page_title: Burke and Wills Dig Tree
section_title: The Dig Tree
hierarchical_section_title: Burke and Wills Dig Tree / History / The Dig Tree
caption_attribution_description: English: Tree adjacent to the Dig tree into which John Dick in 1898 carved ROHB and a portrait of John Burke's face
context_page_description: Burke and Wills Dig Tree is a heritage-listed, blazed, eucalyptus tree at Nappa Merrie Station, Durham, Shire of Bulloo, Queensland, Australia. It was blazed on 21 April 1861. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 28 February 2003.
context_section_description: While working on the survey of the border between Queensland and South Australia, surveyor Alexander Salmond passed by Cooper's Creek and made a pencil sketch of the tree.
  Called in 1911 by the Sydney Mail "William Brahe's Tree", an accompanying photograph showed the "DIG" inscription on the right-hand branching trunk partly overgrown with bark, obscuring the "D". Another blaze on the left-branching trunk showed some indecipherable letters and/or numerals. Surviving remnants of Brahe's stockade also are visible in the photograph. In 1928 the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia referred to the tree as better known as the "Depot Tree", alluding to its function of marking a major stopping and storage place for the expedition. Frank Clune's 1937 book Dig has been credited with changing the tree's popular, and still-current name, to the "Dig Tree".
  This particular tree had initially received less attention because it was not immediately associated with the deaths of either man. But by the 1880s the various explorers' trees marked by members of the expedition and by the various search parties had become valued by Australians as relics worthy of protection. The Dig Tree eventually came to be regarded as central to the story of the expedition, partly as a result of John Longstaff's iconic 1907 painting exhibited in the National Gallery of Victoria, The Arrival of Burke, Wills and King at the deserted Camp at Coopers Creek.
  The Dig Tree has been considered of historical significance to Queensland for much of the 20th century. In 1937 the Conrick Plaque, erected by members of the first Anglo-Australian family to occupy Yandruwandha/Yawarrawarrka and Wanggumara land, was placed on a cairn near the Dig Tree. On 2 July 1964 the Queensland Government declared an area of approximately one acre surrounding the Dig Tree a reserve for memorial purposes, the land placed under the trusteeship of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland. The Stanbroke Pastoral Company currently manages the site on behalf of the Society.
  The Department of Environment & Heritage erected interpretative signage in 1993. In 1996-1997 further signage was prepared by the Department of Environment, in consultation with the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Bulloo Shire Council, and the Stanbroke Pastoral Company. Funded by Dick Smith's Australian Geographic publication, these new interpretative panels were erected c. 1997. Subsequently, boardwalks were built to protect the Dig and Face Trees, and toilets were built in February 2001. The Face Tree is located on the same reserve as the Dig Tree. It portrays the face of Robert O'Hara Burke and the letters ROHB, thought to have been carved in 1898 by John Dick.
caption: The "Face Tree" adjacent to the Dig tree into which John Dick in 1898 carved ROHB and a portrait of John Burke's face, 1935
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