News Blip: 1797 Odyssey To Sydney
ABC News Reports On The Hardships A Group Of Sailors Encounter After The Sydney Cove Shipwrecks On The Southeast Coast Of Australia in 1797
The unknown tale of five British sailors and twelve Bengali seamen shipwrecking on Ninety Mile Beach in Victoria, Australia is one of the greatest survival stories in history. During an excursion to sea in 1797, a unyielding storm dismantled the Sydney Cove in which the sailors were aboard. They managed to swim to the nearest shore but found that they were stranded with no help in sight. The amazing part of this tale is the epic walk the sailors were forced to embark on.
ABC writer Mark McKenna relates in his article: "To get help and save their own lives, the 17 sailors had no alternative. For two months in early 1797, the 17 men traversed rivers, rocks, bluffs and beaches for over 700 kilometres to the north." Scottish merchant William Clark was the individual who accounted the odyssey in a journal. Along the way, they were fed, ferried across rivers, occasionally ushered into camps overnight, and shown the way north by Aboriginal men who sometimes walked with them. Only three men of the 17 survived.
Check out the full article at ABC News right here.
-MRV: The Buzz