NSCnews Online August_2017 | Page 28

CAMELEERS Mithaka country Plant Camp only weeks away I T has been a long four years for Townsville-based ex-service peer support group, the Cameleers, but now they’re just weeks away from their goal of digging up Australia’s last great colonial treasure. Together with up to 90 experts from a range of organisations, they will be trying to locate and retrieve the cache of navigational equipment and journals buried by William Wills in the last desperate days of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition. Led by chief Cameleer, retired RAAFie George Koulakis, the expedition has been a collaborative eff ort involving traditional landowners, Queensland Government archeologists, Griffi th University professors, pastoralists, Australian Army soldiers, and the Cameleers (injured, wounded or ill ex-servicemen and women). Chief Cameleer George Koulakis 28 | AUGUST 2017