The Cooper Creek is a river in the Australian states of Queensland and South Australia. It was the site of the death of the explorers Burke and Wills in 1861. It is sometimes known as the Barcoo River from one of its tributaries and is one of three major Queensland river systems that flow into the Lake Eyre basin. The flow of the creek depends on monsoonal rains falling months earlier and many hundreds of kilometres away in eastern Queensland. It is 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) in length.
Cooper Creek Crossing at Innamincka, South Australia
Memorial marking the site of Robert O'Hara Burke's death, at Burke Waterhole
Burke and Wills expedition
The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It initially consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke, with William John Wills being a deputy commander. Its objective was the crossing of Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres. At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-Indigenous people and was largely unknown to the European settlers.
Robert O'Hara Burke by William Strutt
William John Wills
Instructions issued to Burke, leader of the Victorian Exploration Expedition
Nicholas Chevalier, Memorandum of the Start of the Exploring Expedition, oil on canvas, 1860