Thread: Teaching our history sounds like an idea

I've just read 'Mr Stuart's Track' by John Bailey, which was very interesting. Is your book the same one?

Sent from my GT-P5210 using AULRO mobile app

History is old news. Who is interested in that?

snap DiscoMick I only had a small appreciation of his feats prior to reading the book. Now I am wondering how little I know of other explorers!

Always had a keen interest in Burke and Wills. Been to Dig Tree 4 times, the first 25 years ago when it was still an adventure to to get there as well as a number of their camps.

Have read all of Len's books as well as having done all of his tracks....well the parts you can still do at least such as the Centre Line to the 300 mile mark. Finally ticked the last of those off the list last year.

Next read is Eyre and then Leichardt.

Disappointed when my children went through school (all finished now), they learnt very little Australian History.

Most I what they know of the history of Australia is what I have taught them.

I just started Too Long in the Bush, have the rest to go after that.
Compared to America, who's education system we like to rubbish at every opportunity, we learn nothing of our own history.

Originally Posted by nugge t

snap DiscoMick I only had a small appreciation of his feats prior to reading the book. Now I am wondering how little I know of other explorers!

Hello from Brisbane,

I know a lot of people out there may think Tim Flannery is a bit of a ******, especially in light of the ongoing climate change debate. However, I personally reckon that his book "The Explorers" is a pretty good read. It covers most of the greats or early exploration including a few of the lesser knowns who also made some important treks and discoveries.

A lot of books on the early explorers rely heavily on the original journals and diaries - or are basically direct reproductions of them. That's OK if you are really interested in some specific details etc or are researching some particular aspect of their travels. However, they can also be fairly dry reading if its just for general interest. I would have to admit that I found a couple of the books based on both Sturt's and Stuart's journals generally fell into this category, notwithstanding their many great achievements and deprivations as explorers.

An area of exploration/pioneering history that doesn't seem to get a lot of print coverage is the development of the early riverboat trade on the Murray and Darling. At one time Echuca had a busier port than a lot of the coastal cities and there were more paddlers working the Murray-Darling trade than on the Mississippi. Check out the histories of competing Captains Francis Cadell and William Randell for an interesting insight into the opening up of the inland river systems for commerce.

Cheers,

Are the Australian people so ashamed of our own history, or is it more than the majority of Australians just dont care, so the Government moulds the education around that?

We should be proud of this country.... proud of its achievements in such a short space of time. Yes there have been mistakes made... but if we arent taught them (not just via a 10 second news grab on the idiot box) how are we supposed to learn from those mistakes.

Along with learning Australian History, we should also teach our children to respect this country AND its flag.

When was the last time you saw a flag raising ceremony at a public school (and some private schools for that matter.) When I was at school (only 20 years ago) we had assemblies, the flag was raised and we sung the national anthem, now it seems the average population is to apathetic to even care!!!!

Judging by this and other replies ive done in the last couple of days, I think I must have mixed up the happy and angry pills.

Cheers

Matt

I have dozens of books on Australian exploration history.
I prefer the diaries written by the men themselves.
You can get most of these reprouctions from Kessinger Publishing's Rare Reprints.
I also like the books written about the explorers that give a lot of detail about the men themselves and that tell their story.

Over the years I have driven most of the area's that these Blokes trod, mostly in the time before restrictions and passes were the order of the day.
Travel today is not what it was sadly.
The only area that I have not been to is Lenny's.
Hopefully when I have completed the work on Me Disco.

Cheers.