Heading off on a
BURKE and WILLS
TREASURE HUNT
T
HE last great historical treasure in
Australia - the lost cache of journals and equipment
buried by Burke and Wills at the Plant Camp - will
this month be retrieved by a team from Townsville.
Army engineers from 3CER have been asked
to help and the project will be joined by a team
of 10 Queensland Government archeologists.
The expedition, which will leave on September
17, is the brainchild of Townsville resident, former
RAAF leading aircraftsman George Koulakis.
He has asked the Army to help by mounting
a detachment of 35 combat engineers and
support soldiers to use their military training
and equipment to systematically search the
restricted site in remote western Queensland.
George leads the Cameleers, a not-forprofit organisation established specifically
to conduct projects like this one.
He hopes to take up to six former military
men or women on the trip to help run the camp,
while the professionals conduct the search.
They will be joined by elders from the
Mithika tribe, traditional land owners in
the piece of desert where, in 1861, the illfated Burke and Wills expedition abandoned
most of the equipment carried on camels.
The archeologists will be responsible for
protecting the artefacts as they are recovered.
The expedition will, literally, be searching
for buried treasure in the desert.
Part of a discarded Burke and Wills water
container found by a stockman in 2008 fetched
more than $280,000 at auction and this cache
contains all of William John Wills’ invaluable
navigational equipment and the remainder
of his journals detailing their journey.
Part of the rationale behind seeking Army
support is to ensure everything retrieved on this
expedition is returned to the Commonwealth.
The wooden box containing the
equipment is buried near a marked
tree at the famous Plant Camp.
The Plant Camp is the last significant
Burke and Wills camp to be found.
It was the camp where expedition leader
Robert O’Hara Burke ordered Wills to
discard all of his equipment to try to prolong
the life of their last remaining camel as they
struggled back to the Dig Tree where they
hoped to be resupplied at their base camp.
As every Australian learns in primary
6 | SEPTEMBER 2016
George Koulakis views artefacts,
some of which are pictured
above, at the historical Burke
and Wills display at the Royal
Society of Victoria