Cooper’s Creek is the heart-wrenching account of
the 1860s expedition to cross the interior of Australia from south to north. No
one had ever survived this journey before, in fact, the colonies all around the
coast of Australia didn’t even know what they would find in the interior of the
continent. Many believed that there would be a large inland sea, while others
believed there would be tremendous mountain ranges. Part of the purpose of the
journey was exploration and discovery, as the author put it, “to go where no
one else had ever been before.” Another reason for the expedition was the fact
that the south of Australia was separated from Europe by 4 months journey, and
if they were successfully able to cross the continent on foot, then it would be
possible to connect the colonies with Europe by telegraph, reducing
communication time to a matter of hours.
The leader of the expedition was a man named Robert O’Hara
Burke, and his second in command was 26 year-old William John Wills. After
months of preparation and traveling to get themselves into position to make a
push across the interior, Burke and Wills set out on a mad dash to the Gulf of
Carpentaria with two other companions, John King and Charley Gray. They left
behind the bulk of their team and supplies at a depot on Cooper’s Creek, where
they intended to return in three months time. Everything went well for a while,
but then all good fortune failed them. I can’t think of another group of
travelers that had worse luck.
Burke and company made it across the continent all right,
but on their return journey to Cooper’s Creek, they ran out of food, and when
they were just one day out from the depot, Charley Gray passed away. The team
began the task of burying Gray, which in their exhausted state took them most
of the day. That evening they arrived at the depot and Wills’ personal journal
relates what they found.
“Sunday 21st
April 1861.—Arrived at the depot this evening, just in time to find it
deserted. A note left in the plant by Brahe communicates the pleasing
information that they had started today for the Darling [another river].”
The backup crew had been stationed at the depot with
instructions to await the return of Burke’s team, but at the direction of their
leader Brahe, they had abandoned the depot the very morning of the day when
Burke returned. In their worn out condition, Burke, Wills and King could not
even consider chasing after Brahe’s team. They left a note buried in the cache
and slowly continued on down the Cooper, choosing to remain next to a source of
water rather than follow after Brahe. The rest of their story is nothing short
of tragic.
Burke’s team missed Brahe by about 9 hours. 15 days later
Brahe returned to the depot to see if anyone had come, but failed to notice
they had been there. About three weeks later, Burke’s team thinks they hear a
gunshot, so Wills makes a mad dash back to the depot to see if anyone is there
and he doesn’t realize that Brahe has been back. About three months later,
Brahe returns with the rescue party and doesn’t detect that Burke’s team has
been there since he last left. Brahe stayed only a few minutes and then
continued on. The next day, the rescue party found King wandering through the
desert like a mad man, Burke and Wills having died at the end of June.
I have to admit I struggled with this book. First of all,
this is the first book that I’ve read from this list that was not written in
the first person by someone who experienced the adventure, so it was harder for
me to connect with the story. The constant back and forth of bad luck was also
maddening at times. The author said it in this way,
“Even across a gap of
a hundred years it is difficult not to feel indignant. This was too hard;
surely they might have been allowed, if not success, at least a little respite:
a shower of rain, a pigeon… making for a waterhole, just one faint whisper of
hope instead of this endless implacable rejection. The narrow margin by which
they had missed Brahe at the depot had been, in the main, bad luck, and Brahe’s
failure on his return visit to realize that they had been there, though
maddening, was a comprehensible twist of fate.”
In light of this terrible ending to their expedition, it is
important to recognize that Burke, Wills and King were successful in achieving
what they set out to achieve. The fact that they all died as a result of their journey
(King died a year after being rescued, having never fully recovered) does not diminish
the reality that they achieved something truly remarkable.
My rating: 6 out of 10
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