Exploration - trailblazing the Australian interior

Exploration - trailblazing the Australian interior tells the story of the intrepid adventurers who explored and opened up inland Australia.

This journey traces some of the most significant expeditions of the first half of the 19th century, and the role they played in defining the shape of the Australia we know today.

From the early days of European settlement, expansion to the west was halted by the impenetrable barrier of the Great Dividing Range. In 1813, an exploring party led by Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth found a way over the Blue Mountains immediately changing the prospects of the colony by opening up the rest of the continent.

The next generation of explorers became obsessed by the need to solve the mysteries of the western river system and the search for an inland sea. When the inland sea proved to be a myth, new challenges lay in attempting to cross the continent - first from east to west and then from south to north - with tragic consequences for explorers Ludwig Leichhardt, Burke and Wills.

Follow in the footsteps of the explorers who climbed mountains, traced rivers and mapped the continent of Australia.

Exploration - trailblazing the Australian interior is made possible through a partnership with the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation.