How was the continent of Australia mapped out by land, sea and air? Images from State Library Collections can be linked to a Google map so that when you click on a specific area of the map, images of the explorers who traversed that area will pop up. The application will link the images of famous European/Australian explorers to relevant diaries, books and old maps using datasets from the various state libraries and old film clips from the National Film & Sound Archive. A map overlay superimposed on the Google map will indicate the location of Aboriginal Tribal boundaries since it is the Aboriginal tracks that the European explorers followed.
The application will bring to life the intrepid journeys of sea explorers such as Hartog, Tasman, Flinders, Baudin & Bass, land explorers such as Sturt, Eyre, Leichhardt , Mitchell, Wentworth and their Aboriginal and convict companions, of air explorers like Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Nancy Bird Walton, Goble and McIntyre’s 1924 circumnavigation of Australia as well as the Antarctic expedition of Shackleton, documented by photographer Frank Hurley.
The application will be of interest to teachers, students and the general public who are interested in the stories behind these explorations.
