Coolabah Tree

Situated in Hughenden, outback Queensland is the Historic Coolabah tree. The tree has immense historical importance as it is linked to two relief expeditions searching for the Burke and Wills Expedition.
Both expeditions blazed the tree on the banks of what is now called Station Creek.
In 1861 Fredrick Walker led a team from Rockhampton to the Gulf searching for the missing explorers. The following year Landsborough's search party passed through here from the Gulf.
These search parties helped people become aware of the fertility of wealth of the plains along the Flinders River.
Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills lead an expedition to cross the continent (south to north) in August 1860.They left Melbourne and arrived in the Gulf of Carpentaria on February 11th, 1861. (John King and Charley Gray made up the party of 4). Unfortunately Burke and Wills perished on the return trip, dying of starvation at their deserted Camp LXV at Cooper Creek. The trip was gruelling in the summer heat, their supplies being inadequate. Gray also died on the way back.
Their bodies were found by Alfred Howitt in September of that year and he buried them near Breerily Waterhole. He later returned in 1862 to exhume their bodies. (King was found living with the Yandruwandha Aboriginies but was barely alive. He did make it back to Melbourne.) They are buried in Melbourne and were given Australia's first ever state funeral.

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