The European explorations of the Australian interior in the nineteenth century give us the most wonderful insight into understanding Jesus’s instructions to his disciples.

3MT : Burke, Willis, John McDouall Stuart and Travelling Light [ 4:29 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (211)

In the 1850s in the new British colony of Australia a mania arose for exploration. It was embarrassing being the greatest Empire on earth and yet have an enormous blank space in the centre of the maps of Australia. What was at the heart of the continent: would the Europeans find good grazing grounds, a vast inland lake of fresh water, or, even better, gold?

The confident city fathers of Melbourne decided to sponsor an expedition: to travel from Melbourne on the south coast to the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north coast, and return. It would be a triumph of Victorian endeavour. Two men were appointed to lead the expedition, Robert O’Hara Burke, an Irish policeman and officer in the Imperial Austrian army, and William John Wills, an English surveyor and meteorologist. Neither had any experience in bushcraft.

They spent the end of 1859 and the beginning of 1860 fitting out the expedition: nineteen men would ride on twenty-three horses, six wagons and twenty-seven camels. The expedition required six tons of firewood, almost seven thousand pounds of mangelwurzels, 60 gallons of rum (for the camels!), an oak table (with a cedar top) enema syringes and a Chinese gong. All in all, it cost about £3700 pounds to equip the expedition, almost a third of a million pounds in today’s money. They set off from Royal Park Melbourne in August 1860, watched by a crowd of 15,000 cheering people. By the end of the day they had reached the city limits and a wagon had broken down. By the end of June the following year, a small party had reached the northern coast, but the expedition had been split into many smaller, lost and bickering groups, and Burke and Wills had died of malnourishment and beri-beri at a creekside in the centre of the continent. At least five others died as well. Only one man, John King, travelled the entire length of the expedition and returned (barely) alive to Melbourne. This didn’t stop the grateful city fathers of Melbourne erecting the most monumental statue to the dead heroes.

At the same time, John McDouall Stuart, a surveyor, originally from Fife in Scotland, was attempting to find an overland route further to the west. From Adelaide, through what is now Alice Springs to Van Diemen Gulf near Darwin. It took Stuart six attempts to complete the journey. He travelled in expeditions of no more than six men, each man with two horses, and spare horseshoes, and took the minimum amount of equipment. The most important piece was his telescope for Stuart would spend each evening and early morning surveying the land in front of the party, to see where they might find water ahead. In this way, they let the land lead them, rather than attempt to blaze a straight line trail across the outback. It took nine months to reach the northern coast, and another six to return to Adelaide. Not one man ever died on an expedition led by Stuart.

Which reminds me of Jesus’s instructions to the twelve disciples:

“Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for labourers deserve their food.” (Matthew 10:5-14)

Sometimes travelling light isn’t just the elegant, graceful thing to do: sometimes it’s the only way you will get to the end of the journey alive. More on this next time.