Greatest Disaster in Australian Exploration: The Expedition That Missed Salvation by Nine Hours

#history #exploration #documentary April 21, 1861. Three men and two camels stagger out of the dusk toward a camp on Cooper Creek in the middle of Australia. They have walked 3,000 kilometers to the northern coast and back. They are starving, and they expect help. The camp is empty. On a tree by the water is carved one word: DIG. The party that had waited here for more than four months had left that very morning, nine hours earlier. Burke and Wills had led the richest expedition in Australian history, twenty tons of equipment, camels brought from India and the backing of an entire city. Two months later they were dead. We follow the whole story: the race against South Australia and the rival John McDouall Stuart, a police officer chosen to command, the camels and the bathtub, the split of the expedition at Menindee, the order to wait three months, the mangrove swamps of the Gulf, the beating of Charles Gray, the empty camp, the cache nobody dug up, nardoo and why you can starve on a full stomach, and John King, the only survivor, saved by the Yandruwandha people. The story is built from the diaries of William Wills, the testimony of John King, the findings of the Royal Commission and the memory of the Yandruwandha, with the disputed points marked as disputed. Which moment stayed with you the most? And who do you think is most to blame: Burke, Wright, Brahe or the committee? Let us know in the comments. #burkeandwills #australia #outback #expedition #coopercreek #history #documentary