Events

This is a taster ride. It is open to all members, but particularly those registered for the big ride the following week.

It is a short two hour city ride so it's hard to get around. It will cover the city locations relevant to the ride. The ride next week will leave from Essendon and won't include this stuff. Good corner marking is really essential as we'll have to manage difficult traffic arrangements to get to some of the sites, especially the Royal Park cairn. Unfortunately the famous b&W statue is currently in storage due to the underground works in the city.

Meeting from 10 am for coffee at  CAFE EXCELLO (or the alternative coffee shop just behind it if Excello is full) 99 Spring St, Melbourne <MAP>

Try to park opposite in front of the Adam Lyndsay Gordon Statue. You can also park around the Parliament Station stairs, Hotel Windsor corner,   

Departing at 11 AM from the Adam Lyndsay Gordon statue "Gone" (1893)

"In Collins-street standeth a statue tall --
A statue tall on a pillar of stone,
Telling its story, to great and small,
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone.
Weary and wasted, and worn and wan,
Feeble and faint, and languid and low,
He lay on the desert a dying man,
Who has gone, my friends, where we all must go."

We'll visit:

We'll do a blockie through the city via the intersection of Russell and Collins where the Burke and Wills statue was first erected - - right in the middle of that intersection. Removed in 1888 to make way for the cable tram network

The Priness Theatre, Spring St. It was here that popular singer Julia Matthews often sang, and performed there the night of the expedition departure. Burke was obsessed with the singer, and wrote and visted her often, after having first seen her perform in Bendigo where he had worked as a policeman. Ironically, the Burke and Wills staue was relocated just outside on the trafic island in 1886 until 1979 when it moved again to the City Square.

The Royal Society of Victoria building. This group of wealthy entrepeneurs had the idea of the expedition, raised all the money required, and employed Burke & Wills to undertake the journey for the glory of the new colony of Victoria. 

The Melbourne General Cemetary . 1. Grave of John King - the only survivor of the Gulf Party. 2. Grave of Burke and Wills. The 30 ton slab was transported to Melbourne General Cemetery in 1865. Cut in Harcourt, and railed down to Melbourne, it took two days to get it from Spencer St Station up through the city to the Cemetery.

Royal Park, Carlton where the expedition departed. The expedition set off from Royal Park at about 4 pm on 20 August 1860 watched by around 15,000 spectators. The 19 men included 4 camel drivers recruited from India. They took 23 horses, 6 wagons and 26 camels. The expedition took a large amount of equipment, including enough food (mainly dried meat, to last two years, a cedar-topped oak camp table with two chairs, a piano, pocket charcoal water filters, rifles, revolvers, rockets, flags and a Chinese gong; the equipment all together weighed as much as 20 tonnes. The scene was chaotic, and the expedition did a lap of the park to satisfy the crowd, before heading off

Camp 1 at Moonee Ponds. An outer suburb of the city known for its bilabongs and cool shady oasis, and which had become a popular first stop for the diggers heading to the gold fields over the previous decade. The "Burke and Wills Tree' was known throughout Melbourne for many decades as the marker for the camp - right up until 1936 (the tree had long ago died), and replaced by a concrete marker.

1 PM Lunch at The Moonee Ponds Bowls Club in the 'Burke and Wills room'.

The 30 ton slab is transported through Melbourne General Cemetery in 1865.