PARLIAMENTARY EDITIONS

John McKinlay 1866

This book republishes six-and-a-bit South Australian parliamentary papers between 1865 and 1867, in what has been described as 'one of the greatest failures ever recorded in the annals of exploration'.

McKinlay and his party travelled across the rugged water-logged country of what is now Kakadu National Park to the East Alligator River, where he decided that the only way of escape was to build a punt from tent canvas, saplings, and the hides of their slaughtered horses.

In this fragile craft, they sailed and rowed and bailed their way down the river and across the open sea back to Escape Cliffs.

In her introduction Valmai Hankel, of the State Library of SA, quotes from the diaries of R.H. Edmunds, who was on the expedition and is often very critical of McKinlay.

The publication contains a photograph of the punt and a modern map.

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