Australia, the world’s largest island, is practically inhabitable as 70% is the Outback, and only about 7% can have crops grown on it. It was imperative to find new locations to begin settling as populations grew, and the expedition of the Blue Mountains is filled with excitement, lots of trudging, and success where so many others had failed.
On this day May 11th, in 1820, Lawson, Blaxland, and Wentworth lead an expedition leaving from Sydney which opened up inland Australia for exploration. With them they brought four horses, six weeks’ worth of food, three convicts, and a kangaroo hunter so that they wouldn’t starve in case of emergency. Many had tried to find a way across, but each time explorers had been stopped by massively steep mountains.
Horses would slip on the dew, as well as being weighed down by heavy packs. The explorers hands were shredded as they were forced to cut through bushes, and worst of all at night as they were freezing cold they wouldn’t sleep next to the fire because of the Aborigines who were following them. They marked trees so they knew how to get back. On May 31st they saw greenery, and for the first time in weeks the horses fed on grass – the return trip only took a week as they returned home on June 6th with news that there was a path through the Blue Mountains.