Pilgrimage

There are places in life where image and narrative coexist in powerful combination. The Dig Tree is such a place. The image is that of the massive “Dig Tree” painting hanging at the Ian Potter Gallery. The narrative is etched in the history of Australian exploration, of an emaciated Burke, Wills and King struggling back to base camp at Cooper Creek after their remarkable four month trek to the Gulf and back, only to find that their support team had left only hours earlier.

There was a time, when I was just a child, that a musical associate of my father’s came to stay with us. He was researching a play he was writing about the Burke & Wills journey. He had been given access to the original archives from the expedition, which were stored in a cardboard box in the State Library of Victoria. My young hands have held the note that was buried beneath the Dig Tree at Cooper Creek with a cache of supplies. I have read from Wills’ diary which – if memory serves me correctly – was meticulously kept but ceased abruptly on that fateful day.

Today I visited the Dig Tree. The famous inscriptions have now been overgrown by the bark on that ancient coolabah. I stopped for a while to try to imagine Burke, Wills and King struggling into camp late that evening, having to come to terms with such a tragic reality. Later we also visited Burke’s grave – an even more poignant monument. He lay on the banks of the Cooper, pistol by his side, as King maintained a faithful vigil till his death. They had already lost Charlie Gray on the return trip from the Gulf. Wills had succumbed as they tried to make their way down the Cooper towards South Australia. The loss of Burke would leave King on his own to face an unknown fate.

It seems ironic that King’s name is rarely mentioned in public statements about Burke & Wills, in spite of the fact that he was the only survivor of the fateful journey. Even at the Melbourne General Cemetery – where Burke & Wills were finally laid to rest after dying where they lay, being buried by a search party, and then later exhumed, given a state funeral and reburied – the lonely grave of John King is located at a hard to find corner of the cemetery, well away from the dramatic piece of granite that marks the grave of Burke & Wills.

There will, no doubt, continue to be many significant moments on our long-awaited journey through this incredibly vast country. Tomorrow we head further north to Birdsville, before journeying down the iconic Birdsville Track. We already look forward to sleeping on a real bed at Coober Pedy in an underground motel, before heading further north towards Darwin.

But today was the fulfilment of a dream I’ve held for many years. My pilgrimage.