Burke & Wills Project

Discussion about the Geocaching Australia web site
User avatar
caughtatwork
Posts: 17015
Joined: 17 May 04 12:11 pm
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Burke & Wills Project

Post by caughtatwork » 13 August 10 9:54 am

Burke and Wills Expedition
In 1860-61 Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led an expedition of 19 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres (≈2,000 miles). At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-indigenous people and was completely unknown to the European settlers.

The south-north leg was successfully completed (except they were stopped by swampland 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the northern coastline) but owing to poor leadership and bad luck, both of the expedition's leaders died on the return journey. Altogether, seven men lost their lives, and only one man, John King, travelled the entire expedition and returned alive to Melbourne.

Burke and Wills Geocaching Project
The Burke and Wills geocaching project is a collaboration between the State Library of Victoria and Geocaching Australia to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Burke and Wills expedition.

Specially created Burke and Wills caches have been hidden along the route taken by the Expedition, and at other related, historically significant places. You can enter the coordinates of a cache into your GPS device and hunt for them yourself. Many of the caches contain historical information and artwork from the State Library’s collections. Most of the Burke and Wills caches are physical objects, however in some instances, when the location is remote, or culturally sensitive, the object of the hunt is a virtual cache.

An easy method of identifying whether a cache is a physical cache or a virtual cache it look at the name of the cache. They will all start with B&W (?) where the ? indicates the type of cache you are looking for.

* T = Traditional where the cache is at the listed co-ordinates
* V = Virtual (normal virtual guidelines of a photo apply)
* M = Multi-cache where you will need to gather information and plot the final co-ordinates
* O = Offset cache (GPS use is minimal) to lead you to the cache
* C = Codeword (you will find a codeword rather than a container which you will need to confirm your find)
* U = Unknown, the usual Mystery / Unknown cache where you need to solve a puzzle

Commemorative Pathtags
For particularly keen explorers, the physical caches also contain a small number of commemorative Burke and Wills pathtags – a coin-like disc for keeping or trading that can be tracked online. If you're quick, you could be one of the lucky few to find one. Please only take one pathtag per caching team.

Publication Date
As the Expedition started off from Melbourne on 20th August 1860, this series of special caches will be published on this web site 150 years later - on 20th August 2010. You will be able to find a listing of all these caches here as soon as they are published. http://geocaching.com.au/my/query/screen/2635

For more information, we encourage you to visit:
http://wiki.geocaching.com.au/wiki/Burke_and_wills
http://burkeandwills.slv.vic.gov.au/geocache

The Burke & Wills project commenced at the end of January 2010 and will culminate on the morning of the 20 August 2010 when around 150 geocaches, about 100 virtual and 50 or so physical caches will be released to the public.

On behalf of Geocaching Australia I would like to thank the following geocachers who invested a significant amount of money and a great deal of their own time visiting locations along the Burke & Wills track and hiding geocaches for the rest of the community to find. I include on the list the two main liaisons at the State Library of Victoria, geosquid and Vic_History who were so patient in trying to understand the geek / nerd concepts of geocaching. Without the State Library of Victoria liaison, this project would never have seen the light of day and I would also like to thank the State Library of Victoria for their financial and design contribution to the creation of the commemorative pathtags that will be found in some of the caches.

Black Bunny
blossom*
g_ordo
Geogetters
geosquid
Keeper of Time
Pesky!
Phetlern
PrincessDiala
pwags
Richary
SamCarter
SG-3
Shifter Brains
The Morris
Vic_History
WazzaAndWenches

Together we hope you will enjoy the Burke & Wills Project.

User avatar
pprass
10000 or more caches found
10000 or more caches found
Posts: 911
Joined: 18 December 03 11:52 pm
Location: Port Macquarie

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by pprass » 13 August 10 10:40 am

Gosh - that is quite an ambitious project and it looks like it may even be better than the "Bill & Ham" set-up :)

We have been along most of the route upto Coopers Creek and would love to now use caching to go all the way!

ps: I gather that there is no "end-date" to complete this series?

User avatar
edmil
1000 or more caches found
1000 or more caches found
Posts: 149
Joined: 24 June 05 11:01 am
Location: Upwey

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by edmil » 13 August 10 10:55 am

Sounds like an awesome project. I will look forward to having a crack at it sometime in the future. Thanks to all the contributors.

User avatar
Richary
8000 or more caches found
8000 or more caches found
Posts: 4189
Joined: 04 February 04 10:55 pm
Location: Waitara, Sydney

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by Richary » 13 August 10 12:31 pm

pprass wrote:ps: I gather that there is no "end-date" to complete this series?
The caches in place will stay there just like normal caches would for as long as they last. The ones I was involved in consist of Sistemas inside ammo tins, so hopefully maintenance/repairs won't be required. It's just muggling or natural disasters that could be a problem.

User avatar
Black Bunny
Posts: 348
Joined: 06 September 09 8:02 pm
Location: Canberra

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by Black Bunny » 13 August 10 12:57 pm

Yes, ours are sistemas inside ammo cans as well. We thought that would be the sturdiest option. We actually found a person to keep an eye on one of them!

The caches are due to go "live" in a week, so start planning those trips!

Wendy

User avatar
Devar
900 answers to the unknown mysteries of life
900 answers to the unknown mysteries of life
Posts: 346
Joined: 03 October 03 6:08 am
Twitter: Devar
Location: Western Australia
Contact:

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by Devar » 13 August 10 3:09 pm

Wow, this is fantastic! Nice one! =D>

User avatar
TeamAstro
5000 or more caches found
5000 or more caches found
Posts: 625
Joined: 01 April 04 10:57 pm
Location: Adelaide
Contact:

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by TeamAstro » 13 August 10 6:39 pm

=D> Excellent Idea. Clear skies.

User avatar
CraigRat
850 or more found!!!
850 or more found!!!
Posts: 7015
Joined: 23 August 04 3:17 pm
Twitter: CraigRat
Facebook: http://facebook.com/CraigRat
Location: Launceston, TAS
Contact:

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by CraigRat » 13 August 10 8:33 pm

There is one cache going out amoungst the B&W caches that I am quite excited about.
It'll become clear on the launch day, but needless to say I am not aware of one that's been done in this fashion before (properly).

User avatar
blossom*
3000 or more caches found
3000 or more caches found
Posts: 1589
Joined: 25 February 09 1:59 pm
Location: West Ryde

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by blossom* » 13 August 10 8:45 pm

CraigRat wrote:There is one cache going out amoungst the B&W caches that I am quite excited about.
It'll become clear on the launch day, but needless to say I am not aware of one that's been done in this fashion before (properly).
I thought you'd be pretty excited about a B&W cache in Tassie too :D

User avatar
Zalgariath
5500 or more caches found
5500 or more caches found
Posts: 1749
Joined: 17 August 09 10:44 am
Location: Sydney, NSW

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by Zalgariath » 14 August 10 1:30 am

Wow... this looks amazing. Cant wait to see the trail and have a crack!

User avatar
blossom*
3000 or more caches found
3000 or more caches found
Posts: 1589
Joined: 25 February 09 1:59 pm
Location: West Ryde

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by blossom* » 16 August 10 10:51 pm

I just heard there's a Burke & Wills sory on ABC TV tomorrow (Tuesday) night. Things are really hotting up all over with the 150 year anniversary just a few days away now. I wonder who'll be the very first to log a FTF on a B&W cache?

User avatar
pwags
1500 or more caches found
1500 or more caches found
Posts: 411
Joined: 31 December 07 5:01 pm
Location: Melbourne

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by pwags » 16 August 10 11:00 pm

blossom* wrote:I just heard there's a Burke & Wills sory on ABC TV tomorrow (Tuesday) night. Things are really hotting up all over with the 150 year anniversary just a few days away now. I wonder who'll be the very first to log a FTF on a B&W cache?
With dozens coming online this Friday, it could be a very busy weekend ahead of us!

User avatar
Richary
8000 or more caches found
8000 or more caches found
Posts: 4189
Joined: 04 February 04 10:55 pm
Location: Waitara, Sydney

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by Richary » 17 August 10 9:14 pm

pwags wrote: With dozens coming online this Friday, it could be a very busy weekend ahead of us!
Not for those of us in Sydney :cry:

For the FTF hounds, it could pay to park yourself somewhere along their route well away from other cachers rather than all rushing for the Melbourne ones. Who's off to the Gulf Country tomorrow? :lol:

Echo
1800 or more caches found
1800 or more caches found
Posts: 281
Joined: 02 December 07 8:29 am
Location: Cranbourne East, Victoria

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by Echo » 18 August 10 2:18 pm

Looks like Spice & I will be missing out on a chance for those FTF (& pathtags) unless we can come up with a good excuse to miss a national tournament... :stabby

User avatar
caughtatwork
Posts: 17015
Joined: 17 May 04 12:11 pm
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Burke & Wills Project

Post by caughtatwork » 18 August 10 3:10 pm

There are about half a dozen or so tags in each physical cache, so hopefully you will get to collect at least one. If not, trade with me :-)

Post Reply