Burke & Wills cache found !!
Submitted: Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 08:47
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Member -Signman
After almost 150 years- a cache of Burke & Wills navigation gear and other items has been 'discovered' about 100km NE
Birdsville near or on the Diamantina..
The guy who found it had been searching the area for 22 years..so he must have had a fair idea to keep on for so long.
The area will be declared a
heritage site- and the find will be relocated back to a museum. Will be very interesting to see just what is there.
Apparently there was no GPS receivers- not even a Garmin Nuvi !!
Reply By: Dasher Des - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 09:47
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 09:47
"Apparently there was no GPS receivers- not even a Garmin Nuvi !!"
No wonder the silly sod made so many mistakes and got lost. LOL
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Reply By: Vince NSW - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 09:48
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 09:48
Great news Signman. it is a shame that Wills journals have not been published in full. The copy have that was published by his father left out all the boring bits like Lat & Long. Would have made the pinpointing of things like this a snap, but, that may have taken some of the enjoyment out of the picture.
Vince
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Reply By: geocacher (djcache) - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:59
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:59
World's first geocache???
That's a first to find I'd have loved to get. He must be stoked.
Dave
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Follow Up By: Member -Signman - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 11:14
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 11:14
I wonder if it was packed in a Tupperware container ???
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Follow Up By: Pajman Pete (SA) - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 17:35
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 17:35
Tupperware - nope, if it was cached it had to be a Sistema.
9 out of 10 seem to be in them.
Cheers
Pete
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Reply By: Member - Beatit (QLD) - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 11:58
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 11:58
That is truly remarkable! Now I know that Burke and Wills are part of Australian folklore but this find had me thinking why it was there to be found? There must have been clues for the finder to even look where he was looking suggesting that it was not something these guys lost by accident. So if they deliberately left them somewhere you would be right in thinking they do that. I hope some more about this discovery is revealed.
I await the next instalment on my favourite channel, EO, where I'm sure I'll hear it first.
Kind regards
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Reply By: Member - Ruth D (QLD) - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:36
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:36
Hey Signman, was it Ian Andrews who found it - he used to base in our CP and spend weeks every year looking for it?
Wow, we hadn't heard about the find.
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Follow Up By: equinox - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:55
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:55
Former Victorian Government SurveyorGeneral Ray Holmes found the site in August 2007.
Frank Leahy, from
Melbourne University has found the new artefacts.
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Follow Up By: Member - Ruth D (QLD) - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 13:16
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 13:16
Thanks for that information - much further north than people were looking! Great that it's been found - really important pieceof history. They obviously finally found the sextant? Rather apt that a surveyor should find it I think.
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Reply By: The Landy - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 13:49
Reply By: Robin Miller - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 14:12
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 14:12
Fantastic - with a bit of luck it will be like
the dig tree and we might get another 4wd trek out to another historical site.
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Reply By: Member - DOZER- Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 16:04
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 16:04
Its quite interesting to go out there and see what they were up against...no mountains or trees to navigate from, only the stars...and they made it back to that tree....the day they guys had left...id be lucky to find THAT river let alone the tree....
Andrew
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Reply By: Member - Ruth D (QLD) - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 19:29
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 19:29
Signman, just saw it on ABC Qld TV News - no sign of the sextant so it is still out there waiting to be found.
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Follow Up By: Ken - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 20:31
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 20:31
Me too, though from the articles shown it could have been stuff from a number of sources other than B & W. Nothing remotely resembling any navigation or surveying equipment, some bullets, pliers, a small plate that looked like a surround from a lock on a jewellery box, and buckles were shown in Vic.
The talk was of looking for a 'camel box' (?) full of gear stashed on the return trip. Not sure how big a camel box is but what was shown wouldn't fill a shoe box !
The bullets may be a clue, for those here up on old firearms there were a couple of projectiles that looked like they may have come from a cartridge rather than what I assume was used in a muzzle loader. Would there have been breech loading guns then and if not would muzzle loaders have ball projectiles or long cylindrical ones more like revolver cartridges ??
Ken
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Follow Up By: Member - Ruth D (QLD) - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 21:08
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 21:08
Not sure about the guns, Ken, but sure is interesting - would have been more so if it had been navigation equipment!
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Follow Up By: Ken - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 21:26
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 21:26
Ruth this must just about be in your backyard ! It would be interesting to hear more of the story from the blokes who found things, it was heavily beat up by the news media as if they were confirmed B & W artifacts. The prof did manage to say they aren't confirmed and he can't be certain of the origins of the material which I think is pretty realistic and he certainly wasn't making any rash claims.
Ken
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Follow Up By: Member - Ruth D (QLD) - Friday, Jun 13, 2008 at 14:41
Friday, Jun 13, 2008 at 14:41
Ken & Signman, just had lunch with one of the owners of one of the properties where people spend their time looking - very interesting - email me.
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Reply By: geocacher (djcache) - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 21:36
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 21:36
I found a turn of the century revolver or rifle cartridge on the Canning at
Well 38. Doesn't make it Alfred's though....
Dave
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Reply By: KennyBWilson - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 21:42
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 21:42
That must be a record 150 years without a find, and what an amazing FTF, what no log book !! :-)
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Reply By: Luxy - Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 22:50
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 at 22:50
Fasinating news!!
I did a trip a few years ago with a few mates following their route (as best we could) from
melbourne to the top end.
Maybe we will have to do it again and take in this new location!
Any excuse to get away from work for a while! ;)
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