Racing legend Larry Perkins swaps racetrack for outback and returns with buried treasure7.30 By Claire Moodie
Updated about 5 hours ago
PHOTO: Larry Perkins (left) and his brother Peter have discovered the equipment of an early explorer that was abandoned in the Simpson Desert in 1904. (Supplied: Peter Blakeman)
He's raced against the world's best in Formula One, owned his own V8 Supercar team and won Bathurst six times.
But legendary racing driver Larry Perkins says finding the missing cache of an early European explorer is "a whole different page of excitement".
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"They were determined people," Perkins told 7.30.
"They were heading off on journeys with no sure outcome and in many cases it cost them their lives."
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That explorer was a former Royal Navy captain called Henry Vere Barclay. The Simpson Desert in Central Australia was his destination. The year was 1904.
Barclay left behind a mystery that has baffled historians for decades: What became of the enormous stash of equipment and personal belongings he and his team were forced to abandon in a desperate effort to survive?
They needed to lighten their load by about 400 pounds to cross the sandhills to the next available water source.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-16/racing-car-driver-larry-perkins-finds-explorers-cache-of-eqipmen/9992376
