B&W (V) Wills' grave Innamincka, South Australia, Australia
By Geocaching Australia on 20-Aug-10. Waypoint GA2415

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.

While you're here try finding http://geocaching.com.au/cache/ga2272 B&W (T) Wills' Grave. It's not too far away.

Validating Your Log
Take a picture of your GPS receiver and if possble yourself and Wills grave site 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
King was well enough by the 18th to accompany Howitt, Brahe and others "to perform a melancholy duty", as Howitt put it. "We proceeded down the creek for seven miles ... to where poor Wills died. We found the two gunyahs situated on a sandbank between two waterholes and about a mile from the flat where they procured nardoo seed, on which they managed to exist so long. Poor Wills' remains we found lying in the wurley in which he died, and where King, after his return from seeking for the natives, had buried him with sand and rushes. We carefully collected the remains and interred them where they lay."

Wills' skull was missing except for the lower jaw with pieces of beard still attached. Howitt read from Corinthians - "O death, where is thy victory?" - and buried the bones, blazing a tree to mark the spot: "WJ WILLS XLV Yds WNW A.H."

"The field-books, a notebook belonging to Mr Burke, various small articles lying about, of no value in themselves but now invested with a deep interest from the circumstances connected with them, and some of the nardoo seed on which they had subsisted, with the small wooden trough in which it had been cleaned, I have now in my possession. We returned home with saddened feelings; but I must confess that I felt a sense of relief that this painful ordeal had been gone through.
"King was very tired when we returned; and I must, most unwillingly, defer my visit to the spot where Mr Burke's remains are lying until he is better able to bear the fatigue."
 

Additonal Information
Source: Paul Dorsey Used with Permission