it did not work out. Wills died at the rock star age of 27. Oh, Willie Willey Will's the first member of the 27 club. Yeah, so the 27-O-South. So I've written down a few of the other ones. Do you guys remember any of the 27 club?

Yeah, Kirkabane, Jimmy Hendricks, Janice Joplin. Emmy Winehouse Emmy Winehouse is there Brian Jones from Rolling Stones Yes Man you know all the key ones basically Robert Johnson Oh Robert Johnson's a young

But yeah they're probably all the keys Weird aside Just to wrap it up I guess So King he moved on but he did live Yeah that's right And he came back and lived back in Melbourne And that He made it all the way back

Yeah so it was sort of seen as a success Because it was only meant to It wasn't they wanted to want to to come home to get the, you know, the glory. But it was really just doing it. South to North was a success. So they were seen as the first Europeans to do it. So in a way, it wasn't all failure.

It just ended a bit, a bit rubbishy. I always had it in my head that they hadn't made it. For some reason, I knew it was something like they'd just missed out. And I thought they'd died like just as they were about to get to where they wanted to go. I didn't realize they were seven hours behind food. Idiots. Yeah, I was the same. I knew the story as much.

much as it was a couple of guys with beards who were in the desert. They died there. You didn't quite make it, yeah. They didn't quite make it, but I didn't know anything more about it. Yeah. There has been, in 2011, there was a mock coronial inquest by the legislative assembly of Victoria, so the state parliament. They investigated the factors, which may have contributed to the deaths of Burke,

Wills and Gray. They found that Burke's appointment was a fundamental mistake. Oh, yeah, no shit. I'm not surprised to hear that. You could have called that at the start of this podcast. Oh, wait, we did. Which related to the deaths of Wills and Gray, and that all three men died of berry, berry, starvation, dehydration,

and thiamine deficiency, which is the coroner also suggested that one of the most fundamental errors made by the expedition was the decision not to utilise Aboriginal guides. Yeah. Which seems pretty clear as well. Yeah. If you sort out bring in, um, some indigenous help as part of the expedition,

it would have been a walk in the park. Well, comparatively. Absolutely. Because they wouldn't have had to bring any food. Get on the way, yeah. I mean, I'm simplifying that way too much. But thanks so much, guys, for listening to my very interesting tale. It is.

The Great Burke and Will. Of love, loss, and laments. I think it should just be called the King Expedition, because he was king. Yeah. King Street Oh yeah Apparently named after

The King of the Day Charlie Gray was still my favourite Poor old Charlie Grey He was hard done by Very interesting Thanks Matt Thank you guys Very much Matt

So we'll be back next week Jess Perkins Jay Poo JP She has not revealed What she will be talking about But I'm sure It will no doubt be a very interesting topic

Hope so Thanks again for listening guys And we'll see you next time See ya Bye Do go off. Do go off. Right on.

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