B&W (V) Return to the Depot Oontoo, Queensland, Australia
By Geocaching Australia on 20-Aug-10. Waypoint GA2403

This is a special Burke & Wills cache listed on Geocaching Australia.

This cache requires you to visit a Burke & Wills historical location and take a photo as described along with your GPS receiver and if possible yourself in the picture. Once you have logged this cache as a find, you are required to load your picture to your log to validate your find.

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Validating Your Log
Take a picture of your GPS receiver showing the same co-ordinates as the cache page (plus or minus 100 meters) and attach it to your online log.

Important Information
The Burke Wills Historical Society notes: "The actual route Burke and Wills followed once they left Camp 78 is unknown and one of the most intensely debated issues. Wills' map and some of his journals containing astronomical observations have been lost. Because the journals have never been transcribed, it means the expedition's track north of the Diamantina, through the gibber rises, confused sand dunes and extensive claypans, is a matter for conjecture."
Travel in Outback Australia can be extremely hazardous. Plan your trip with care and seek and follow local advice on what precautions to take. Be aware of private property restrictions. Do not risk your life to log this geocache.

About This Location
Having dutifully celebrated Queen Victoria's birthday on May 24 with a feast of nardoo, Wills left Burke and King to return to the Depot, 30 miles upstream, to deposit his journals and leave another note imploring anyone who might read it to send help. Brahe and Wright had been here since but hadn't altered anything, so Wills didn't either - he just just reburied the camel box, yet again covering the hole with leaves and dung.

Over the next few days Wills made his way back to Burke with great difficulty, still managing daily journal entries. June 2: "A certain amount of good luck however still stuck to me, for on going along by a large waterhole I was so fortunate as to find a large fish about a pound and a half in weight which was just being choked by another which it had tried to swallow but which had stuck in its throat. I soon had a fire lit and both of the fish cooked and eaten."
On the 3rd he was welcomed at an Aboriginal camp and sat before "a large pile of fish ... I was expected to dispose of this lot, a task which to my own astonishment I soon accomplished, keeping two or three Blacks pretty steadily at work extracting the bones for me. The fish being disposed of next came a supply of nardu cake until I was so full as to be unable to eat any more."

Additonal Information
Source: Paul Dorsey Used with Permission