Explorers Routes Revisited
Roe Expedition 1836
Comp. & ed. by Lesley Brooker
A not-for-profit book published by the author under the auspices of Hesperian Press.
ISBN 978-0-85905-504-8, (2012, New), A4, 170 pp, 156 figures, 30+ maps.
$40 no trade discounts + POST
Please do not order from Hesperian Press available from author only
Contact author re collection Lesley Brooker PO Box 518 Kalamunda, 6926.
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John Septimus Roe has been called the “father of Australian explorers”. In a career spanning 57 years, he served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars; joined Phillip Parker King in circumnavigating Australia and mapping large sections of Australian coastline; and was appointed Surveyor General to the fledgling Swan River colony, in which capacity he served for almost 40 years. Roe made at least 16 journeys of land exploration in Western Australia.
In 1836 he travelled by horse and on foot almost 1000 kilometres - east as far as the Holleton area, then north to Mount Marshall, and west to the Wongan Hills, before retuning south to Perth, circumscribing almost the whole of today's Central Wheatbelt. During this trip Roe and his party met Aboriginal people who had never before seen white men; made a large collection of plant specimens of which at least 30 species were new to science; and named almost 50 landmarks.
This book examines in detail the day-to-day pencilled notes made by Roe during his journey, the landmarks that he found, the many botanical type specimens that he collected, and the fauna he observed. Each day's journey is illustrated with a sketch map showing Roe's route relative to modem roads and towns. The text is supplemented with more than 115 colour photographs of the plants and places that Roe discovered. It is fully referenced and indexed.