Carole Wilkinson, Filling in the Map: Exploring Inland Australia, Wild Dog, June 2025, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781742036557
Following on from the earlier title, Putting Australia on the Map, this latest book from award-winning Carole Wilkinson introduces the British and European explorers who started to fill in the blanks of the interior of this vast continent, sometimes with the help of Aboriginal knowledge and wisdom and sometimes not.
Many of the adult readers of this book will have learnt about these men in primary school. Beginning with Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth finding a route across the Blue Mountains in 1813 through chronologically to Canning’s stock route in 1906, the various expeditions are described and illustrated with historical maps, portraits and other pictorial content.
The author acknowledges the extensive knowledge that the indigenous inhabitants of this land had. The interactions between the expedition members and the local peoples, both good and bad, are mentioned, including the help they gave the only surviving member of Burke and Wills’ disastrous journey.
There are a couple of downsides to the use of the historical maps. Some of them are used as page backgrounds and are so faint that they cannot be read whereas others have obviously been reduced to fit the page size and words and details are difficult to decipher.
There is no conclusion to the text, which ends with a page on the quantities needed for food supply for these trips, which often lasted for months. There are then a glossary and an index. However, despite these misgivings, the overall quality of the book is good.
Teachers’ notes are available at the publisher’s website.
Reviewed by Lynne Babbage
