6:34 the fact they didn't simply turn back for repairs after THREE of their wagons broke down 4 miles away from the city is all I really need to know for how the expedition went.
It really feels like based on the story as he almost purposefully did this to reach the coast more or less alone, so he can take all the credit and glory.
He's worse then the group leader in a horror movie: "we get picked off when we're alone, so everybody split up and search for the unkillable monster. If you hear the black guy screaming bloody murder then you'll know you're already screwed"
One important part the video didn't explain was how intense their final push back to Cooper's Creek was. It nearly killed them and they had to rest for days once they made it, hence they believed there was no way of catching the other group and choosing an alternative despite its despairing name.
This has to be the single most avoidable exploration disaster on this channel so far. And its almost entirely the fault of one completely unqualified man who should've never been an option for first in command, let alone said yes with no actual expedition experience or an expert on the team. The man picked his friends over professionals, did the opposite of what the government told him, and pissed off the one guy who knew anything about this type of mission. Un-fucking-believable. I wanted to claw my eyes out in the first five minutes.
The only thing he cared about was glory, unfortunately for him, he's remembered today for being a complete irresponsible fool. A legacy far worse than being forgotten.
His sheer idiocy is astounding. This expedition could really have gone pretty well if it wasn’t led by a selfish glory seeking man with the brains of a log
I love how it took them two months to travel to Menindee when it took a mail wagon two weeks. I imagine the mail wagon passing them four times over the two months each time becoming more and more surprised and concerned, and by the last time the mail man is just like "Yeah their screwed."
I was thinking they were just slogging forward and every couple of days the mail man would pass them with their orders heading to the next town with another mail man going the opposite way laughing at them saying he already made a full trip back and forth while they had only gone as far as he does in a day
Nothing tops the Franklin expedition to me it was a certain death mission, while having no benefits as transportation ships wouldn’t have been able to take the route even if they did find a passage
@@Shirosunemy exact comment elsewhere! To have that kind of catastrophe after 4 miles and can probably still see their own houses?! No. We’re not ready. I don’t care. I’m going home… it’s right there. My house… Ego is more dangerous than anything else in these historical tragedies.
To be fair to the interior, this group was woefully unprepared and incompetent. Burke had hardly any relevant experience, they packed a Chinese gong and other ridiculous items and left behind useful ones. It was such a shit show, it's amazing they made it to the top at all.
@donovanchilton5817 it was the tail end of the great era of exploration of Australia. They had dozens of accounts of exploration of both much of that area, and other similar areas. They knew the distance. And pretty sure anyone would know a Chinese gong is superfluous. So they knew to a reasonable extent exactly what they were facing. They also packed a massive heavy writing desk, it was totally insane, hence why they only got 4 miles on the first day.
That’s an understatement. They barely got out of town. The camel, horse, broken leg thing would’ve turned me right back around to my day job. Nope. ✌🏾✌️✌🏻
Why would they even bring a gong in the first place? What was the planned use of the gong? Was it music for the men? If it was, why a gong instead of something like, well, ANY INSTRUMENT OTHER THAN A GONG?
S*** like this happens all the time. George Washington was an absolutely incompetent officer who's claim to fame was losing battles. Funny shows up in Philadelphia and talk to them into putting him in charge.. for no pay but he controls logistics. His prophet was graft In Afghanistan a man managed to Khan the military and the Afghan government into thinking he was a high-level CIA agent. Even built his own little prison and tortured innocent people
Melburnian here: I saw the title and immediately started cackling-- these guys are infamous to us here. One of the items they insisted on bringing was a heavy, bulky writing desk 🤦♀
I remember as a kid hearing about the disaster on a documentry and as soon as I saw the title of the video I was like 'It's the freaking Burke and Wills exploration, isn't it?'
Melburnian here. During a tour I went on from Cairns to the Gulf of Carpentaria back in 2022, one of the places I visited was this specific Eucalyptus tree, roughly a good while east to south-east of Karumba, iirc. The reason this tree was a tourist spot, was because part of the tree's bark had been purposefully stripped of a specific section by manmade tools, but with nothing written on it. It's considered to be one of, if not the last remnant of one of the fated explorers. It's a haunting sight. This random tree, out in the outback, with a man-made carving in it, the final marker of a deceased explorer, out in the desert wilderness in the middle of nowhere. Eerie.
Yes, they weren't quick to take the advice of people still living in the bronze age. Would you have? Edit: Stop replying to this comment, my opinion hasn't changed and it won't. If you wanted to explore the African savannah, would you blindly trust those living in mud-huts while you have the technological advantage? If they can survive in such places, why do you think you can't, even with better equipment?
I forget as an Aussie that not everyone knows this story. I remember in grade 4-5 learning about this(as its basically our Oregon Trail part of Australian history curriculum) I always remember the underlying tone in how it was taught to us, was always "Don't take things for granted and to appreciate what those who came before us did" But i just remember I always thought it would make a funny Tarantino movie.
I'd watch a movie about this. Seeing Robert being an incompetent hard@$$ in the beginning and trying to stay that way, all the while it slowly killing him and everyone that followed him.
@@Seruphin You two had much more different educational experiences than me! My teacher in Tasmania in the early 00's presented it to us as "hey you know how the outback is really dangerous if you're not prepared? Well you will never believe what these two dickheads tried to do." 😂😂
I remember that the finer details of the expedition weren't really touched on during my schooling, probably because if they were then all the kids would know that the group was lead by fuckin' dumb cunts which would've undermined the whole message of sacrifice they were trying to push.
Early Australian exploration is littered with wild men doing stupid things. A lot of them got away with it, lots didn't. Somehow Burke and Wills are legendary explorers, have a good number of things named after them, including the Burke and Wills highway, into Karumba, despite their seeming stupidity and incompetence. I'd like to hear someone putting the story into the perspective of the time. African exploration of the same era didn't fare much better, with a British officer packing a piano, to go and fight in a vicious war, and loosing hundreds of men to seemingly obvious bad leadership. I think it has something to do with the Gung ho, we can do anything attitude of the Victorian upper class, who funded these kind of things. There was also a massive disconnect between the metropolitan elite, and the harsh reality of the Australian outback, likewise in Africa.
I think the reason it worked in America (Lewis and Clark) and Canada (Mackenzie) was because they chose men who worked on and knew the frontier and relied heavily on indigenous people for guidance. The Aussie version seems like they just slapped a few guys from random professions together and didn't rely on aboriginal guides.
Who could have possibly guessed that letting a man with no previous expedition experience lead an extremely dangerous expedition could go wrong? It's not like that is how every bad idea ever starts in human history or something - someone incompetent in charge.
They were all 90% sure they would find a giant inland sea or lake and fresh water and food would be plentiful. That's why Burke and Wills keep going when everyone else went home.
To be fair, a good leader is someone that has the capacity to make people work together as a team, and handle people in stressful situations. Which is very useful when exploring uncharted territory. Even if Burke was a good explorer, that terrible attitude of his would have no one following him
Robert O'Hare Burke happens to be one of my ancestors. I was told a couple things that were not mentioned here. While Robert forbade all of the others from using the wagons for their personal belongings, Robert himself had brought a piano, which took up an entire wagon itself. Also, I believe that when they got to the northern shore, that was supposed to be the end, and some ships were going to pick them all up there. But, the ships never arrived, because they had all hit and been sunk by what was yet to be known as the Great Barrier Reef.
The Great Barrier Reef was named and mapped in some reasonable detail by Flinders in 1802. There was never a plan to be picked up in the Gulf. There were two ships sent by the Victorian government in 1861 to search for B&W in the Gulf, and one of them did hit a reef in a storm, but it was repaired and continued its journey.
Someone here has commented about a wooden desk also being taken and I once heard a wooden bathtub was included. Not sure if any of these are true or just urban myths but they're all quite plausible imo.
And you really think today’s generation is any different, future generations will think the same about you. The people brave enough to do shit like this are the reasons we know so much today.
In 1996 Boy Scout troop leaders took a group of kids on a hike of the Grand Canyon in summer with not nearly enough water and with no way to contact anyone. Some people are missing the part of the brain that considers possible outcomes of actions.
Even today travelling around Australia is very dangerous... One false move and you will die very quickly. It's extremely hot in summer and cold enough to kill in hours in winter. Lots of us work in the desert. Winter is by far preferable because you warm up quickly. However, you are constantly putting jackets on and taking them off because the shadows are still freezing but anything exposed to sunlight is warm.
@@GelDouche12 you're walking in the outback at night you fall into a stream you get wet in winter boom you're likely dead or in a very shit state by the morning
@@GelDouche12 not in temperate Australia where you probably live. But you go out into the desert and you’re going to see temps drop real quick at night. If you’re geared up with hot weather clothes and you suddenly find yourself in sub zero temperatures, you can definitely die.
Australia... Why The Mad max films were so effective. Set in the vast Australian interior & outback, an apocalyptic barren setting that sets the tone & impending doom.
@@weirdshibainuI have to agree, the climate, terrain and wildlife is atrocious. Those remote rural areas look like America’s Old West from the Oregon Trail/gold rush/ Donner party periods. Hard pass.
@@LotsofLisa I live in Nevada. Seriously, go 50 miles northeast of Reno and you're in the backcountry that looks like you're hundreds of miles from anywhere.
Those people were left on traveled paths, though. And they were left with a huge amount of the supplies. They weren't being left to die. Robbed them of their agency perhaps, but those people were fortunate in the end, all things considered.
This always crosses my mind when watching your content but I just never comment it: Thank you for still creating videos the Ye Olde way and not using AI voice clones. Your speaking voice and tempo is *extremely* skillful and your time and work is appreciated.
I agree! Those AI voices are so uncanny valley, but very distracting. They have odd intonations and you can always spot which voices are fake. I love listening to real voices.
Hungarian ? he was an irishman educated in Britain and Belgium serving in the austrian army in italy as a leader of hungarian hussars. What is even funnier that in the 1848 hungarian revolution one of the requests was to make the commanding language in the hungarian units hungarian. Might be that dear Robert had something to do with it.
12 days ago, I left a comment on another video of yours suggesting this story. Im Australian, 51, and this story was something I thought I know well and that others would also find interesting. Brother, your video has totally floored me. What I had always believed to be a tragic story of basically misfortune, etc, was so much more. A massive case of incompetence bordering on malice at times. Wonderful video, my wife and I watched it together engrossed scratching our heads at some of the decisions they made. My only suggestion on how you could have improved this, I notice time and time again, the overwhelming majority of people really do struggle to understand the sheer scale of Australia in terms of distances involved. Plus, you did cover this, but again, more emphasis hound have been placed on the extreme weather they would have experienced, especially once they hit the tropics. Humidity bordering on 100%, which absolutely destroys you, plus, makes your water intake skyrocket, you cannot escape the sweating, you sweat in the shade, lying down, doing nothing. Plus the flooding in the tropics as well. My wife grew up in Normanton, very near to where they would have tried to reach the coast, the Mangrove areas are a mess, but there are many places where there are none. But thank you once again for covering this, was thoroughly insightful. I will end with this, typical Victorians, they always fuck everything up…. 😂
This is a super complex story as you know better than most. For these, just an unsolicited suggestion, consider habitually showing on screen dynamic map identifying the location and movement of each separate party. Almost like a call of duty mini map or the red dead redemption display which is great at highlighting locations. Basically combining 14:55 and 15:05. Individually these are fantastic but together I’d imagine they’d be even stronger. Basically 18:15 but sticking to one design for simplicity sake and shown regularly. Just a thought! Ignore at your discretion. Not only to remind ppl of names, but also to illuminate the distances between each group. I almost exclusively listen to these not watch but because I know this story I would refer back to the video at the confusing parts. It’s hard for someone to grasp I bet how far apart these parties got and doomed it was really was the moment they dwindled down the supplies with each camp. I was imagining showing the supply chunk with each party on the map following the last until you can visibly see how little they actually had with them. It looks like a suicide run when you consider how irresponsible the navigation was handled. For instance even ignoring the wisdom the Aborigines or the Makasan’s (not meaning to offend if that’s the colonial title just using the historical reference), they still had the expedition from Ludwig Leichhardt which almost surely had mentions of mangroves and other useful information, no? That’s always been my assumption. I liken it to Walter Raleigh attempting to establish camp in Roanoke without actually speaking with the Roanoke , Wanchese, etc or using other exploration notes. It would be mad to try that. Burke’s expedition was truly an impossibly underprepared trip woefully mismanaged and undersupplied with proper materials to be successful. With most of the hurdles being known had they surveyed correctly using the 3 entire years they squabbled over less important details. Speaking of, you really should consider that Roanoke colony expedition for a story. It’s not really as mysterious as people make it out to be. Buzzfeed brutally butchered the story providing so many historical inaccuracies that tons of people saw it’ll make your head spin. The unsolved mysteries podcast did much better but without visuals of course.
To add to your awesome comment, I also advise looking up pronunciations of names and places (this is easy to do, takes 30 seconds to google). The pronunciation of "Melbourne" is incorrect, a mistake many North Americans make.
@@sharraleigh As much as I appreciate Scary Interesting's voiceovers, the one thing he always does not bother doing is approximating the pronunciation. Given that he uploads videos at a very fast clip though, I think it's intentional to push viewership out there.
@@johntitor4287 I agree, and it's not something that's hard to figure out, which is why I mentioned it. Max Miller (Tasting History with Max Miller) always does an absolutely FANTASTIC job trying to pronounce foreign words exactly as a native speaker would, and I think he puts a lot of time an effort into it, which is 100% commendable.
Fun fact: the statue for Burke and Wills in Melbourne has been on many adventures itself. The running joke is that they've travelled as far in death as in life, an exaggeration, but you get the picture. It's been in 5 different locations, and is currently in storage due to major building works before - hopefully - being put in its - again, hopefully - final spot.
@@SmD-ff5xd I’m just saying being around him sounds draining and like a pain in the ass lol Edit: lol now I’m like was that a joke and am I just being slow 😂
Robert was hubristic. Out of ego he wanted fame and glory reserved for himself and a few select men and it got him and most of the men he assembled killed. Not a good man at all. The guy who questioned his leadership and the doctor who resigned along with him seemed like better men than he was.
And yet, it was home to vast native population and dozens of proto-countries before English arrived and genocided the natives out of best spots of land. Go figure...
As an Aussie who’s been to the places in the story, the expedition was doomed before it began. Burke had no experience whatsoever, and the expedition was ridiculously overloaded. They carried a massive oak table, complete with lace tablecloths and fine china, so they could be ‘civilised Englishmen’. Burke was egotistical and likely narcissistic. Even when dying, he scared away the aboriginal people trying to help him, as he thought of them as enemy. Had he allowed them to help as they wanted, they would all have lived.
@@amelialock7 What? The same tribe, the Yandruwandha, verifiably did help King. The party sent from Melbourne who found King living with the Yandruwandha even awarded the indigenous people gifts as a thankyou. One of the breastplate gifts is in the National Museum
I live and work on a small community in the Western Central Desert region of Australia and drivec 1300kms each fortnight around here for work. Even today with endless modern resources and technology, this place is no joke, especially in summer.
Fascinating. This expedition sounds like Australia's version of The Donner Party. And that one was also a disaster practically from day 1. Thanks for the history lesson.
Actually the Donner Party wasn't a disaster from day 1. It was a series of very bad decisions over months. Face it, when you only make it 4 miles out of town on day one as with this disaster, it's not going to get any better.
I wouldn't really compare this to the donner party...yeah james reed and the rest of em struggled with accepting good advice but in the end, reed saved the survivors...burke however, seems to have been not only stupid but a selfish asshole.
@@paulstrawbridge5687 Exactly. Plus the Donner Party disaster was months in the making and had several chances to have avoided the summit. When you only make 4 miles on your first day as with this expedition, you have real issues.
I think you could say it was the Donner Party of Australia. Burke and Wills Party left in August which is the end of winter in Australia and because of delays, they traveled through the central part of Australia in Summer, which is very hot and dry. December in the top part of Australia gets what is called the, “wet season”, and It gets very hot, humid with heavy rains. (My understanding is that they were told not to travel through the central part of Australia in Summer). Burke and Wills were still travelling in June of the flowing year, which is winter in Australia. In the central part of Australia in winter, it gets below freezing at night and it warm up a bit when the sun rises. As I understand it, the Donner Party wasted a lot of time with overloaded and broken wagons and ran into winter in a high mountain pass.
I may or may not have watched all of your videos within a month of finding the channel. Love your storytelling, voice, and editing of the videos. Please keep making content! ❤
I've watched a ton of your videos, but this is hands down the best one I've seen. I had never heard of this expedition. Really great information, well presented.
I remember when I first discovered this channel and started binging. When I ran out and had to wait til the next release I scrolled twice to check that I hadn't missed one. Talk about a damnit man" moment.
@@Trial1MusickFreeTrialAccountFe oh I hate when I run out of videos,it's just so hard to find a channel that makes quality content these days. Everything is AI and filters haha.
We were taught about this in primary school as a heroic yet tragic expedition ... watching this, I see that our teachers, they left out a LOT of details
History is written by the victor. Or those with enough dumb luck to survive. Australia does not have many famous heroes. I guess a stupid drunk Irishman braggart counts if you try hard enough to spin the tale as a teacher.
I just love the background music, it’s just so intriguing and weirdly calming. Not to mention the actually interesting stories and great voiceovers, simply why this is my favorite channel!!
In this story of transgressing Australia's 'harsh interior' it's strange how they decided to start out in the winter months with all the extra wet weather and swamps full. During the months when roads would be most impassable ...
We have very few swamps in the interior outback. The area they were in was closer to the coast. We have underground water, occasional rivers and billabongs. Indigenous Australians are very adept at finding underground water. The amount of precipitation the outback gets depends on where you are. In my state it’s the driest part of the country. In the north you don’t even have winter, you have the wet season and dry season. The wet season is summer and the dry season is winter.
These men were not experienced in exploration whatsoever, let alone leading an expedition. O’Hara Burke was a policeman and Wills was a bookish scientist.
I love your channel. Your voice and the music used is great and is the opposite of irritating. So many channels are unbearable even with great stories. You are the BEST!
Mike from "That Chapter", Yourself with "Scary Interesting", John Ballen, from "Mr. Ballen, my 3 favorite channels in that order! Congrats! Love your content!
An interesting fact about Australia I’ve heard is that almost 90% of the total population live within 50 km of the coast. Vast amounts of inhospitable nothingness out there. These guys may have been ill prepared and irrational in their decision making but they were incredibly brave (or stupid)
While the expedition itself wasn't a success, the resulting searches for Burke & Wills were highly successful in exploring more of the unknown red centre, Leichhardt, Stuart & others covered vast areas in their searches.
From watching almost every episode from you, I’ve realized awareness is one of the most important things to know. Naturally, I think every human can survive alone for a few days, but lack of oxygen, not enough knowledge of the people living on the land, to how uneven the terrain was; all makes it more difficult. You do an amazing job storytelling. I’d love to hear more about the stories of the ‘random’ limbs found throughout the Colorado foundation’s. (Does it go past the state?)
I do want to add, there are still so many mysterious deaths, disappearances, etc. I think all of your viewers would love it no matter how small or big. I think you’d even do a great job reporting present topics.
For the Americans watching Burke and Wills are basically our Lewis and Clark except they died and failed spectacularly but we still celebrate their spirit of exploration
There is a German book, " Tapfere Herzen" about an Australian policeman and his Aborigene prisoner ( whom he tracked deep into the desert), who travelled through the Australian desert. In the end this prisoner saved the policeman.
Fun Fact - The Ghastly Blank is how Australia is still described in travel brochures to this day and is one reason why most Australians live in London.
Man, I look forward to your videos so much. These videos about stuff that happened long ago are really entertaining. I wont lie, like 1 or 2 years ago I did not like your channel due to a couple things you did but now it is top tier stuff.
Thanks for this video! I love that it points out that Australia is mostly uninhabitable, a fact not many realise. I also love that, the men chosen for the expedition, ahead of far superior candidates, had NO idea what they were doing and hired only people they knew, rather than people best suited to the role....a longstanding tradition that continues in Australia until this very day.
9:06 ...George's insistence on carrying an obscene amount of rum for the camels... I had no idea camals drank rum. 🤔 My dog likes Bailey's Irish Cream and Kahlua so I guess anything is possible.
As soon as I saw the title I know it was about Burke n' Wills, was one of my favourite books when I was like 10, proud to be an aussie (awesome video btw!! :D)
One of my great great great grandfathers walked barefoot from Melbourne, Victoria to barinsdale, Victoria. Back during the 1800s and became a pioneer in Orbost. Has streets in that area named after him and ive seen my grandmas young photos posted in facebook groups about the history on the area. Such a wholesome story :")
I've been waiting for someone to cover this. When I was a kid I got a book about Burke and Wills with some pretty traumatising illustrations. I have a 50 cent piece from the centenary somewhere.
Grew up being taught this as a lesson on why you should always be careful about travelling across the country, even today. A Nullarbor crossing is dangerous to attempt if you don't know what you're doing and travel in a lot of the outback is pretty unforgiving, too. Great work, though - a lot of non-Aussies tend to get half of the details wrong when presenting this stuff, or sensationalise it for the clicks - you've gotten pretty much everything on point. As an Aussie, I appreciate this :)
One of the most impressive feats in all this is convincing a government official that the rum is for the camels
Government officials are never that bright.
😂😂
“You need 50 gallons of rum?!?! What could all that rum possibly be for?”
“Uh…the camels?”
Considering government officials are as dumb as a bag of rocks, I don't think it's that impressive.
the horses in mines were given tobacco to chew
it's very possible the camels drank rum
6:34 the fact they didn't simply turn back for repairs after THREE of their wagons broke down 4 miles away from the city is all I really need to know for how the expedition went.
You would have turned around, they went forward all the way across Australia Go figure.
@@alcaholic9559 they died go figure.
@@alcaholic9559Shit take is shitty, go figure.
That would be a red flag on the Oregon Trail
@@alcaholic9559 fiting name for such a cretin lol
The Royal Society: "keep the party together Robert"
Robert: _proceeds to evenly distribute the party across all of Australia_
It really feels like based on the story as he almost purposefully did this to reach the coast more or less alone, so he can take all the credit and glory.
I’m sure he was surprised that every species of Australian climate is ghastly and the wildlife happily consider humans as dessert.
He's worse then the group leader in a horror movie: "we get picked off when we're alone, so everybody split up and search for the unkillable monster. If you hear the black guy screaming bloody murder then you'll know you're already screwed"
@@arthas640 he’s worse than Scooby-Doo.
"alright gang, let's split up and look for clues"
"Hey, instead of trying to catch the guys with all the supplies, let's go to Mount HOPELESS"
Sounds like a plan! hehe
THATS not what he said. He said “Hey, let’s go to Mount Hopeless instead of trying to catch the guys with all the supplies”.
I spat my coffee when I got to that part and heard the name of the moutain. 💀😂
One important part the video didn't explain was how intense their final push back to Cooper's Creek was. It nearly killed them and they had to rest for days once they made it, hence they believed there was no way of catching the other group and choosing an alternative despite its despairing name.
Yeah, once your best hope becomes a place called Mt. Hopeless...you're probably screwed.
"Reach the north coast, document anything of scientific interest, and survey routes for a telegraph line"
"Got it, reach the north coast."
*maybe, more or less, with four people.
"Then die on the way back of malnutrition. Because you know, had to bring that desk, Chinese gong and rum for the camels".
Burke obviously only cared for personal ambition.
Crazy that bringing 50 gallons of rum as “camel stimulant” didn’t even make the top 100 stupid things they did 😂
did they ever use alcohol to "purify" their water?, only reason I can think of other than getting shitfaced in the bush with the boys
50 gallons sounds like a lot but its really not. its like, a large keg. So compared to the 20+ tons of other stuff...
Sounds like a great idea!
@@TheScotian82 For sure it’s just a lot more than I would take for my camel on a cross country expedition
I knew this would be a mess when I heard the 50 gallons of rum...for the camels 🤣
"one of the camels escaped" probably because it was fucking drunk
Passed out, waking up in the morning thirsty and hungover, only to discover that his whole damn camel fraternity left without him. Poor dude.
Drunk adventures are the best
😂😂
"We've talked about this before, I'm not an alcoholic, I'm just Australian."
Idk why that’s soo funny or why I thought of a drunk kangaroo in the process
Being cut from this expedition seems like it raised the odds of survival significantly...
The smaller the expedition got, the more concentrated the stupidity was
@@bonehed1 Yes...God works in mysterious ways....
This has to be the single most avoidable exploration disaster on this channel so far. And its almost entirely the fault of one completely unqualified man who should've never been an option for first in command, let alone said yes with no actual expedition experience or an expert on the team. The man picked his friends over professionals, did the opposite of what the government told him, and pissed off the one guy who knew anything about this type of mission. Un-fucking-believable. I wanted to claw my eyes out in the first five minutes.
The only thing he cared about was glory, unfortunately for him, he's remembered today for being a complete irresponsible fool. A legacy far worse than being forgotten.
@@sharraleigh Did someone just say "How about that there dan andrews ".
Couldn't have said it better myself
His sheer idiocy is astounding. This expedition could really have gone pretty well if it wasn’t led by a selfish glory seeking man with the brains of a log
To be fair, the “guy who knew anything abut this type of mission” was the same guy who insisted on giving rum to camels
I love how it took them two months to travel to Menindee when it took a mail wagon two weeks. I imagine the mail wagon passing them four times over the two months each time becoming more and more surprised and concerned, and by the last time the mail man is just like "Yeah their screwed."
Yeah, that got glossed over a bit. A total Party Kill only avoided because he split everyone up. Those not with him lived
I was thinking they were just slogging forward and every couple of days the mail man would pass them with their orders heading to the next town with another mail man going the opposite way laughing at them saying he already made a full trip back and forth while they had only gone as far as he does in a day
@@MiddlePath007 while passing their mail to them
@@geoffgunn9673 I wanna think that it was all waiting in the next town
They’re*
This whole expedition is the most chaotic mess that you’ve ever covered
Right?! Like how many RED flags do you need, its almost shockingly impressive they kepy going
@@ProbablyFat I would have turned back once the wagons got stuck in the mud 4 miles outside of melbourne lmao
Nothing tops the Franklin expedition to me it was a certain death mission, while having no benefits as transportation ships wouldn’t have been able to take the route even if they did find a passage
It’s like the land version of the Franklin expedition. Edit- Ha! I didn’t even see the above comment. Great minds…!
@@Shirosunemy exact comment elsewhere! To have that kind of catastrophe after 4 miles and can probably still see their own houses?! No. We’re not ready. I don’t care. I’m going home… it’s right there. My house…
Ego is more dangerous than anything else in these historical tragedies.
To be fair to the interior, this group was woefully unprepared and incompetent. Burke had hardly any relevant experience, they packed a Chinese gong and other ridiculous items and left behind useful ones. It was such a shit show, it's amazing they made it to the top at all.
@donovanchilton5817 it was the tail end of the great era of exploration of Australia. They had dozens of accounts of exploration of both much of that area, and other similar areas. They knew the distance. And pretty sure anyone would know a Chinese gong is superfluous. So they knew to a reasonable extent exactly what they were facing. They also packed a massive heavy writing desk, it was totally insane, hence why they only got 4 miles on the first day.
😮,😄😆🤣🤣🤣
That’s an understatement. They barely got out of town. The camel, horse, broken leg thing would’ve turned me right back around to my day job. Nope. ✌🏾✌️✌🏻
Why would they even bring a gong in the first place? What was the planned use of the gong? Was it music for the men? If it was, why a gong instead of something like, well, ANY INSTRUMENT OTHER THAN A GONG?
Robert was not only a cop but a bard. He never went without his trusty gong of conquest.
"Their best chance of survival was to head for a place called Mount Hopeless" I am convinced Robert wanted everyone to die
Especially as, just a half mile further on, is a place called Mount Zipadeedoodah...
“You know, I am something of an explorer myself…” Robert, a policeman
S*** like this happens all the time.
George Washington was an absolutely incompetent officer who's claim to fame was losing battles. Funny shows up in Philadelphia and talk to them into putting him in charge.. for no pay but he controls logistics. His prophet was graft
In Afghanistan a man managed to Khan the military and the Afghan government into thinking he was a high-level CIA agent. Even built his own little prison and tortured innocent people
"My specialty is finding death trough incompetence."
Exploring is my passion.
Melburnian here: I saw the title and immediately started cackling-- these guys are infamous to us here. One of the items they insisted on bringing was a heavy, bulky writing desk 🤦♀
Disgusting Melbournian, you make u-turns at intersections. Absolute chaos
I swear to god there’s always a heavy ass desk involved when there’s a failed expedition story. they were obsessed with it back then😂😂
I remember as a kid hearing about the disaster on a documentry and as soon as I saw the title of the video I was like 'It's the freaking Burke and Wills exploration, isn't it?'
Melburnian here. During a tour I went on from Cairns to the Gulf of Carpentaria back in 2022, one of the places I visited was this specific Eucalyptus tree, roughly a good while east to south-east of Karumba, iirc. The reason this tree was a tourist spot, was because part of the tree's bark had been purposefully stripped of a specific section by manmade tools, but with nothing written on it. It's considered to be one of, if not the last remnant of one of the fated explorers. It's a haunting sight. This random tree, out in the outback, with a man-made carving in it, the final marker of a deceased explorer, out in the desert wilderness in the middle of nowhere. Eerie.
Wow. Sounds like the American “Croatoan” carving in the tree where the Roanoke settlement disappeared in the 1500’s.
"Roughly a good while" 😂 not to be pedantic, but that got a chuckle out of me. That sounds like an awesome tour to have been on
@@giantmanice welcome to navigating the inland of Australia where you might be lucky have a neighbor 100 clicks away
@@giantmaniceand they say it’s the Americans who will measure with anything except the metric system 😂
Thats so incredible and very sad
It's amazing how many 19th century explorers ignored the survival techniques and practices of the indigenous people living in the places they explored
They thought they were better than the "Savages" and they paid for it with their lives
If only it were so easy to pick up skills from people whose language you do not understand, and whom you are not in contact with.
Ignored was the best they could do. Considering what they usually did to indigenous people.
Yes, they weren't quick to take the advice of people still living in the bronze age. Would you have?
Edit: Stop replying to this comment, my opinion hasn't changed and it won't. If you wanted to explore the African savannah, would you blindly trust those living in mud-huts while you have the technological advantage? If they can survive in such places, why do you think you can't, even with better equipment?
Why is there always a dumb woke shit everywhere, it's doesn't add or continue the conversation it corrupts it.
George's understanding of camel physiology is equal only to his understanding of which way to face when having his picture taken.
That's a story I want to hear. Maybe he disagreed with the new technology.
I'm here looking for that story
Wtf?
I assumed that was just some generic dude facing away because there was no photo of George, but... yeah, if that is him, WTF
Or had religious opposition to being photographed @@thurayya8905
I forget as an Aussie that not everyone knows this story. I remember in grade 4-5 learning about this(as its basically our Oregon Trail part of Australian history curriculum)
I always remember the underlying tone in how it was taught to us, was always "Don't take things for granted and to appreciate what those who came before us did"
But i just remember I always thought it would make a funny Tarantino movie.
I'd watch a movie about this.
Seeing Robert being an incompetent hard@$$ in the beginning and trying to stay that way, all the while it slowly killing him and everyone that followed him.
I remember in the 90s, school taught us Burke and Wills were exploration heroes, when the reality is quite different.
@@Seruphin You two had much more different educational experiences than me! My teacher in Tasmania in the early 00's presented it to us as "hey you know how the outback is really dangerous if you're not prepared? Well you will never believe what these two dickheads tried to do." 😂😂
@@PG-tasThis seems like the correct one!
I remember that the finer details of the expedition weren't really touched on during my schooling, probably because if they were then all the kids would know that the group was lead by fuckin' dumb cunts which would've undermined the whole message of sacrifice they were trying to push.
Early Australian exploration is littered with wild men doing stupid things.
A lot of them got away with it, lots didn't.
Somehow Burke and Wills are legendary explorers, have a good number of things named after them, including the Burke and Wills highway, into Karumba, despite their seeming stupidity and incompetence.
I'd like to hear someone putting the story into the perspective of the time.
African exploration of the same era didn't fare much better, with a British officer packing a piano, to go and fight in a vicious war, and loosing hundreds of men to seemingly obvious bad leadership.
I think it has something to do with the Gung ho, we can do anything attitude of the Victorian upper class, who funded these kind of things.
There was also a massive disconnect between the metropolitan elite, and the harsh reality of the Australian outback, likewise in Africa.
Still is.
Victorian Europeans just doing what they did best…
I can only imagine the amount of dead explorers in Australia who vanished and were never found
Well, they didn't know what they didn't know. But they found out.
I think the reason it worked in America (Lewis and Clark) and Canada (Mackenzie) was because they chose men who worked on and knew the frontier and relied heavily on indigenous people for guidance. The Aussie version seems like they just slapped a few guys from random professions together and didn't rely on aboriginal guides.
“Guys, don’t forget the 50 gallons of rum for the expedition.”
"It's ,err, for the camels."
Would you make a voyage like this without any? 💀
If I was dying out in the desert, I think rum would be a fine way to go.
Rum was frequently used to purify water. That’s probably why they took rum.
I can’t believe they barely made it down the street before having catastrophic failures. I’ve called out of work for WAAAAAY less!
Let’s be real, that 50 gallons of rum wasn’t just for the camels
😂🎉
It was to purify their drinking water. It wouldn't do much but it was what they COULD do to actually help themselves
Probably that was the reason why they failed
Its kinda impressive they got as far as they did considering the camels and the men were likely having some level of drunkenness the ENTIRE time
@@ElijahCemyes that can be a purpose to it, but in the video it sounded like the men were just helping themselves to it straight as well
I’ve got through that land on a bus and stayed in a tent and let me tell you - the idea of going out there unprepared is insane.
Who could have possibly guessed that letting a man with no previous expedition experience lead an extremely dangerous expedition could go wrong?
It's not like that is how every bad idea ever starts in human history or something - someone incompetent in charge.
I thought the video said he had lots of experience traveling to unexplored and unsettled places?
@@Quincy_Morris That was Landells not Burke
They were all 90% sure they would find a giant inland sea or lake and fresh water and food would be plentiful. That's why Burke and Wills keep going when everyone else went home.
tbf I’d wager even a child with a below average IQ could still put forth a safer, more efficient journey than this guy.
To be fair, a good leader is someone that has the capacity to make people work together as a team, and handle people in stressful situations. Which is very useful when exploring uncharted territory.
Even if Burke was a good explorer, that terrible attitude of his would have no one following him
Robert O'Hare Burke happens to be one of my ancestors. I was told a couple things that were not mentioned here. While Robert forbade all of the others from using the wagons for their personal belongings, Robert himself had brought a piano, which took up an entire wagon itself.
Also, I believe that when they got to the northern shore, that was supposed to be the end, and some ships were going to pick them all up there. But, the ships never arrived, because they had all hit and been sunk by what was yet to be known as the Great Barrier Reef.
The piano is Monty Pythonesque lol. Was it a Grand piano or an upright?
The Great Barrier Reef was named and mapped in some reasonable detail by Flinders in 1802. There was never a plan to be picked up in the Gulf. There were two ships sent by the Victorian government in 1861 to search for B&W in the Gulf, and one of them did hit a reef in a storm, but it was repaired and continued its journey.
Someone here has commented about a wooden desk also being taken and I once heard a wooden bathtub was included. Not sure if any of these are true or just urban myths but they're all quite plausible imo.
That is kinda cool the Larkins in our past make us who we are today
It infuriates me how incompetent people can be. Lack of common sense can kill. Especially 200 odd years ago.
It kills just as easily today. Look at drinking and driving, texting and driving, etc etc...
I hate to be that guy but it was 160 years ago.
And you really think today’s generation is any different, future generations will think the same about you. The people brave enough to do shit like this are the reasons we know so much today.
In 1996 Boy Scout troop leaders took a group of kids on a hike of the Grand Canyon in summer with not nearly enough water and with no way to contact anyone. Some people are missing the part of the brain that considers possible outcomes of actions.
@@petroHareIt's just empathy. Have you never heard a story that struck a chord with you? That's why people read, listen to music, etc.
Even today travelling around Australia is very dangerous... One false move and you will die very quickly. It's extremely hot in summer and cold enough to kill in hours in winter.
Lots of us work in the desert. Winter is by far preferable because you warm up quickly. However, you are constantly putting jackets on and taking them off because the shadows are still freezing but anything exposed to sunlight is warm.
Almost nowhere in Australia is "cold enough to kill in hours" in winter.
@@GelDouche12 you're walking in the outback at night you fall into a stream you get wet in winter boom you're likely dead or in a very shit state by the morning
@GelDouche12 in snow country it is certainly possible.
@@GelDouche12 not in temperate Australia where you probably live. But you go out into the desert and you’re going to see temps drop real quick at night. If you’re geared up with hot weather clothes and you suddenly find yourself in sub zero temperatures, you can definitely die.
Try living in New York 😂
Australia... Why The Mad max films were so effective. Set in the vast Australian interior & outback, an apocalyptic barren setting that sets the tone & impending doom.
LOL. Given how Australia is, it was probably filmed a few miles from town. It's brutal there.
@@weirdshibainuI have to agree, the climate, terrain and wildlife is atrocious. Those remote rural areas look like America’s Old West from the Oregon Trail/gold rush/ Donner party periods. Hard pass.
Classics. I grew up watching Mad Max. They don’t make them like that anymore 🤦🏻♀️
@@LotsofLisa I live in Nevada. Seriously, go 50 miles northeast of Reno and you're in the backcountry that looks like you're hundreds of miles from anywhere.
mad Max 1 was 15 minutes west of Melbourne, the police station was under the west gate bridge
"Left seven men and told them to stay there til they sent someone for them. Of course he had no plan to do this." Wtf! That was just criminal.
Those people were left on traveled paths, though. And they were left with a huge amount of the supplies. They weren't being left to die. Robbed them of their agency perhaps, but those people were fortunate in the end, all things considered.
"Go alone to go faster; go together to go far"
An african proverb.
Robert chose the former to his own demise.
This always crosses my mind when watching your content but I just never comment it: Thank you for still creating videos the Ye Olde way and not using AI voice clones. Your speaking voice and tempo is *extremely* skillful and your time and work is appreciated.
Hear, hear! 👏🏻
The A.i voices ruin the whole vibe of the video. I hear ya
One of the best narrating voices w iconic spooky music
I agree! Those AI voices are so uncanny valley, but very distracting. They have odd intonations and you can always spot which voices are fake. I love listening to real voices.
How do I spot AI voices
never put a Hungarian-Irish police officer in charge of anything, ever.
Definitely sketch
I'm just going to assume the 3 explorers that couldn't agree on who should lead, uniformly hated that cop and sent him to his death.
Hungarian ? he was an irishman educated in Britain and Belgium serving in the austrian army in italy as a leader of hungarian hussars. What is even funnier that in the 1848 hungarian revolution one of the requests was to make the commanding language in the hungarian units hungarian. Might be that dear Robert had something to do with it.
Tom Crean would’ve handled this expedition no problem. Not an Irish problem but an idiot problem.
12 days ago, I left a comment on another video of yours suggesting this story. Im Australian, 51, and this story was something I thought I know well and that others would also find interesting. Brother, your video has totally floored me. What I had always believed to be a tragic story of basically misfortune, etc, was so much more. A massive case of incompetence bordering on malice at times. Wonderful video, my wife and I watched it together engrossed scratching our heads at some of the decisions they made.
My only suggestion on how you could have improved this, I notice time and time again, the overwhelming majority of people really do struggle to understand the sheer scale of Australia in terms of distances involved. Plus, you did cover this, but again, more emphasis hound have been placed on the extreme weather they would have experienced, especially once they hit the tropics. Humidity bordering on 100%, which absolutely destroys you, plus, makes your water intake skyrocket, you cannot escape the sweating, you sweat in the shade, lying down, doing nothing. Plus the flooding in the tropics as well. My wife grew up in Normanton, very near to where they would have tried to reach the coast, the Mangrove areas are a mess, but there are many places where there are none.
But thank you once again for covering this, was thoroughly insightful.
I will end with this, typical Victorians, they always fuck everything up…. 😂
This is a super complex story as you know better than most. For these, just an unsolicited suggestion, consider habitually showing on screen dynamic map identifying the location and movement of each separate party. Almost like a call of duty mini map or the red dead redemption display which is great at highlighting locations. Basically combining 14:55 and 15:05. Individually these are fantastic but together I’d imagine they’d be even stronger. Basically 18:15 but sticking to one design for simplicity sake and shown regularly. Just a thought! Ignore at your discretion.
Not only to remind ppl of names, but also to illuminate the distances between each group. I almost exclusively listen to these not watch but because I know this story I would refer back to the video at the confusing parts. It’s hard for someone to grasp I bet how far apart these parties got and doomed it was really was the moment they dwindled down the supplies with each camp. I was imagining showing the supply chunk with each party on the map following the last until you can visibly see how little they actually had with them. It looks like a suicide run when you consider how irresponsible the navigation was handled. For instance even ignoring the wisdom the Aborigines or the Makasan’s (not meaning to offend if that’s the colonial title just using the historical reference), they still had the expedition from Ludwig Leichhardt which almost surely had mentions of mangroves and other useful information, no? That’s always been my assumption. I liken it to Walter Raleigh attempting to establish camp in Roanoke without actually speaking with the Roanoke , Wanchese, etc or using other exploration notes. It would be mad to try that. Burke’s expedition was truly an impossibly underprepared trip woefully mismanaged and undersupplied with proper materials to be successful. With most of the hurdles being known had they surveyed correctly using the 3 entire years they squabbled over less important details.
Speaking of, you really should consider that Roanoke colony expedition for a story. It’s not really as mysterious as people make it out to be. Buzzfeed brutally butchered the story providing so many historical inaccuracies that tons of people saw it’ll make your head spin. The unsolved mysteries podcast did much better but without visuals of course.
To add to your awesome comment, I also advise looking up pronunciations of names and places (this is easy to do, takes 30 seconds to google). The pronunciation of "Melbourne" is incorrect, a mistake many North Americans make.
@@sharraleigh As much as I appreciate Scary Interesting's voiceovers, the one thing he always does not bother doing is approximating the pronunciation.
Given that he uploads videos at a very fast clip though, I think it's intentional to push viewership out there.
@@johntitor4287 I agree, and it's not something that's hard to figure out, which is why I mentioned it. Max Miller (Tasting History with Max Miller) always does an absolutely FANTASTIC job trying to pronounce foreign words exactly as a native speaker would, and I think he puts a lot of time an effort into it, which is 100% commendable.
Fun fact: the statue for Burke and Wills in Melbourne has been on many adventures itself. The running joke is that they've travelled as far in death as in life, an exaggeration, but you get the picture. It's been in 5 different locations, and is currently in storage due to major building works before - hopefully - being put in its - again, hopefully - final spot.
Robert is exhausting
And slightly dum
what is he exhausting?
@@SmD-ff5xd I’m just saying being around him sounds draining and like a pain in the ass lol
Edit: lol now I’m like was that a joke and am I just being slow 😂
Robert was hubristic. Out of ego he wanted fame and glory reserved for himself and a few select men and it got him and most of the men he assembled killed. Not a good man at all. The guy who questioned his leadership and the doctor who resigned along with him seemed like better men than he was.
@@stoiccrane4259 Sounds about right for a cop
If you look at Australia on Google Earth it looks almost uninhabitable. Most of it looks like the moon but more orange.
It’s basically Mars with the occasional shrub.
Aboriginal People are owed Reparations ✊🏿💵✊🏿💵
And yet, it was home to vast native population and dozens of proto-countries before English arrived and genocided the natives out of best spots of land. Go figure...
Why do you think the central regions of Australia are called the Outback?
@@africaisking7817yeah probably
I hit pause to say this before going any farther, they were giving booze to camels? This expedition is doomed right there.
Booz for the "camels" 😏😏
I thought it was a slip of the tongue but after looking at all the comments about it, I guess not!
in mines the horses were given tobacco, different times
Yeah everyone knows camels don't drink rum. They smoke cigarettes.
Had these men ever met ‘camels’? Who trained them to interact with camels, the barmen.
As an Aussie who’s been to the places in the story, the expedition was doomed before it began. Burke had no experience whatsoever, and the expedition was ridiculously overloaded. They carried a massive oak table, complete with lace tablecloths and fine china, so they could be ‘civilised Englishmen’. Burke was egotistical and likely narcissistic. Even when dying, he scared away the aboriginal people trying to help him, as he thought of them as enemy. Had he allowed them to help as they wanted, they would all have lived.
Burke was Irish and the leader so I'm not sure why you're singling out the English here.
Precisely that same arrogance brought with the Franklin Expedition disaster in Canada.
@@allewis4008they were far better prepared, though, they got very unlucky
No chance the native population ever tried to ', help ' them
@@amelialock7 What? The same tribe, the Yandruwandha, verifiably did help King. The party sent from Melbourne who found King living with the Yandruwandha even awarded the indigenous people gifts as a thankyou. One of the breastplate gifts is in the National Museum
I live and work on a small community in the Western Central Desert region of Australia and drivec 1300kms each fortnight around here for work. Even today with endless modern resources and technology, this place is no joke, especially in summer.
In summer you mean what exactly? Do you Australians call a warm season summer or do you call it summer just because it's june july and august?
@@switchblade5847 This is the southern hemisphere; summer is from December to February.
That sounds like a tough gig man. Good luck
@@switchblade5847when we say summer we mean summer, the season. December, January, February.
I’m assuming you’re American, so your winter
I'm Australian and this is probably the best retelling of this story I have ever heard. Good work mate!
Fascinating. This expedition sounds like Australia's version of The Donner Party. And that one was also a disaster practically from day 1. Thanks for the history lesson.
Actually the Donner Party wasn't a disaster from day 1. It was a series of very bad decisions over months. Face it, when you only make it 4 miles out of town on day one as with this disaster, it's not going to get any better.
I wouldn't really compare this to the donner party...yeah james reed and the rest of em struggled with accepting good advice but in the end, reed saved the survivors...burke however, seems to have been not only stupid but a selfish asshole.
@@paulstrawbridge5687 Exactly. Plus the Donner Party disaster was months in the making and had several chances to have avoided the summit. When you only make 4 miles on your first day as with this expedition, you have real issues.
I think you could say it was the Donner Party of Australia. Burke and Wills Party left in August which is the end of winter in Australia and because of delays, they traveled through the central part of Australia in Summer, which is very hot and dry. December in the top part of Australia gets what is called the, “wet season”, and It gets very hot, humid with heavy rains. (My understanding is that they were told not to travel through the central part of Australia in Summer).
Burke and Wills were still travelling in June of the flowing year, which is winter in Australia. In the central part of Australia in winter, it gets below freezing at night and it warm up a bit when the sun rises.
As I understand it, the Donner Party wasted a lot of time with overloaded and broken wagons and ran into winter in a high mountain pass.
@@anthonyj7989 If you read about the Donner Party, it has little in common with this debacle.
I may or may not have watched all of your videos within a month of finding the channel. Love your storytelling, voice, and editing of the videos. Please keep making content! ❤
I've watched a ton of your videos, but this is hands down the best one I've seen. I had never heard of this expedition. Really great information, well presented.
This is like seeing a plane that is on fire, without a wing, and has active explosives on bored and thinking " YEAAAA I CAN KEEP GOING"
Board
"You have died from dissin' Terry..."
Terry don’t play
Did they say they didn't like Terry's chocolate orange?
If so they deserve everything they get because they're delicious!🍊🍊🍊😋
Ain't that some sh*t 😅
Put her in reverse Terry! Aww noo!
Heck yeah!! I absolutely love your channel,ive been listening nonstop for two weeks now! 🖤 Thank you for making my day!
Thanks for watching!
I remember when I first discovered this channel and started binging. When I ran out and had to wait til the next release I scrolled twice to check that I hadn't missed one. Talk about a damnit man" moment.
@@Trial1MusickFreeTrialAccountFe oh I hate when I run out of videos,it's just so hard to find a channel that makes quality content these days. Everything is AI and filters haha.
Should slow down, it's disappointing when you come to the end and gotta Wait for new episodes lol
@@txmits507 I agree but sometimes its hard to put the phone down and say no more! XD
I love how theirs no messing about and you get straight into the stories in all your videos. Ty for your awesome content ❤
We were taught about this in primary school as a heroic yet tragic expedition ... watching this, I see that our teachers, they left out a LOT of details
Robert did achieve immortality, for being seen as a stupid man for trying to lead an expedition with 0 expierience or ability to trust subordinates.
LOL "If you made it this far." That's funny on a few levels...
Australians: "Camels drink copious amounts of Rum - need to have that - for them."
Tell me why, as an Australian, my school taught me about this expedition as if they were competent explorers and not the chaotic mess that it was
History is written by the victor. Or those with enough dumb luck to survive. Australia does not have many famous heroes. I guess a stupid drunk Irishman braggart counts if you try hard enough to spin the tale as a teacher.
Never heard anyone proclaim it as a success. Maybe you had an incompetent teacher.
I just love the background music, it’s just so intriguing and weirdly calming. Not to mention the actually interesting stories and great voiceovers, simply why this is my favorite channel!!
Best timing, morning Scary Interesting viewers!!
Good morning!
Morning!
@@ScaryInteresting Love your videos man. I watch you and MrBallen for my Scary videos
11:30 PM here
Hello from South Africa. 17h30 here. ❤
They appointed an expedition leader that had zero experience leading expeditions. Makes sense.
In this story of transgressing Australia's 'harsh interior' it's strange how they decided to start out in the winter months with all the extra wet weather and swamps full. During the months when roads would be most impassable ...
But not as hot.
“Swamps full” lol
Probably hoped, that it would allow to find some water along the way. As trying to cross desert during summer can be considered suicide.
We have very few swamps in the interior outback. The area they were in was closer to the coast. We have underground water, occasional rivers and billabongs. Indigenous Australians are very adept at finding underground water. The amount of precipitation the outback gets depends on where you are. In my state it’s the driest part of the country. In the north you don’t even have winter, you have the wet season and dry season. The wet season is summer and the dry season is winter.
These men were not experienced in exploration whatsoever, let alone leading an expedition. O’Hara Burke was a policeman and Wills was a bookish scientist.
"We need 50 gallons of rum for the camels"..."Don't worry boys, they bought it"
One of the better shows on TH-cam
Thanks so much, Joe!!
your video are always as high quality as usual, great job
Love your content! Thanks for posting, i've been watching all your old videos too! great work
Perfect timing. I needed something to listen to while I did some cleaning.
13:50 that sudden voice change though
I love your channel. Your voice and the music used is great and is the opposite of irritating. So many channels are unbearable even with great stories.
You are the BEST!
Mike from "That Chapter", Yourself with "Scary Interesting", John Ballen, from "Mr. Ballen, my 3 favorite channels in that order! Congrats! Love your content!
An interesting fact about Australia I’ve heard is that almost 90% of the total population live within 50 km of the coast. Vast amounts of inhospitable nothingness out there. These guys may have been ill prepared and irrational in their decision making but they were incredibly brave (or stupid)
Sounds similar to here in Canada lol
Yeah, we also have a shit ton of coast
And 90% + live in urban areas, which amount to a few small cities.
Bill Bryson's book "Down Under" is a terrific read, including details about this journey.
While the expedition itself wasn't a success, the resulting searches for Burke & Wills were highly successful in exploring more of the unknown red centre, Leichhardt, Stuart & others covered vast areas in their searches.
Man these videos and the production quality is top notch, from storytelling to video production and editing...hats off and kudos to you!
From watching almost every episode from you, I’ve realized awareness is one of the most important things to know. Naturally, I think every human can survive alone for a few days, but lack of oxygen, not enough knowledge of the people living on the land, to how uneven the terrain was; all makes it more difficult. You do an amazing job storytelling. I’d love to hear more about the stories of the ‘random’ limbs found throughout the Colorado foundation’s. (Does it go past the state?)
I do want to add, there are still so many mysterious deaths, disappearances, etc. I think all of your viewers would love it no matter how small or big. I think you’d even do a great job reporting present topics.
The beginning of the story tells you everything you need to know about how it goes.
As an Aussie who learnt about this in school (many years ago), this is an excellent account of the expedition. Thank you.
3:24 lol…WHAT kind of photo is THAT??! 😂
Silly ol' George
If I was stranded in the Australian desert with my supples dwindling, a place called 'Mt Hopeless' is probably the LAST place I'd want to try next
For the Americans watching Burke and Wills are basically our Lewis and Clark except they died and failed spectacularly but we still celebrate their spirit of exploration
@@the-weirdist come on man you know what I mean
welp, then, i think we should make a new brand of Liquor called: Burke n' Wills Rum. The logo will be a camel playing a piano.
Lewis and Clark only lost one man. Of a burst appendix early in the expedition.
There is a German book, " Tapfere Herzen" about an Australian policeman and his Aborigene prisoner ( whom he tracked deep into the desert), who travelled through the Australian desert. In the end this prisoner saved the policeman.
there's still a slang term "going burko" for when somebody is irrationally angry, three guesses where it came from
Heard that saying since i was a kid, never knew! Makes sense
Pretty sure it's just slang for "berserk".
Fun Fact - The Ghastly Blank is how Australia is still described in travel brochures to this day and is one reason why most Australians live in London.
Man, I look forward to your videos so much. These videos about stuff that happened long ago are really entertaining. I wont lie, like 1 or 2 years ago I did not like your channel due to a couple things you did but now it is top tier stuff.
Thanks for this video! I love that it points out that Australia is mostly uninhabitable, a fact not many realise. I also love that, the men chosen for the expedition, ahead of far superior candidates, had NO idea what they were doing and hired only people they knew, rather than people best suited to the role....a longstanding tradition that continues in Australia until this very day.
It's a pretty well known fact that most of Australia is uninhabitable
Uninhabitable for non Indigenous people, Indigenous have survived their for over 60000yrs
Always love the topics and learning history from you, much appreciated work you put in! Thank you keep it up ❤
This video had me in a constant state of eye rolling! It's amazing that anyone survived
Good story cobber. Very easy to follow. For once I got to the end of story without getting lost. I dig it.
Bro idk how you manage to pump out such high quality videos so fast keep it up I love it ❤
4:31 my man George was like “let’s get get this mandatory portrait over with” 😂
😂😂😂
We learn about this in primary school usually. You covered a lot of interesting stuff that we don't get told. Good job.
Like the problem of 50 gallons of rum…
9:06
...George's insistence on carrying an obscene amount of rum for the camels...
I had no idea camals drank rum. 🤔
My dog likes Bailey's Irish Cream and Kahlua so I guess anything is possible.
I hear the Irish don't mind a little bit of rum themselves.. just saying
hey Scary Interesting, another good upload, definitely what we needed on an otherwise rainy Sunday in Georgia!
I’ve only recently found your page and I’ve watched nearly all your videos, love your channel! Really interesting and well told stories
As soon as I saw the title I know it was about Burke n' Wills, was one of my favourite books when I was like 10, proud to be an aussie (awesome video btw!! :D)
Dying of "Malnutrition" only 5 days after the animals were gone? M-hmm.
🚩Red Flag
Wow, so true
Oh hell yeah i'v been wanting to see a video on that topic. Australia is just such a crazy ecosystem, forces respect.
Loved the content, thanks for the keen editing
One of my great great great grandfathers walked barefoot from Melbourne, Victoria to barinsdale, Victoria. Back during the 1800s and became a pioneer in Orbost. Has streets in that area named after him and ive seen my grandmas young photos posted in facebook groups about the history on the area. Such a wholesome story :")
I've been waiting for someone to cover this. When I was a kid I got a book about Burke and Wills with some pretty traumatising illustrations. I have a 50 cent piece from the centenary somewhere.
Bruce Willis do you mean?
Good Morning, hope everyone has a great day, Thank you for a great video!
"Mum, we want a Lewis and Clark expedition."
"We've got one of those at home."
The one they had at home:
the ozzy version
@@boogieheads When I first read that I understood Ozzy Osbourne
Grew up being taught this as a lesson on why you should always be careful about travelling across the country, even today. A Nullarbor crossing is dangerous to attempt if you don't know what you're doing and travel in a lot of the outback is pretty unforgiving, too.
Great work, though - a lot of non-Aussies tend to get half of the details wrong when presenting this stuff, or sensationalise it for the clicks - you've gotten pretty much everything on point. As an Aussie, I appreciate this :)
Holidays in Australia are pretty much like this today...
It's even worse in the Melbourne.
😂
I mean tourists have and do die like this
My Australian friend went on walk about to rethink his wife 5yrs later he has not returned 😢he is a deep thinker
Great. I’m terrified of diving, might as well get terrified of walking on land, too. 😂
**gets popcorn**
Amen!!! 🙏🏼 right here with you