Day 18 - Burke and Wills 5/10/15

Today we had a bit of a lazy morning before we took a drive to Queenslant to look at the Dig Tree. The story of Burke and Wills is that they lived in Melbourne and was sent off in 1860 to fill in the blank spaces of Australia in the north and central. They had many failed attempts and when they reached there 65th camp from Melbourne, along the cooper creek, they split the party in 2. 5 people when with Burke, including Wills, to explore the Gulf of Carpentaria, which is why they were called the gulf party. Brahe was one of the men left at camp and was put in charge with orders from Burke to wait for the gulf party for 3 months. Brahe and the others waited 4 months and only decided to leave because one of them fell sick. This is whenthe dig tree was first 'made' when Brahe wrote on the tree 'DIG 3 FT NW 21 April 1861' which means dig 3 feet North-west and the date it was written. Turns out Burke and Wills got to the depot camp 65 the night Brahe and the others left, it was only hours later. That's when Burke saw the mark and they found supplies. Brahe was the one who left most of the markings. You only see one of them clearly and the others are gone because of the trees natural healing process. We saw Brahe's blaze, B LXV, indicating it was Burke's 65th camp from Melbourne. We also saw the face tree. The face tree is called that because in 1898 a man came and decided to carve Burke's face and initials into the tree. It was an awesome site to see and I wish that the other carvings didn't heal over so we could see them. After that we then drive back into SA to see Burke's grave. It was a 300m walk on sand to see a rock with a plaque saying Burke's name and the date he was born and the date he died. This little grave is actually where he died and he is buried in the Melborne General Cemetery. When we got back to camp we all relaxed for a bit and sat by the cooper creek until we decided to head out to the Innaminka Pub for dinner. Dinner was really good! I had the best chicken Parma with shredded ham, cheese and chips. When we had finished dinner we all sat outside until about 8:00 when we went back to camp. While we were sitting outside all us kids were playing mini golf. It was a really fun a don good night. Also apparently the temperature got to 42 degrees today. No wonder we were all so hot and tired! 

Today's blog is written by Chloe :)