I've long been interested in the story of German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt ever since I first heard the story of him going missing in the heart of Australia.
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Leichhardt and seven others along with scores of bullocks and horses and all their gear went missing in 1848 and disappeared without trace, while trying to cross Australia east to west.
I became more interested from my time editing the newspaper in Roma, because the last place Leichhardt was heard from was at settler Allan Macpherson's Mount Abundance property at what is now Muckadilla, 40km west of Roma.
It was here in April 1848, that he sent his final letter to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Myself and Roma historian Peter Keegan convinced the Maranoa Regional Council to put up a plaque there in 2014.
With Peter I met historian Darrell Lewis whose book Where Is Dr Leichhardt attempted to unravel the mystery.
Lewis told me he believed Leichhardt would have headed north following a similar path to his first expedition which successfully went from the Darling Downs to Port Essington on the Norther Territory's Cobourg Peninsula a few years earlier but probably died in the western deserts either of starvation or killed by Aboriginal people.
The one artifact found from the expedition, a gunplate with Leichhardt's name on it would also suggest they at least made it to Western Australia.
Recently I picked up Leichhardt's journal from that first expedition. The preface was written by Bush Tucker man Les Hiddens who confesses to a mixed opinion about the German and suggests he relied on others to complete that expedition.
I think Hiddens undersells Leichhardt's talents and his reputation - which was great in the early 20th century - went down after two World Wars made British Australians suspicious of all things German.
Leichhardt was like all Europeans in his condescending attitudes to the Aboriginal people he met but he was at least prepared to live like them and eat bush tucker - something Les Hiddens would have appreciated - and something which Burke and Wills refused to do with disastrous consequences. The cause of Leichhart's own death remains an alluring Australian mystery. Derek Barry