Peach’s Explorers (1984 - 1984)
Documentary series
10 episodes x 30 minutes
Series synopsis:
The well-known Australian journalist Bill Peach writes and presents this 10-part series about the European settlers’ exploration of Australia during the 19th century.
Curator’s Notes:
With clever use of diary quotes, letters and newspaper articles from the time, Bill Peach develops a fascinating picture of the era, the character of the individuals and their exploits in crossing the continent, with in-situ dramatisations that add a sense of what was at stake and the sort of harsh country that had to be crossed. It describes the explorers as men who pitted themselves against an unforgiving environment and Indigenous Australians whom they feared and distrusted but who often reached out to assist these uncomprehending Europeans so at odds with this country.
Titles in this series
Peach’s Explorers – East to West 1984
Edward John Eyre and his loyal companion Wylie, an Indigenous Australian, completed an epic journey across the terrible sand dunes of the Nullarbor Plain from South Australia to Albany in Western Australia in 1841. The journey was undertaken after Eyre ...
Peach’s Explorers – South to North 1984
Inter-colony rivalry between South Australia and Victoria drove a race to the north of the continent. The race resulted in the terrible deaths of the leaders of the lavish but poorly planned Victorian expedition, Burke and Wills, and victory for ...
Peach’s Explorers – The Prison Walls 1984
The story of the Blue Mountains’ barrier to the expansion of the fledgling colony of NSW and its eventual crossing by Gregory Blaxland, William Wentworth and William Lawson with four convicts to assist them.
Peach’s Explorers – The Secret of the Rivers: Captain Charles Sturt 1984
Like so many Australian explorers of the early 19th century, Captain Charles Sturt believed there must be an inland waterway in the heart of Australia to explain why all the rivers seemed to run north from the coast. His river ...
