A small group of 4WDs follow the course of Leichhardt’s first big expedition, from the Darling Downs to Port Essington on the NT coast.
Story + Photos Ron and Viv Moon
It was that bloke, Leichhardt,” Frank Shadforth says, with a twinkle in his eye. “I was speaking with him back awhile and he named the river just down the hill from here ‘Seven Emu’ after his men had killed 7 emus and they’d had a big feed.” The big fella was gesturing over my shoulder to where the Seven Emu River flowed clear and quick over the rocky causeway that led to the station homestead. I believed most of what Frank said.
Our party of 6 history-bent travellers had, 5 weeks earlier, left Jimbour homestead on the Darling Downs. Back in 1844, it was the outermost settlement of European civilisation in the new colony of Queensland. It was from here that the German (well, Prussian really) Ludwig Leichhardt led his 7 companions, along with a few bullocks and 17 horses, on one of the greatest exploratory trips in Australian history.
It was a grand plan, done on the cheap with little government help or money, to march overland from south-eastern Queensland to a far distant outpost – the only one on the north coast of Australia at that time – at Port Essington and the small isolated British settlement of Victoria. The original 6 months estimated travelling time blew out to 15 months and it was a bedraggled group that staggered into Victoria on December 17, 1845. It says much of Leichhardt’s leadership that only one man died during the expedition.
This story excerpt is from Issue #159
Outback Magazine: February/March 2025
