B&W (T) Bulla Bridge Bulla, Victoria, Australia
By g_ordo on 20-Aug-10. Waypoint GA2485

Burke & Wills, Bulla - Traditional

Bulla

Bulla was another overnight stop for the Expedition. It was near here that the cameleer Samla begged to leave the expedition:

“…his religion (being a Hindu) would not allow him to eat meat, except mutton, and this only if the sheep was killed by himself The poor fellow looked very poorly indeed having had nothing for the last three days but bread and plenty of work. He saw it was impossible for him to remain with us without breaking his faith. After receiving the wages due to him he touched with his fingers mother Earth and then his forehead, and blessing Mr Landells and the men near him, this good man went his way towards Melbourne his eyes full of tears.”             

Ludwig Becker, first report

There were now only three expert cameleers for the twenty-six camels on the expedition.

Samla was neither the first nor the last man to leave or be dismissed from the Expedition. Burke had a high temper, and had dismissed three members before the Expedition even left Melbourne. More would follow, including second in command George Landells.

This sketch by William Strutt shows one of the cameleers before leaving Melbourne.

The following is an excerpt from the website by Dave Phoenix, who walked the entire way across Australia following the route taken by Burke and Wills in 1860-1.

 Here is a link to the website

walk.burkeandwills.net.au/blog/

Burke followed the Bulla Road out of Melbourne, some of this road still exists although parts of it were turned into the Essendon Airport runway in the 1930s and other parts became the Tullamarine runway in the 1960s. Here at Bulla there is still evidence of the original road alignment and as I walk in the shade of the ancient gum trees that lined the road as Burke walked past, I reconnect with my aim and the noise of the cars disappears to be replaced by the sound of horses hoofs, camel snorts and the rumble of the iron tyres of the wagons wheels on the gravel roads.

Here at Bulla there is a steep hill down to a heritage listed bluestone bridge over Deep Creek. The bridge post-dates the expedition, but there was a wooden bridge here in 1860. Blanchen did some work in the 1970s retracing B&W using Ludwig Becker’s diary and he supposed that the expedition would not have attempted to cross Deep Creek at Bulla due to the steep road in and out and therefore Blanchen guessed Burke would have gone by the Koonagaderra road. Unfortunately Blanchen restricted himself to using only Becker’s journal and he does not appear to have looked at the newspaper reports or any of the other journals. Dutiful as ever, Wills was calibrating his scientific instruments and decided it would be interesting to compare the barometrical pressures at the top of the hill at Bulla and at the bottom of the hill as they crossed the bridge. They were at the top of the hill at 11.00am and crossed the bridge at Bulla at 11.45am – apologies to the fans of Blanchen who have been following the Koonagaderra Road.

This cache is a 30 cal ammo can, with original swaps being an assortment of items which may, or may not be worthwhile taking on a expedition such as what this was.

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