Burke & Wills Project
Posted: 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.
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.
