B&W (M) Mt Hope Pyramid Hill, Victoria, Australia
By The Morris (adopted by WazzaAndWenches) on 20-Aug-10. Waypoint GA2289

The posted coordinates will have you at a memorial cairn.    Gather the  required information and calculate the new coordinates which will take you nearer to their campsite.

S 35 59.AAA

E144 12.BBB

 The year the plaque was unveiled – 1830 = AAA

 The number of years between their passing here and the plaque being unveiled  + 434  = BBB

The container requires some scrambling to get to but very little climbing.  It is suitable for children and the mobile elderly.

The Victorian Exploring Expedition of 1860, usually known as the Burke and Wills expedition, stands as a landmark in Australian history. They succeeded in crossing the continent form South to North, at the cost of several lives. These geocaches mark important points associated with the Expedition.

 Robert O’Hara Burke was a former soldier and police superintendant in country Victoria when he was selected to lead the Expedition. Their goal was to explore the unknown areas north of Cooper’s Creek with a view to finding a route to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Along the way, they were to conduct a full scientific survey, and identify good grazing land. If Melbourne were to establish an outpost on the North coast, it could also serve one day as the landing point for a transcontinental telegraph link.

 The Expedition left Royal Park on the 20th of August 1860, with 19 men, 26 camels, 24 horses, six wagons and 21 tons of supplies. Many of these supplies were left along the way as Burke progressively streamlined the party, obsessed with the idea of beating rival explorer John Macdouall Stuart to the north coast. Burke came within kilometres of the open sea along the Gulf of Carpentaria with a small group of four men after a punishing journey across unforgiving country. He returned after four months to the depot site at Cooper’s Creek to find the relief party had left that very morning, burying a small cache of supplies near a tree marked with the word DIG. Burke and Wills died by the banks of the Cooper. Of the four men to reach the Gulf country, only John King survived.

 The scientific goals of the expedition were greatly curtailed by Burke’s haste, and much of the land they traversed is marginal grazing country at best. The eventual telegraph line followed Stuart’s route from Adelaide to 

Darwin. Nevertheless, the bravery and persistence shown by the members of the expedition has ensured their names live on even today. 

 Saturday 1/9/1860.  Camp 11 

Inspired by the journals of Dr. Ludwig Becker the official diarist and naturalist of the expedition.

The mount greatly impressed Becker, its massive blocks of stone reminding him of ‘pre-adamic whales and elephants’. There was a spring-time profusion of flowers and insects among the rocks. He sketched the station hut and was shown the ‘subterranean chamber’ at the north-west foot of the mount that had once been used as an illicit distillery. From the summit, where Major Mitchell had stood twenty-four years before surveying his ‘Australia Felix’, Becker sketched Pyramid Hill to the south-west.

Like many other grazing runs at the time, the Mt. Hope and Mt. Pyramid run was absentee owned. The superintendent of the run, Mr. W. Downes Chomley, who proved a warm and generous host to the travellers, still features significantly in the history of the district. The large old Mt. Hope homestead has been preserved intact. Situated impressively on a sheltered plateau on the eastern side of the mount, it is approached through an entrance on the northern side.