Australian Explorers
Wednesday, March 17, 1830. : Sturt’s party reaches the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers on their arduous journey upstream to Sydney.
Captain Charles Sturt was born in India in 1795. He came to Australia in 1827, and soon after undertook to solve the mystery of where the inland rivers of New South Wales flowed. Because they appeared to flow towards the centre of the continent, the belief was held that they emptied into an inland sea. Sturt first traced the Macquarie River as far as the Darling, which he named after Governor Darling. Pleased with Sturt’s discoveries, the following year Governor Darling sent Sturt to trace the course of the Murrumbidgee River, and to see whether it joined to the Darling. Sturt followed the Murrumbidgee in a whaleboat and discovered that the Murrumbidgee River flowed into the Murray (previously named the Hume).
Sturt continued to trace the course of the Murray southwards, arriving at Lake Alexandrina, from which he could see the open sea of the southern coast, in February 1830. However, the expedition then had to face an agonising journey rowing back up the Murray against the current. The men rowed in shifts from dawn until dusk each day, low on rations, through extreme heat, and against the floodwaters heading downstream. On 17 March 1830, they reached the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers. By the time they reached their depot at Maude on the Murrumbidgee, they had rowed and sailed 3,000 km on Australia’s inland rivers, with no loss of life.
Australian History
Thursday, March 17, 1910. : The first flight of a powered aircraft in Australia is made by Frederick Custance, near Adelaide.
Frederick C ‘Fred’ Custance, a motor mechanic who migrated from England in 1906, was born in 1889. It is believed that Fred Custance was the first person to make a controlled flight of a powered aircraft in Australia. Custance flew a Bleriot monoplane for 5 minutes and 25 seconds near Bolivar, not far from Adelaide, capital city of South Australia. Custance allegedly took off at 5:00am on 17 March 1910 for his first flight; on his second flight, which departed at 6:15am, he over-corrected the elevator and crashed, damaging the plane. The flight was witnessed by F H Jones, owner of both the aircraft and the property where the flight took place, but later conflicting accounts by Jones have cast doubt on who flew the aircraft, and whether or not the flight did, in fact, even take place.
Australian History
Thursday, March 17, 1966. : The Queen’s Commendation is awarded to personnel who disarmed a WWII sea mine which washed up on the beach at Surfers Paradise earlier in March.
In March 1966, Surfers Paradise in Queensland was already a popular destination for holiday-makers. The region became a scene of considerable drama when a German sea mine, believed to have been adrift since the 1940s, washed up on the Esplanade beach.
The sea mine was first detected near the Southport Bar by the crew of the ‘Heather’, a Gold Coast trawler. At first, the ‘Heather’ and a second trawler, the ‘Winnie Vee’, attempted to tow the mine out to sea using a net. Their attempts were unsuccessful as the towing net was cut by barnacles and shells. Residents were then evacuated, while police and personnel from the Royal Australian Navy cordoned off the area. The mine was observed for two days, while navy personnel determined whether or not it could be moved.
The greatest danger posed by the mine was a self-explosion mechanism beneath a hatch. Lieutenant Tom Parker, leading an RAN Clearance Diving Team, secured the mine onto a specially built sledge, and the explosive was moved slowly to a deserted part of The Spit, a procedure which took most of the night. The self-explosion mechanism, which was essentially a booby trap, was prepared for “delousing”, in a procedure which took until the following afternoon. Following this, around 250kg of explosives were removed from the mine and detonated on the beach.
On 17 March 1966, Lt Parker and personnel from the RAN Clearance Diving Team were awarded the Queen’s Commendation for their successful operation.
World History
Thursday, March 17, 0461. : Today is St Patrick’s Day, celebrating the patron saint of Ireland.
Saint Patrick’s Day, celebrated on March 17, is the Irish feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. St Patrick was born around the year 386, in a village along the west coast of Britain. As a teenager, Patrick was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave to a Druidic chieftain named Milchu. His enslavement significantly strengthened his faith. He escaped at the age of twenty-two, and spent twelve years in a monastery in Auxerre, where he adopted the name Patrick (Patricius, in Old Irish spelled Pádraig). One night he heard voices begging him to return to Ireland, and thus he became one of the first Christian missionaries in Ireland.
Missionaries such as Secundus and Palladius had been active in Ireland, but Patrick made a greater impact, travelling throughout the country preaching, teaching, building churches, opening schools and monasteries, converting chiefs and bards, and everywhere supporting his preaching with miracles.
It is believed that St Patrick died on 17 March 461. St Patrick’s Day has grown in importance through the centuries, to the point where countries around the world, as well as Ireland itself, celebrate with parades and festivities.
World History
Sunday, March 17, 1912. : Lawrence Oates, of Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic, utters his famous last words: ‘I am just going outside and I may be some time.’
Robert Falcon Scott, born in 1868, was a Royal Naval officer and explorer who commanded the National Antarctic Expedition in Discovery which began in 1900. In December 1902, Scott’s expedition reached the farthest point south of any known exploration party. Following new discoveries in the Antarctic region, Scott was keen to be the first to reach the South Pole. He took with him Lieutenant Henry Bowers, Dr Edward Wilson, Petty Officer Edgar Evans and army Captain Lawrence Oates. Upon reaching the Pole on 17 January 1912, he found that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten him to it by just one month.
Scott’s party made slow progress, due to a combination of particularly severe weather, and their own determination to forge ahead laden with their rock samples. Evans died after a fall which resulted in a quick physical and mental breakdown. Lawrence Oates lost a foot to frostbite and was suffering residual effects of an old war wound. Oates is remembered as the consummate British sacrificial hero as, feeling he was holding the party back, he departed their shelter one morning, uttering the famous words, “I am just going outside and I may be some time.” This was on 17 March 1912. He did not return. The bodies of the remaining three members of Scott’s party were found in their camp on 10 February 1913, just twenty kilometres from a substantial depot of supplies. With them were their diaries detailing their journey and their demise.