Wathaurong Country

[khiemtran]

Come with me now on a special journey. We're off to visit the lands of the Wathaurong, the Aboriginal people who lived on the western side of Port Phillip Bay. Our guide on this journey will be The Life and Adventures of William Buckley by John Morgan, based on first-hand accounts from William Buckley himself.

Although most Australians know the expression "Buckley's Chance", I was surprised to hear that few people outside Victoria have heard about Buckley himself. This is a great shame as, to my mind, he's one of the most interesting and enigmatic characters in modern Australian history. If you haven't heard of him before, you're in for a treat...

So, who was William Buckley? First of all, he was a British soldier, who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. After his return to England, he was caught in possession of a bolt of stolen cloth (he claimed he didn't know it was stolen) and sentenced to hang. This sentence was later commuted to transportation to what would be only the second British colony on the mainland, the short-lived penal settlement at Sullivan Bay.



Things did not go well in the new colony and, on hearing that they might be about to be shipped back to Van Dieman's Land, Buckley and three companions decided to escape.

Theirs was not the best plan.

From Sullivan Bay, they intended to head north to Port Jackson (Sydney), without realising just how far away they were. One man was shot trying to escape, which left three of them on the run, with scant provisions, no local knowledge, and at least a thousand kilometres of unexplored territory separating them from their goal - and the end of which, all they would have achieved was to reach the other, bigger, penal settlement on the Australian mainland.

Under the circumstances, they did surprisingly well. They managed to work their way around the bay, through the territories of the Boonwurrung and Woiworung, past the future site of the city of Melbourne. They crossed both the Maribyrnong and the Yarra, despite not all them being able to swim.



Unfortunately, despite having a firearm (a "fowling piece" for hunting birds), they weren't able to gather any food and by the time they reached what the locals called the Yawang Hills in the land of the Wathaurong, they were completely out of supplies.



Desperate, they headed south, away from Sydney, hoping to get back to the bay where at least they could find shellfish. They passed through the site of what would one day be the city of Geelong and kept going in search of food and water, finally ending up at Swan Island.



After an epic journey of over two hundred kilometres, they found themselves only a few kilometres from where they had started; only this time they were without provisions, desperately sick from the unfamiliar diet of raw shellfish and ready to give up. They were close enough that they could actually see the ship that had brought them there, just across the bay.

They lit fires and tried to signal; and at one point they even saw a boat set out towards them; but then, to their devastation, it turned back again.

This is the view from a similar vantage point. (Swan Island itself is now a restricted area.)



Now, at this point, two of the escapees made a bitter decision. Having come all this way, with limited provisions, and having suffered so much, they were now going to head back and do it all again - only this time without provisions and already sick, in the hope that they might ultimately make it back to the penal colony and surrender.

William Buckley, on the other hand, did something even more amazing. He decided he was going to turn the other way and head west instead. Away from the only two white settlements on the Australian mainland. No supplies. No firearm. And already sick and starving. Imagine the scene then, as he stood looking out across the bay, as his companions headed off on their own desperate trek, then turning and heading off into the unknown.

And that, as far as the last white person knew or cared in 1803, was the end of William Buckley: missing presumed perished. Even the Sullivan's Bay penal colony was soon abandoned, and it would be at least thirty years before the attempt that would ultimately lead to the city of Melbourne was made.

But that was not the end of this story. What happened next? Stay tuned for the next post...

Comments

[soon_lee]

That is a beautiful photo.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was just over zero degrees when I took it, but it was worth getting up early for.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I want the rest of the story!

(How amazingly awful to travel all that distance and to end up essentially back where you started, only nearly dead. And wow, the olden days, when you could be sentenced to hang for stealing a bolt of cloth.)

I like hearing these Aboriginal name: Boonwurrung, Woiworung, Maribyrnong, Yarra.

And yes, that first photo is *spectacular.*

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Many Aboriginal languages are very pleasant to listen to; it's just a shame that it's so hard to actually hear it spoken around here. Also you do have to be careful with Aboriginal-derived placenames - often the modern English name is quite different from the original pronunciation, and meanings are often surprisingly different. I hope I'll get a chance to talk more about this later.

And wow, the olden days, when you could be sentenced to hang for stealing a bolt of cloth.
Liem and his cousins discussed this and concluded it must have been very special cloth. But somehow, I doubt it was...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Even granting that cloth was more of a special commodity back then (since everything was harder to make), even so--it wasn't that special.

Now if it had been a lightning bolt, that would have been another matter. Though, frankly, death for theft of any sort really overvalues *things*.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

But that was not the end of this story. What happened next? Stay tuned for the next post...

Do you know how hard it was to resist the temptation to just go straight to Wikipedia and find out?

Thanks for posting this; it's fascinating.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I don't know why they waste so much time at school teaching all the boring bits of history. This story is way more fun...