The Dig Tree: The Story of Bravery, Insanity, and the Race to Discover Australia's Wild Frontier
(By Sarah Murgatroyd)
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| Author | Sarah Murgatroyd |
After nearly eighty years of European settlement, Australia's interior remained a dangerous untamed wilderness. But on August 20th, 1860 the Victorian Exploring Expedition left Melbourne to unlock the secrets of the 'ghastly blank'.
Leading the cavalcade of bizarre characters was an Irish policeman, Robert O'Hara Burke, a reckless charmer, obsessed with an opera singer just half his age. Beset by bad weather and bad management, the expedition struggled as far as Cooper Creek in central Australia, where Burke abandoned most of his party.
In a heroic feat of endurance, he took just three men and walked all the way to the north coast. It was a triumph - they were the first Europeans to cross the continent. But the journey back was riddled with mishap, leaving one man dead in mysterious circumstances.
When Burke and his two companions returned to Cooper Creek, exhausted and starving, they discovered their back-up party had retreated, leaving behind a crude message carved into the bark of a coolibah tree ... DIG - 3 feet under.
Sarah Murgatroyd brings the story of this famous expedition vividly alive - the political events, the colourful characters, the spectacular and unforgiving landscape, and the awful desperation of the final days.”
