The Explorers

The story of the Blue Mountains’ barrier to the expansion of the fledgling colony of NSW and its eventual crossing by Gregory Blaxland, William Wentworth and William Lawson with four convicts to assist them.

Evans, Oxley & Cunningham - grazing land & flowing rivers.

Hume & Lovell - Hume Highway - overland route from Sydney.

Like so many Australian explorers of the early 19th century, Captain Charles Sturt believed there must be an inland waterway in the heart of Australia to explain why all the rivers seemed to run north from the coast.

Sir Thomas Mitchell - aggressive military style - Western Victoria.

Dr. John Lhotsky & Paul Strzelecki (Poles) - Kosciusko.

Edward John Eyre and his loyal companion Wylie, an Indigenous Australian, completed an epic journey across the terrible sand dunes of the Nullarbor Plain from South Australia to Albany in Western Australia in 1841.

Prussian Ludwig Leichhardt - North to Port Essington Edmund Kennedy - Cape York

Inter-colony rivalry between South Australia and Victoria drove a race to the north of the continent. The race resulted in the terrible deaths of the leaders of the lavish but poorly planned Victorian expedition, Burke and Wills.

Western Desert: Great Sandy Desert, Gibson Desert, Great Victoria Desert - Warburton, Gosse Forrest & Giles